Several years ago, dispatcher James Tripp and then Batavia PD Lt. Jim Henning got to talking one day about how cool it would be to have replicas of Batavia patrol vehicles made, and Tripp, being a bit of a collector of fire and police memorabilia, he started researching how to get it done.
Employed by both the Sheriff's Office and Batavia PD, Tripp began with the idea of getting replica patrol vehicles for both agencies.
For that batch, he found a company in California that could make them.
About five years later, both agencies had replaced most of their old vehicles and members of both agencies were interested in updated models. He and Henning discussed the options and Henning suggested VSP graphics in Buffalo; the company, at the time, did the decals for Batavia's patrol vehicles.
That set of vehicles was created in 2010.
VSP was unable to handle the workload this year, so Tripp turned to Vinyl Sticks, with an office in Batavia, and Vinyl Sticks was willing to take on the job in between their larger jobs.
Trip ordered the blank 1/24 scale of the SUV used by both departments and the first batch was recently completed.
"These replicas as I indicated are not mass produced and each car's decals are manually applied, which can be a time-consuming task," Tripp said.
The cars are sold to members of both agencies looking for a keepsake and conversation piece. They can be customized with the officer's badge number on the top of the roof and license plate number.
Tripp said these cars are not sold at a profit.
"One other footnote is the City of Batavia replicas (and most common folk would not even notice) have the City of Batavia Police Department special 100-year century of service sticker on the back door of the model, just like the real patrol vehicles, which makes them even more unique," Tripp said.
"I would just add it is one of those things likes arts and crafts I guess that you're either into it or not," Tripp said. "My feelings are, for me anyway, it is a sense of pride for me to display and be proud of what I have done and who I have worked for most of my adult life. Serving and working with emergency services to me has been a blessing for me and I am honored that I have had that opportuinty to do just that in this community. While I am semi-retired, I still enjoy walking in the door of both agencies to represent both agencies to the best of my ability. This project for me is part of that pride."
