With a new car and a fresh coat of paint, the campus police department is patrolling the Hill in style.

The department recently purchased a 2003 Chevrolet Impala and decided to redesign the striping on all of their cars. The department, which now has five cars, has restriped the new car and one of the old cars and plans to redo all of them over the next couple of years, Capt. Mike Wallace said.

“We wanted a design that was more representative of the university,” Wallace said. “The old design has a lot of blue and white. The new design has a bit more red to tie into the university.”

Campus Police Chief Robert Deane said the new design will help give the department a new look.

“It is one of those things I’d like to take credit for,” he said. “But truthfully (the officers) came to me and asked for us to get a design more reflective of this university.”

Finesigns & Graphics manager Mike Fevold created the new design for the police cars.

“With the new car we decided a new design would be a good idea,” he said. “It looks a lot more modern, and the new car has a much curvier design and this striping flows with the vehicle.”

Fevold said the restriping is less than $400 per car.

“It’s a good change,” he said. “I think (President Gary Ransdell) didn’t like having that UK blue on the cars.”

Wallace said the department had been considering restriping the cars with a new design for awhile and with the new car they decided the time was right.

“With any logo you want to occasionally go back and update them,” he said. “It is like the university changing and updating their logos. We’re doing the same thing.”

The new car was delivered to the police department in November and was just recently made “police ready” – lights, sirens, a radio system and a safety cage were all installed.

Wallace said the new striping design has a lot more reflective red paint and even reflective black, something that has just come out on the market.

“I haven’t heard anything negative about the new design,” he said. “I know a lot of people have been surprised and not recognized it, but everyone seems to really like it.”

Reach Abbey Brown at [email protected].