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Black and white is a slang term for a police car because they are painted in large panels of black and white, or blue (usually light blue) and white. This scheme was much favoured by North American police forces, which allowed the unambiguous recognition of patrol units from a significant distance. The most common variant is white roof and four white doors, the second most common is white roof and only the two front doors. In Sweden the black and white police cars had black roof to make them visible in high snow.

Like most police agencies throughout southern California, the Los Angeles Police Department vehicles are ordered painted in black clearcoat with the roof, doors, and pillars painted white from the factory. With few 9C1 Chevrolet Caprice vehicles remaining in the motor pool (as the final model year of the Chevrolet Caprice was 1996), the Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor is the only sedan for patrol in the department fleet. Only the sedan is permitted to engage in a vehicle pursuit, pursuant to department policy. Options available from Ford ordered by the department include the handle-bar spotlamps, 16-inch heavy duty steel wheels with chrome center caps, and ballistic panels within the two front doors.Installed equipment includes the lightbar, front-grill siren and control box from Federal Signal Corporation, the digital two-way radio by Motorola, a notebook PC to function as the Mobile data terminal, and a partition to separate the prisoner rear seating from the driver and front passenger seats. So-called "A-cars" and "X-cars" (eXtra patrol) also have mounted between the front seats in front of the partition a shotgun.

Most police vehicles bear at least two rear bumper stickers: one reading "There's NO Excuse - For Domestic Violence" and another for "DARE" Drug Abuse Resistance Education. On the rear side panel is a black and white sticker that reads "EMERGENCY DIAL 9-1-1 Fire Police Medical." The front doors bears the seal of the city of Los Angeles, the department slogan "to protect and to serve" as well as the citywide five-digit "shop number" and city department name (POLICE). The last three numbers of the shop number (used to identify all vehicles operated by the city) are reprinted on the roof to help air units visually identify cars. On the trunk is a number that identifies which division the unit belongs to (e.g. a 25 would be "South Traffic Division" or a 3 would be "Southwest Area").

These cars appeared on the NBC television drama Adam-12:

• 1967,1968 and 1969 Plymouth Belvedere
• 1971 Plymouth Satellite
• 1972 AMC Matador

Metro Patrol	Lincolnton, Georgia Police Department Crown Victoria	1957 Chevrolet Police Car	Sharon Police Department, PA Chevy Impala
Dodge Charger demonstration police car	Nissan Skyline GT-R Police car.	Toyota Crown Police car.	Japanese Police car(Nissan Crew).
Japanese Police van(Nissan Caravan).	Nissan Cedric Patrol car, Japan.	Thai Police car in brown and white.	Kerala Police Jeep.
Mitsubishi GTO patrol car, Japan.	Finnish police van (here with the text in Swedish)	1974 Plymouth Valiant Swedish police car in the period black and white paint.

• Panda car
• SWAT van
• Jam sandwich (slang)