It was a quiet evening and I had just met up with some local bikers at a nearby shop, both to hang out and to pick up my Honda Shadow's formerly flat tire—now repaired. Of course, I took the Jetta Ute, because how could I put something dirty like a motorcycle wheel in the clean trunk of my WRX? I was on the back roads around the corner from home, taking it easy because it was dark and the Jetta's stock headlights are terrible. So I was shocked when the car behind me suddenly lit up all blue and flashing.
I obediently pulled over, rolled down the windows, shut off the engine, and put my hands on the steering wheel in plain sight. I've had enough police encounters to know how to put them at ease when they approach. Not one, but two officers walked up to me. The one in charge greeted me and asked for my license and registration. Before I had a chance to get them, he politely explained that the reason he pulled me over was that they had run my plate and it came back to a silver VW Jetta. What he saw, from the back, was a black pickup truck that couldn't possibly be a Jetta.
I laughed a little and told them to look at the front of the car. They did and seemed rather astonished to realize that from the B-pillar forward, it was, in fact, a VW Jetta. I told them all about the Smyth Performance Ute kit and how I had transformed the back half of the sedan into a neat little pickup truck, which was all they could see from their view behind me. I offered to hand over my paperwork to further prove that I had the right plate on the right car, but they weren't interested in that anymore. They didn't exactly apologize for stopping me but did say they hoped I could understand why they did it. I did and suspected as much as soon as the blue lights came on behind me. But I was more worried that I had a tail light out or some other problem with the car since I was driving in a safe and legal manner. But there were no issues and no traffic violations, just a suspicious license plate that now had a reasonable explanation. We wished each other good night and went our separate ways.
Maybe I should remove the Jetta badge from the old trunk lid and put it on my tailgate along with the VW badge to help them out a little bit.