---
title: "Please Look at This Bullet-riddled Gangster Getaway Car"
description: "As far as crime deterrents go, a Thompson Machine gun ain’t bad."
date: "2015-12-01"
modified: "2015-12-01"
authors:
  - name: "Ben Keeshin"
    link: "https://www.thedrive.com/authors/ben-keeshin"
url: "https://www.thedrive.com/vintage/1074/please-look-at-this-bullet-riddled-gangster-getaway-car"
categories:
  - "Culture"
  - "History"
  - "News"
---

# Please Look at This Bullet-riddled Gangster Getaway Car

![](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/images-by-url-td/content/archive-images/120115_nonseq_tuffmuggs_hero.jpg>)
*\<em\>www.thedrive.com</em>*

To be honest, all we know of pirates comes from fiction: Johnny Depp in a screwball hat chewing fake tobacco. Still, one gimmick has to be true: the stringing up of captured and killed pirates as a warning to other bandits or, conversely, the stringing up of law enforcement by the pirates as a way to say, back off. So gruesome, yet so, presumably, effective. A deterrent whose sting leaves victims quaking, *There but for the grace of God go I*.

That’s what this Depression-era display was going for. Beset by the scourge of gangsters and robbers, the police and fire departments of Bridgeport, Connecticut, set up this bullet-riddled sedan, with a sign indicating that with Thompson machine guns, they could turn a car into swiss cheese in 10 seconds or less. It’s pretty alarming to imagine anything soft and fleshy on the other side of those hole-y doors. Were we a Tuff Mugg, we’d sure take notice and highly consider a career involving fewer machine guns. Like, seamstressing.

## Author
Ben Keeshin is a former staff writer for Maxim, and before that, contributed writing to the digital sides of Road & Track and Vanity Fair.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://twitter.com/BnKshn>)