Vintage NYPD Moto-Cop Jacket

The Dirty Cop – To Drink & Swerve

Not every vest needs a deep backstory.
This one? It didn’t give me a choice.

The Dirty Cop started with a bike — my 1987 Electra Glide. Low buck build. Rough edges. A little attitude. The kind of project that starts in your garage and ends with a statement. And like a lot of things I’ve built, it came from a little run-in with life — or in this case, the law.

The name Dirty Cop wasn’t meant to disrespect the good ones. Far from it. It was about something deeper I started to realize as I got older: Sometimes, to get the job done, you’ve got to get a little dirty. That was the whole spirit of the build. We even tagged the bike with it — “To Drink & Swerve.” Not as a lifestyle, but as a phase. A moment in time that fueled something creative. Something raw. Something I had to get out of my system and into steel.

But the vest didn’t come until later — until I needed something to match the bike’s energy. Something stripped down. Real.

See, back in the day, I worked in NYC as a pattern maker. And the one uniform that always stuck with me was the one worn by the city’s motorcycle cops. Functional as hell. No fluff. Minimal seams — because those jackets had to work under layers of patches and still hold up on the street. The side vents opened clean, the back stayed covered when leaning into the bars, and everything about the fit made sense.

The Dirty Cop vest is an interpretation of that original NYPD moto cop jacket — just reworked into a vest. Same stripped-down philosophy. Same purpose-driven design.

It was the Giuliani era. 8th Ave up to 42nd wasn’t a tourist stop. It was alive — wild, gritty, dangerous. Dealers, pimps, hustlers ran the corners. Until the vans rolled in. Twelve cops deep. Side door slid open and in seconds, they’d sweep the whole block. They moved like a SWAT team — silent, brutal, effective. And yeah, their tactics weren’t always clean. But they worked.

That stuck with me.

The Dirty Cop vest isn’t a tribute to corruption. It’s a nod to the grey area — the place where things actually get done. It’s built with that same no-nonsense, NYPD moto-cop logic. Clean back. Minimal seams. Vent-ready sides. It moves the way gear should. No gimmicks. Just function. Just presence.

I’ve always said: I don’t design for attention. I design for the ride.

And this one?

This one was built to match that old Electra Glide.
Sure, she wasn’t pretty. But she got the job done — especially on long hauls.
Same attitude. Same truth. Just like the vest.

Now a word from our sponsor…

Check out The Dirty Cop Motorcycle Vest →
Minimal seams. Maximum presence. Built to get the job done — even if it means getting a little dirty.