I have a had a few.
The best was:
I was about 19, driving my second GTO. A crappy 68 with rust and rust repair done by the last owner with fiberglass.
What do you expect for a GTO I paid 350 for?
It was a 1968 GTO with a 360 Horse HO 400 in it. It had a 4 speed Muncie as well. It was sitting in an ROP yard at a local highschool and the teacher sold it to me for 350 and towed it to my house. His only condition was he kept the tranny and heads.
The car was a rally gauge car, with hiden head lights. 3.55 possi rear, non power brake car. (I put in power brakes)
I took the 400 engine and turbo400 from my first GTO, and was driving it after I had some head work done.
No hood, car not registered, and it was midnight on a friday night and we were about a mile from the big street racing area. That area was crawling with police though cause the weekend before a girl had gotten run over at a big street race down there.
I was going south on the street, its a big industrail area, no one is around at night, but we pass a car. Its a Fremont PD car.
He makes a U turn pulls in behind and his lights go on. It's me and two buddies, none have seatbelts. (hell only half of them were in the car at the time).
The cop takes his time looking the car over and asks for lic and reg, an d hand over what I have and he asks me if I know the car isnt registered.
I tell him yes, I just got the heads back on (this is true we had worked on it all day, we were all covered in grease)and this was a pre smog check test drive.
(at the time the smog cutoff was 65. It was so nice when Cali moved it to 73)
He asks about the seatbelts and I tell him the truth, the car was mising most of them.
He then gives me a little lecture about how he knows why we are out here, its a know street racing area and from now on it was off limits and I was free to go, but I A needed to tell my friends to find a new strip, and B: I better get the car registered.
I was polite and respectfull.
In my experiance, being polite, admiting you made a mistake and not doing anything to make then nervous is the way to go.
I have been in cars with friends that give them attitude and they always get tickets.
Another time, same GTO, later though since I had a hood on it and a full set of seat belts. I was showing off for a girl in the back and proceeded to do 60 in a 45, and swerve through traffic doing it, never using my blinkers and using alot of gas.
I also never looked in the rear view mirror (didnt help the mirror was warn out and would droop). I pulled into a parking lot and the first I noticed him was as he was blocking me in the space and getting out of his car very pissed.
I close my door and put my grab my DL and Reg, (this time its all legal).
I hand them over without him asking and he asks me "you know why I stopped you?"
I look him right in the eye and say "Cause I am incredibly stupid?".
He looks at me in a funny way and walks back to his car.
Come back and says I could site you for all this stuff, and lists it, speeding, fail to use blicker, unsafe lane change etc.
I say "know sir, thats why I am incredibly stupid"
He looks at me for a second, then goes, ok well I am only going to give you one for doing 55 in a 45.
Not sure why, but I guess it was for admiting, honestly that I was a handsomehunk, I meant it too, I was pretty damn digusted with myself.