I think it is NSW Ambulance Cream. What is more unusual is the old paint line on a 1970 HT.

It won't be. There were two, and they were both 81837.
Those two were white, however.

There is a known 81837 in this paint code. From memory it is a HG.

Warren

Victoria Police were very biased towards Ford for pursuit cars, even before the Customline. They also used Studebakers extensively.

The HT81837 cars were an aberration. The two Victoria police cars had almost sequential chassis and engine numbers, and were from May 1970.
There are other 81837 cars known from this same sequence, one of which is the car I think Warren is referring to above, although the one I'm thinking of is a HT and there may be yet another HG in similar paint spec.
It seems GMH targeted Victoria Police as a customer for HT81837, and you can see from the photograph that they were a special build, with Belmont style headlamp surrounds, hubcaps, delete stripes, special paint, delete badges, delete some of the stainless mouldings etc etc
The "Traffic Section" decal was added for the photograph, and was not on the cars actually used.

The cars were not well received by the Victoria Police drivers, who were very heavily biased in favour of the Ford product of the time for highway Patrol work, and they continued with XW, XY, XA, XB and XC. It was only with the Commodore that this changed.
As you rightly point out, the XA was the first of the candy cars.

In 1969 the road toll became a big issue in Victoria, with the "Declare war on 1034" campaign, and Victoria Police upped the capability of their pursuit cars, hence the Monaros, and the plain wrapper versions of the XW and XY GT. The higher visibility XA was part of "increasing presence", a term loved by the Victorian State Governments.

There is a book written on the subject titled "On Patrol in Gippsland", by a former Victoria Police traffic unit officer. I've spoken to him about some of the above and, while a Ford man, is a good bloke and a total petrol head.

Hope this helps.

The NSW Police had a similar "high presence" with the Chargers. They were bold and stood out so as to deter speeding just by the number of cars you would see. Today it is all by stealth.

Warren

NSW Highway Patrol cars are bright today but very clever design as they are hard to pick front on.

..Are we talking about the "front" in the rear view mirror, or the "front" coming at ya !! LOL

So would anyone know why this car was ordered in this particular colour??? Car is a Melbourne build 308 4speed 10 bolt with factory tramp rods......Im just wondering what its original intended purpose was.