Police got an extra surprise after they received an emergency call about a car driving with a cow inside it in the US state of Nebraska.

Norfolk police captain Chad Reiman said it did not take long for officers to track down the modified Ford Crown Victoria saloon with a bull riding in the passenger seat on the main motorway entering the city of roughly 24,000 people on Wednesday morning.

“We didn’t have a full understanding of it until we saw it,” Mr Reiman said.

The car that Lee Meyer has driven in parades across the area for years has half the windscreen and roof removed to make room for his bull, named Howdy Doody, to ride along.

A yellow metal cattle gate serves as the passenger side door – allowing for the Watusi bull to be tied up – and a set of longhorns serves as a bonnet ornament.

“It wouldn’t go far without being noticed for sure,” Mr Reiman said.

A video of the traffic stop shot by News Channel Nebraska spread quickly online.

A sign on the side of Mr Meyer’s car from a parade in Burwell late last month declared that Howdy Doody’s eye-catching ride was judged the best car entry in Nebraska’s Big Rodeo Parade.

Mr Reiman said Mr Meyer told him that when he went to that parade, he drove Howdy Doody in a proper trailer, so it was not clear why he decided to load the bull into his car on Wednesday and drive the 36 miles from his home in Neligh to Norfolk.

Mr Reiman said Mr Meyer was not heading to a parade on Wednesday.

Mr Meyer did not answer his home phone on Thursday morning so he could not be reached immediately for an explanation.

But his wife, Rhonda, told the Norfolk radio station that shot video of the traffic stop that Howdy Doody has been Mr Meyer’s “friend and buddy” ever since he got him eight or nine years ago.

Videos of Lee Meyer driving Howdy Doody around can readily be found online from 2017 and 2019.

Rhonda Meyer told US92 that “Lee thinks he’s a movie star” after the video of his traffic stop went viral, but that he is also a little shy.

Ms Meyer said Howdy Doody is like a member of the family now, but she was not always wild about how much her husband spent on the bull over the years.

“The amount of money that he’s spent on this whole darn project between the car and the bull I could’ve had a brand new kitchen,” Rhonda Meyer said.

Mr Reiman said there were clearly some traffic violations related to Mr Meyer’s car, but the officer let him off with a warning as long as he turned around and took Howdy Doody home.

“We’ve never dealt with anything quite like that before,” Mr Reiman said.