Steve Adams successfully bids for dead Weld County Sheriff’s deputy Sam Brownlee’s squad car and then hands keys to son Tanner

TANNER Brownlee desperately wanted to buy his murdered cop dad’s squad car at auction. Someone outbid him, but what happened next will warm your heart.

Keys to his dad's squad car ... Tanner Brownlee was outbid at auction and the man who bought it promptly gave him the keys. Picture: Facebook

TANNER Brownlee was just 15 when his dad, Weld County Sheriff’s Office deputy Sam Brownlee, was shot dead while attempting to capture a suspect after a high-speed chase in the city of Evans, Colorado.

Almost five years later, his dad’s squad car was put to auction to raise funds for COPS, the Concerns of Police Survivors, a national organisation in the US that offers emotional support to the families of officers killed in the line of duty.

“He put time and work into it. He drove it every day, and so to have something like that will be bigger than a lot of things I could have gotten,” Brownlee Tanner told Colarado’s 9News.

“Realising how much this car meant to him, I understand it now, and I want to keep that and hold onto it.”

Special memory ... Weld County Sheriff's Office deputy Sam Brownlee with Tanner and his younger brother. Picture: gofundme

Tanner had set up a GoFundMe page to try and raise $3,440 to buy his dad’s 2010 Dodge Charger.

“I understand there will be a lot of high bidders, but, I am willing to do what it takes to get this car,” Tanner wrote.

“It meant a lot to my dad and he cared so much for it. I think if anyone should be able to gain such an incredible honour to own such a special vehicle, it would be me or my little brother. I personally, being his son, would want someone I trust to have this car and take care of it. My father’s police car is something he was very much attached to and to someone else it may just be some car. But to me, it was my dad’s.”

The sum was raised in three days.

But when the car, valued at $12,500, went to auction in Greeley, Colorado, on Wednesday, Tanner did not stand a chance.

It sold for $60,000 to local rancher Steve Adams, who “owns thousands of acres of oil-rich land in Wells county.”

Adams had never met Tanner Brownlee,

But when he was given the keys to the car he turned to Tanner in the crowd and said, “Tanner, here’s your car,” and handed the keys over.

Generous act ... Tanner Brownlee with his late dad's police car that was given to him by a man who bought it at auction. Picture: Tanner Brownlee / Facebook

“This is just so huge. I mean, me and my dad built a fence and stuff, but having something I can use and drive around that he drove around, it just means a lot,” Tanner said after being given the keys.

Adams declined to be interviewed.