Police Cars Around The World

  Police cars are some of the most reliable, fast and protective cars ever made. They are used in high speed chases everyday but some days, a police car is just, well, a donut getter! Many different countries use hundreds of different cars and I will be going over the history of the police car and all of the different units cops use around the world. 

As cars started to become more popular in the late 1940s, more automotive related crimes started to happen. As the Police were only on bicycles, they could not keep up with the faster cars, so the “Big Three” (Ford, Chrysler and GM) started to produce specialized police cruiser models. These cruisers usually had big V8s that were able to keep up with pretty much every other car on the road at the time. The rest of the world followed, with different variations of the Police car to suit the country's needs.

The UK had some amazing cars in the 80s. I'm specifically talking about the Rover SD1 Police Car. This thing was incredible, it's possibly one of my favorite 80s cars ever. The Rover was actually very fast and had amazing maneuverability, which made it great for high speed chases. Although, being a Rover, they are incredibly unreliable, so they usually broke down half way through. The UK even had one or two RS200 high speed unit police cars, another one of my favorite cars. They currently use Mustangs and Focus RS’s for these high speed chases, As you can tell they like their Fords! They have even started using a few Tesla Model 3s, but as you can imagine they run out of battery quite quickly, so they may not be using them for much longer.

You would imagine Germany, being the center for automotive innovation ,would have some cool police cars, and you would be very right! They use many cars like Audis, Porsches, and Mercs. But the one that shocked me the most in the high speed unit, was a tuned Ford Mustang! An American car, for the German Police force. That has to be one of the most odd things, considering they have VW, Porsche and all the other German brands at bay that they could use. 

Police Parade In Central Dubai

Dubai, and yes everyone knew it would be on this list, and for good reason. They have some crazy police cars. Let me just give you a little list. Buggatti Veyron, AMG GTR, AMG GT-4, SLS, Aventador, MP4-12c, Urus, Lykan Hypersport, One-77, R8, Nissan GTR, Bentley Continental, Ferrari FF, and a lot of custom made Dubai off road Police cars. So, no, they are not short on money or fast cars in Dubai. I'm really not joking, all of those cars get driven daily as actual police cars. Imagine driving around in your Lamborghini Aventador giving out parking tickets?1 Well, the Dubai Police do that every day! 

Another country that really amazes me with their police cars is Japan. They still, to this day use older domestic sports cars such as Subarus, Evos, Skylines and even a few NSX’s. They use these cars because they were some of the fastest cars on the road as they had a  gentlemen's agreement that limited the cars to only have around 276 horsepower. This limited the speed of cars quite significantly, so the Japanese Police used the fastest cars they could find. These cars really pushed the limit, having up to 320 horsepower ,but being advertised as having less so they could get by the ban hammer unscathed. Most of these cool cars are still being used in Japan today. They also use vans such as the Toyota Hiace, a similar sized vehicle. Fun fact, in the 70s the Japanese Police force actually had a few mustangs!  

But In my opinion the coolest Police force cars out there are the Aussies. Australia has definitely put a lot of money into making their fleet the best it can possibly be. They have the all mighty M5, possibly one of the best sedans ever made. With 627 horsepower these cars are definitely not slow. They also have the Civic type R, many, many Holden HSVs, Merc E43 AMG, GLE63 AMG, Kia Stingers and Raptors! They really have one of the coolest Police garages of any country. 

No matter what country you are in they will always have cool police cars, because every police car is super cool and interesting! But by far Australia has the coolest fleet out of them all. 

What do you think is the coolest Police car you’ve ever seen?

Photos:

Cover, Auto Week

M5, Victorian Police Force

British: Motor 1, r/Forza Reddit, New Car Net, Driving.co.uk