Recently the
Gujarat police was presented with a couple of Harleys. A Street 750 and
Superlow 883 from Harley Davidson were presented to the police in Gujarat not
to solve crime quickly, obviously, but to escort VIPs.
Incidentally,
Gujarat is gearing up for the Vibrant Gujarat Summit between January 11 and 13,
2015 which will be attended by global business leaders. They need to impress
these people and the Harley’s will look escorting some of the VIPs.
But in our
ordinary lives it’s never these bike bikes escorting VIPs in India. It’s the ordinary
cars like the Maruti Suzuki Gypsy or Toyota Innovas doing the regular job. Several
top notch security agencies have cars from the stables of Mahindras (Scorpio)
and Tata Motors (the Tata Safari Storme does duty for the Prime Minister’s
security).
While it’s a
first for the Indian police to be pampered with something in India, it’s
nothing extraordinary when we look at police departments abroad. The trend
started in Italy when the Lamborghini presented the police of the city with two
brand new Gallardo’s thus making the Italian police the fastest police force in
the world. Over the years many countries have adopted super cars for their
police force.
Sticking to
the UK, most of their fleet is filled with Vauxhaul Astra diesels, but some of
them like the police in London also have a Lamborghini Murcielago and a Ferrari
612 Scagletti. Humberside, UK has a Lexus IS-F with a 5 litre V8. The police
department of North Yorkshire drives around in two Subaru Impreza WRX STIs, and
East Anglia was presented with a Lotus Evora S last Christmas in 2013. The
Brits also have a Caparo T1 and an Ariel Atom which does a 0-100kmph in 2.5
seconds. The Londoners have also been pampered with an amazing but useless and
impractical, Renault F1 car.
Then we come
to ze Germans! We have no idea what goes on in Germany but a simple Mercedes or
an Audi or a BMW just isn’t German enough. So they have an Audi R8 GTR and
Porsche 911 Carrera. Along with that ze Germans also have a CLS tuned by Brabus
which they call the Rocket with 750bhp. God knows why!
In the US of
America on the other hand has a huge fleet of cop cars Ford and General Motors,
apart from bikes from Harley-Davidson. But almost every country or a sheriff’s
department has at least one super or performance car. The Michigan police
department has not one but two Cadillac’s, a XCR-V and a CTS-V with around
800bhp and 16 cylinders cumulatively. In
South Carolina, they drive around in a Dodge Viper SRT with a 8.0 Litre V8,
which only produces 400bhp and does 0-100 in 9.2 seconds. Florida has a Dodge
Challenger with a 5.7 litre V8. Their neighbors, the Canadian’s in Ontario
having been treated with a Maserati Quattroporte Sport GT with a 4.7L V8 and
makes 500bhp.
In December
2014, General Motors Chevrolet announced that the County of Ventura (California)
is one of the first fleets to take delivery of the 2015 Chevrolet Tahoe PPV and
they will soon be used by the county sheriff’s department while on patrol.
Once the
existing Ford Crown Victorias and Dodge Chargers are phased out, the County of
Ventura’s patrol fleet will be comprised solely of Chevrolet Tahoe PPVs,
starting with 25 with more to be phased in during 2015.
For the first
time, the Tahoe PPV is offered with 4-wheel-drive (4WD) capability. Tahoe PPV
remains the only full-size, body-on-frame truck-based product on the market.
Ford announced
in November 2014 that Ford EcoBoost Police Interceptor sedan has retained top
performance in Michigan State Police and Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department
testing of 2015 model, retaining its title as quickest-accelerating pursuit
vehicle
Ford Motor
Company, manufacturer of the best-selling police vehicles since 1996, trumped
the competition in recent instrumented acceleration testing conducted
separately by the Michigan State Police and Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.
The EcoBoost-powered
Ford Police Interceptor sedan topped all V8-equipped competitors’ sedans in
testing by both Michigan and California authorities, while Ford Police
Interceptor utility with EcoBoost out-accelerated the competition’s all-new
V8-equipped utility and all base V6-powered sedans.
Then we come
back to some of the other Europeans like The Netherlands who have a Spyker C8
and a not a very good performance car the Opel Speedster which only has a 2.0l
engine in it. In Scandinavian countries, crime is more or less minimal and
corruption is negligible. So why on earth do the Swedes have a 6.2L 500bhp V8
powered Corvette Stingray C7? But whatever sails their boat.
The Italians,
the most flamboyant of the lot have fleets of Lamborghinis --the Huracan and
the Gallardo.
On the
eastern side in Japan, just before Honda stopped the production of the NSX in
2005, Honda presented one of the very last NSX’s that left the production line
to the police. The Japanese also have a Nissan R34 Skyline GTR which they
kindly nicknames Godzilla! Crazy Japs…
The
Australians aren’t behind either; the cops in Victoria have a Mitsubishi Lancer
Evo X and New South of Wales patrol around in a Lotus Exige. But these are all
just babies when you come to the real play ground of super cop cars all these
countries are infantile when you take a peek at the middle east.
Though the
Abu Dhabi police have a new Nissan GTRs Dubai is another ball park all
together. Everything that we just talked about is small talk compared to the 13
different super cars they have in their fleet. The simple ones like the Dodge
Charger, a Chevrolet Camaro, and Ford Mustang are the basic ones in the fleet. The
mid level consists of an Audi R8, a Mercedes G Wagaon and a Ferrari FF. Spend
more time on the streets of Dubai and you will see a Mercedes SLS AMG, a
Lamborghini Aventador, a Bentley Continental GT, a Nissan GTR and the McLaren
MP4-12C, if you’re lucky, you could also be on your way to prison in a Bugatti
Veyron but what really takes the cake is the Aston Martin One-77, why is it so
special, because only 77 of them were ever made which makes it rare for a
person to see a regular one even at Aston Martin dealerships forget about the world,
and more importantly, it was the most expensive car to have hit the showroom at
the time of 2.2 MILLION! yes MILLION! Great British Pounds.
Now this
makes us sad, that most of us will never be able to drive one of these and we
always crib about our jobs that we have. But if there is a vacancy in the Dubai
Police, we are sure the employment line will be endless just for these super
mega hyper cars.