Rozzer Shite

[sheffcortinacentre]

Chevette would've been slant 4 16v.

Notable fords Inc V6 transits, lotus cortinas (Inc some 4dr mk2's)  MK1 escort Mexico( again Inc 4drs) ,RS200. 4wd MK4 zephyr 's.

most STD fords.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

1 hour ago, martc said:

Along side the Protons Humberside police also used Subaru's for catching the faster villains, the ones the Protons couldn't, eg someone on a moped.

And some big Vauxhalls

Spot the Proton sniffing it's bum.

I'm pretty certain this one is still in use by the Countryside Crime Unit or whatever there called; I've seen this, or very similar, in the Driffield area.

Finally AT was a Hull prefix/suffix, which could be seen as appropriate on the following...

More Humberside Police TAT here - https://www.flickr.com/photos/humbersidepolicepics/8417674724/in/photostream/

 

They also had a lone ISF, which must have been a real Police car rather than a stickered up display or demo , because I actually saw it patrolling on my one and only visit to Hull.

[stuboy]

13 hours ago, Soundwave said:

Not very AS I know, but I love the Oop North forces' answer to hot hatch joyriders; a hot hatch of their own!

 

 

Humberside, Northumbria and a few other places had a string of Escort Cosworths, all fettled a bit by Ford Motorsport to various degrees. The later ones didn't have the whale-tail spoiler, which made them faster at the top end but apparently significantly less stable.

 

warm feeling in my trouser department

[NorfolkNWeigh]

43 minutes ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

No piccies but....

I think GMP ran some Chevette 2.3 litre (6 pot?) for a while back when Vauxhall were doing rally sport...... 

Shite Plod Stuff (when I was young and a shite plodder)
Q Car - Dolomite Sprint  - small and just looked 'job'.
General Purpose Cars - Humber/Sceptre automatics,
replaced by Avenger 1700 auto - on a quiet night you could hear the transmission four streets away.
replaced by Allegro 1750 autos (whoo)
replaced by Cavalier 1300 autos - weird beast but if you pulled the choke out a tad you could creep around all night without touching the pedals.
Fancier stuff
SD1 2600S -awful - could outrun it in a 1600 maestro
Maestro/Montego MG version, torque steer to die for 
Favourite ? Anything from The Sweeney

Re the Chevette HS, you weren’t thinking of these Lotus Sunbeams, were you ?

One in each standard colour rather than the usual black or metallic blue, can’t imagine they stayed very undercover when seen sideways with that glorious twin cam exhaust note.

[reb]

34 minutes ago, jon.k said:

I used to enjoy seeing this one driving about. It must have been around ten years old and still in use.

I've not seen a prefacelift C in years now I think about it.

[AnnoyingPentium]

Just now, reb said:

I've not seen a prefacelift C in years now I think about it.

They all disappeared, most I looked at buying a while back all had subframe rot as advisories.

Saying that, there's one in Patna in that weird shitty City Red they sold them in for a few years.

[DeanH]

8 hours ago, garethj said:

Wolsley 6/90 for Sunday afternoon film chases

I now want a Wolseley...

[Missy Charm]

Just to expand on a point made in the comments about the Jankel, I have driven various police cars whilst being paid to do so!  They weren't the real thing, mind, just civilian stuff used for clerical duties but they were police cars of a sort.  I had a basic driving permit as part of my job, which gave access to such gems as a Smart car and, most often, a Ford Fiesta.  The Fiesta was a basic dark blue one on an X or a Y with five doors, the 1.3 pushrod engine and no power steering.  The lack of PAS made it very difficult to drive, for me at least, because it was fitted with the steering wheel from a power-steering car; presumably Fords had standardised the wheels by that point.  Anyway the steering wheel was small in diameter so applied very little leverage to the steering column, making it almost impossible to steer at low speeds.  I have driven much bigger cars without power steering but, crucially, with appropriately sized wheels and haven't had a problem.  

Nicer than the Fiesta was a plain (unmarked to the uninitiated but the then police parlance was 'plain') Vauxhall Astra turbo diesel in silver grey.  It was a mid-2000s modern Astra rather than the 'classic' one, and it wasn't a bad car.  The engine was very smooth and quiet for a diesel but the trade off was a lack of power.  It seemed to handle all right, but was marred by uncomfortable seats, a weird gear lever and the infamous Vauxhall flick down and spring up indicator stalk.  

Better still was a plain blue mark two Focus diesel estate.  It was supposed to be a CID runabout but ended up being used by all and sundry because the local CID never seemed to go anywhere.  The telly would have you believe that being a detective is all action, however the reality is that it's principally an office job.  Uniformed officers do pretty much all the arresting and a lot of the routine enquiries; CID's role is to trawl through the evidence, interview suspects already in custody and wade through endless paperwork.  They do leave the station now and again, but only for certain enquiries and not often enough to need more than one or two pool cars.  Those are basic specification; CID doing anything with blue lights and emergency runs is pure fiction, in real life if they needed to catch someone they'd use the radio and send an area or traffic car after the miscreant.  Incidentally a DI is the equivalent of a senior manager.  A police station in a medium sized provincial town may have one or two, but they won't investigate run of the mill crime as they appear to in detective dramas.  Their real job is to run the CID office and to provide liaison with the upper ranks in uniform and in major investigations.  The latter are a sort of travelling circus who show up if something serious such as a murder happens.*

All the cars were per manufacturer specification except some had police radios fitted.  

*How did I find all that out?  Let's just say that the building only had one smoking area...

[reb]

5 minutes ago, Missy Charm said:

All the cars were per manufacturer specification except some had police radios fitted. 

From my (reasonably lazy) reading last night, this is indeed generally the case, especially these days.

Some manufacturers offered police/gov specs though, usually comprising of a base model with the biggest engine and some of the features usually added by the force fitted from factory.

Before they killed off the V70 you could actually buy a police pack one as a civilian, though it wasn't clear what was included.

[GregZX]

My mate had an ex-Strathclyde Polis Senator 3.0 24v complete with holes in the dash where the equipment used to be and tide marks on the bodywork from the jam sandwich stickers. Used to pull in behind folk and freak them out, great fun. Sadly no pics but I did see these up in Barrhead the other day. I'm assuming the guy who owns them rents them out to film and TV companies.

[GregZX]

Also, this is one of the best things on YouTube. 

20 something blokes with speed exemptions cutting about chasing crims in Sapphire Cosworths and RS2000s.

 

[High Jetter]

46 minutes ago, Missy Charm said:

How did I find all that out?  Let's just say that the building only had one smoking area...

You can't leave it there....

[CreepingJesus]

Just out of curiosity, are (or perhaps were) police spec radios massively more powerful than anything the general public can legitimately acquire? I suppose the answer and reason why are bloody obvious, but while we're on the subject I thought I'd ask.

Many years ago when I was a courier, we used the same Motorola sets as Strathclyde Rozzers, and used to suffer a fair few dead patches in Glasgow city centre. The polis never seemed to, but I understood their Motorolas had some sort of signal booster pack, and very strong aerials. Our base was close to theirs, but their transmission aerial made ours look a bit weedy for sure!

[Magic]

34 minutes ago, GregZX said:

Also, this is one of the best things on YouTube. 

20 something blokes with speed exemptions cutting about chasing crims in Sapphire Cosworths and RS2000s.

 

At one point in that they're doing 50mph through the town centre past the end of my road... 🤣

Car crime was off the scale back then in Manc. Wasn't unusual to have the X-Cars lads blatting past chasing stolen cars when I was on the way to/from work.

[garethj]

6 hours ago, CreepingJesus said:

Just out of curiosity, are (or perhaps were) police spec radios massively more powerful than anything the general public can legitimately acquire? I suppose the answer and reason why are bloody obvious, but while we're on the subject I thought I'd ask.

Many years ago when I was a courier, we used the same Motorola sets as Strathclyde Rozzers, and used to suffer a fair few dead patches in Glasgow city centre. The polis never seemed to, but I understood their Motorolas had some sort of signal booster pack, and very strong aerials. Our base was close to theirs, but their transmission aerial made ours look a bit weedy for sure!

I don’t know about the olden days when you could listen in on a scanner, but nowadays with TETRA the problems with black spots have almost entirely gone.  The government have been toying with moving the emergency services onto a normal mobile phone system because it’s cheaper, but if you need your ambulance driver to always be able to receive a call, it’s a bit shite by comparison.

[martc]

[martc]

[martc]

Interesting treatment on the bonnet - I guess it was designed to make them standard out from the other 3927 Minors parping away on the dark streets of Stockport.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

8 hours ago, reb said:

From my (reasonably lazy) reading last night, this is indeed generally the case, especially these days.

Some manufacturers offered police/gov specs though, usually comprising of a base model with the biggest engine and some of the features usually added by the force fitted from factory.

Before they killed off the V70 you could actually buy a police pack one as a civilian, though it wasn't clear what was included.

Volvo are still a bit vague about Police spec , even on their website. But uprated suspension and brakes are mentioned.

https://www.volvocars.com/uk/buy/finance-sales/special-sales/emergency-services

[EyesWeldedShut]

10 hours ago, NorfolkNWeigh said:

Re the Chevette HS, you weren’t thinking of these Lotus Sunbeams, were you ?

One in each standard colour rather than the usual black or metallic blue, can’t imagine they stayed very undercover when seen sideways with that glorious twin cam exhaust note.

This rings a bell - circa 78/79? There was a write up in one of the motoring magazines that used to be lying around the dentist's waiting room (no pocket money = no mags for sonny boy). Could be I'm muddling it up with the Chevette (I blame me years)

[sierraman]

Trust Ford currently have an Armoured Transit for sale, £32k. A quick browse on eBay suggests an ex Turkish Embassy S500 for sale as well. 

I wonder if any of the ex PSNI armoured Vectras are still about? 

[EyesWeldedShut]

9 hours ago, CreepingJesus said:

Just out of curiosity, are (or perhaps were) police spec radios massively more powerful than anything the general public can legitimately acquire? I suppose the answer and reason why are bloody obvious, but while we're on the subject I thought I'd ask.

Many years ago when I was a courier, we used the same Motorola sets as Strathclyde Rozzers, and used to suffer a fair few dead patches in Glasgow city centre. The polis never seemed to, but I understood their Motorolas had some sort of signal booster pack, and very strong aerials. Our base was close to theirs, but their transmission aerial made ours look a bit weedy for sure!

Standard radios is what we had - in the pre-digital age it was all kind of upper reaches of domestic VHF so you could listen in at home on your transistor. You may find that the Glasgow Polis just had a better set of repeater stations that were reserved for their frequencies.  Most of our gear (cars, radios, pens etc) were off the shelf stuff bought by guys in some central purchasing department for each force - so Strathclyde would have different kit to (say) Lothian and Borders.
I worked for a time on the Met/Thames Valley/Surrey boundary and cross-border communications were non existent due to different kit/frequencies - a right pain in the bum. Local scrotes were wise and would nick an XR2/XR3, nip over to Windsor/Eton, do a smash and grab and leg it back to The Met. Sometimes we'd get a phone call from the Slough Control Room and sit up to play 'spot the scrote' which was about all we could do armed with the doughty 2.0 litre Sierra. Mind you Thames Valley had VX Senators (24 valve 6 litre) that could catch up an XR2/3 - lucky bastards - they were also allowed/trained/authorised to 'nudge' the bad guys off the road under limited circumstances. We weren't 'cos we'd never get close enough....

 

 

[EyesWeldedShut]

14 minutes ago, sierraman said:

Trust Ford currently have an Armoured Transit for sale, £32k. A quick browse on eBay suggests an ex Turkish Embassy S500 for sale as well. 

I wonder if any of the ex PSNI armoured Vectras are still about? 

Withams (https://www.mod-sales.com/) had a few a couple of years back - they do get odd stuff in from time to time from NI but that's really dropping off - last thing I saw was a Pig 'from storage' about 2/3 years ago. (If you think that's an old 'un the recently had a 1960's Austin Champ 'from storage' that was absolutely mint. Someplace the MoD must have a car park they keep losing the keys for or else define storage as 'museum' maybe)

[sierraman]

1 hour ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

Withams (https://www.mod-sales.com/) had a few a couple of years back - they do get odd stuff in from time to time from NI but that's really dropping off - last thing I saw was a Pig 'from storage' about 2/3 years ago. (If you think that's an old 'un the recently had a 1960's Austin Champ 'from storage' that was absolutely mint. Someplace the MoD must have a car park they keep losing the keys for or else define storage as 'museum' maybe)

I see on their website a number of LHD Jaguars built to Asia spec, all of them 6-7 years old but unused and cannot be registered in the U.K. or EU. What’s the back story behind them? 

[PhilA]

Cop shocks, cop wheels. If you squint from a few miles it looks like it could be an Anglia. Blue and white (Chicago PD).

Yes yes I know. But I have a vested interest.

[warren t claim]

22 hours ago, Magic said:

At one point in that they're doing 50mph through the town centre past the end of my road... 🤣

Car crime was off the scale back then in Manc. Wasn't unusual to have the X-Cars lads blatting past chasing stolen cars when I was on the way to/from work.

I believe this wasn't stolen directly from plod but from Quicks of Trafford in Altrincham.

[Magic]

1 hour ago, warren t claim said:

I believe this wasn't stolen directly from plod but from Quicks of Trafford in Altrincham.

First time I've ever seen that. Yeah, Ordsall was proper rough back then! Bet the video camera was nicked as well. 🤣

[Supernaut]

The infamous (at least in the NE of Scotland) Grampian Police Rover SD1.

Bought due to Stonehaven getting a dual carriageway bypass, so they needed something quick to chase people down.

 

https://www.gtm.org.uk/exhibitions/gtm-permanent-collection/grampian-police-rover-sd1/

 

[cort16]

4 hours ago, Supernaut said:

The infamous (at least in the NE of Scotland) Grampian Police Rover SD1.

Bought due to Stonehaven getting a dual carriageway bypass, so they needed something quick to chase people down.

 

https://www.gtm.org.uk/exhibitions/gtm-permanent-collection/grampian-police-rover-sd1/

 

Look at that arch gap you could get a criminals head in there.

[cort1977]

I wonder what they have now with the whole (40 years late) Aberdeen by-pass?  Anything?  Not noticed any cameras come to think of it.