The most exciting police cars from around the world

In hot pursuit

Up to no good? We don’t fancy your chances of getting away. The Ferrari 458 Italia seen here has been pressed into service by the Czech police, after being seized from a criminal gang. It will be used to target “the most aggressive drivers on Czech highways,” said officers, including the 30 or so illegal road races that pass through the country each year.

Ferrari 458 Italia

Previously “criminal property”, the Ferrari has covered just 1,242 miles from new. It’s one of around 900 vehicles confiscated by Czech police in 2021. The cost of modifying it for police duties was apparently less than buying a new Skoda Scala patrol car.

Ferrari 458 Italia

The officers tasked with driving the 458 Italia will enjoy a 4.5-litre naturally aspirated V8 and seven-speed paddle-shift gearbox. Zero to 62mph takes 3.4 seconds – notably quicker than a Skoda Scala, in other words. Now pull over, put your hands on the wheel and let’s explore more of the world’s most exciting police cars.

BMW M3 Competition

The sight of a BMW M3’s gigantic grille in your rear-view mirror is scary enough. Fill it with blue lights, though, and any criminal would have nightmares. This liveried M3 recently joined the Highway Patrol in Victoria, Australia, and is more than a match for the country’s homegrown muscle cars.

Tesla Model 3

In the UK, meanwhile, an electric Tesla Model 3 has been on test with several police forces. A report published after the first nine months of the trial says the car operates for up to four hours in ‘advanced driving conditions’ before needing a recharge. It’s even quicker than the M3 – hitting 62mph in 3.1 seconds.

Tesla Model 3

Tesla says it has received ‘mind-blowing’ feedback from police officers and describes the Model 3 as ‘an incredible engagement tool’. It also claims police accessories such as built-in ANPR cameras have a minimal effect on driving range. Coming soon to a high street near you.

Ford Mustang Mach-E

Tesla isn’t the only one. Numerous police forces have already requested Ford build a blue light version of its latest Mustang Mach-E electric car – and now the firm has responded with a Mach-E police EV concept. It’s a full zero-emission model – but one with rapid acceleration and a range of over 300 miles.

The Metropolitan Police will be first to fully evaluate the marked EV concept, while other forces requesting a trial include Sussex, Surrey, South Wales, Dyfed Powys, Devon and Cornwall and Police Scotland.

Ford RS200

It’s not the first time Ford has lent police forces something special. How about this rally-inspired Ford RS200 that Essex police managed to borrow in the 1980s? With 450hp and a 0-62mph time of 2.1 seconds, even this Sierra RS Cosworth can’t get away.

Ford Ranger Raptor

Here’s another fast Ford, this time ideal for apprehending rural criminals. The Ranger Raptor is a baja-bashing beast of a truck, with trick Fox Racing shocks and knobbly tyres. You’re not getting away, even if you trade that stolen Volkswagen Golf R for an ATV.

Ford Focus ST Estate

The never-ending power race means even more everyday police cars are now seriously potent machines. You’ll be lucky to get away from the Focus ST estate seen here, for example. More proof that every car looks cooler in police livery.

Hyundai Kona Electric

Back to EVs, and the Hyundai Kona Electric is another EV finding favour with police forces. TheSwiss region of St. Gallen added Kona Electric police cars to its fleet in 2019. Interestingly, the Hyundai achieved the highest altitude ever reached by an electric car, climbing 5,731 metres up the Sawula Pass in Tibet. Ideal for Switzerland, then.

Hyundai Nexo

Hyundai’s hydrogen-powered Nexo has also been trialled by police across Europe. The £70,000 SUV takes just five minutes to refuel and offers up to 414 miles of driving range, but isn’t especially quick.

ABT Audi RS4-R

The standard RS4 is hardly slow. Nonetheless, renowned Audi tuner ABT Sportsline has given the car added muscle befitting an elite member of the force. This 530hp RS4-R was displayed at the Essen Motor Show in 2019.

Honda Civic Type R

A police force in Australia took delivery of a 320hp Honda Civic Type R. The hot hatch joined New South Wales Police officers on the Eyewatch social media initiative, aimed at building relationships between law enforcers and communities.

Rolls-Royce Ghost Black Badge

Hoping to add some sparkle to a police station event? It helps when you have the home of the world’s most famous luxury carmaker on your doorstep. This one-off Rolls-Royce Ghost Black Badge made an appearance at a Chichester police station open day. Unsurprisingly, there are no plans for it to join the Sussex Police fleet of patrol cars, but it would certainly be a relaxing way to travel to the station for questioning.

Porsche 911

Bad news for criminals in Austria: the country’s police force took custody of a Porsche 911 for motorway patrol duties. The turbocharged 991 Carrera has all the equipment it needs for service, including blue lights and a radio system.

BMW X4 by AC Schnitzer

An SUV coupe might be an unusual choice for a cop car – but even the police have to look good, right? This is BMW’s X4 ‘Polizei’ modified by German tuners AC Schnitzer for the Essen Motor Show.

BMW X4 by AC Schnitzer

The German police machine is only an X4 20i, so it’s not especially fast as standard. Still, AC Schnitzer has tuned the 2.0-litre turbo motor from 184 to 245hp, reducing the 0-62mph time to a respectable 6.7 seconds. Should be enough to keep up with any opportunistic joyriders.

Porsche 911

The New South Wales (NSW) Police Force in Australia also uses a fully-liveried Porsche 911 for patrols. Any criminal is likely to think twice before trying to out-run it.

Porsche 911

The 911 can hit 62mph in less than five seconds, although the NSW Police force says that this car will mostly be used to attend community events where ‘the fascination of a Porsche in police decals is helping to break the ice, especially with youths in disadvantaged areas’.

Porsche 911

This is certainly one of the coolest police cars around, but it has more competition than you might imagine. Here, we’ve collected some of the most eye-catching and unusual vehicles ever to wear a police logo and a set of flashing lights.

Dodge Charger Pursuit

This is the Dodge Charger Pursuit, a seriously mean-looking machine that became available to US police forces a few years ago.

Dodge Charger Pursuit

The Charger Pursuit is far from being all show and no go, either – it’s available with a 375hp 5.7-litre Hemi V8 and comes with upgraded suspension and a reinforced chassis. Police forces with more modest pursuit goals – or greater concern for fuel economy – could opt for the rear-wheel-drive V6 version.

Lamborghini Huracan

The Italians are known for their flair and style, and it seems that extends to the country’s police force, too. Even before many customer orders were fulfilled, the Italian State Police took delivery of its brand new 610hp, 202mph-plus, 5.2-litre V10-engined Lamborghini Huracan police car in spring 2014. Now you’re going to need an Aventador to get away from them…

Chevrolet Tahoe

Named after a Californian lake, the Chevrolet Tahoe is the perfect US cop car. A bull bar ensures chases are over before you can say “stay in the car, sonny”, and its go-anywhere ability means offenders aren’t getting away even if they take a detour through the desert. It looks menacing, too, and there’s a couple of spotlights to help catch suspects in dark alleys.

Hyundai i30

There are plenty of Hyundai i30 police cars dotted around the UK, but none quite as colourful as this. The Greater Manchester Police ‘Pride Police car’ was created to reach out to the LGBT community during Manchester’s Pride Festival and decked out in the event’s rainbow flag colours.

Renault Megane RS

The French are a pretty patriotic bunch when it comes to cars, and that extends to what the gendarmes drive. From Paris to Poitiers, the French force can usually be seen driving a battered old blue Megane or Scenic. This racy Renaultsport Megane 265 is a cut above the rest.

BMW 4 Series

German tuner AC Schnitzer regularly toys with police cars and one of its creations is this BMW 428i complete with ‘Polizei’ graphics and flashing lights on the roof. Before being put into service with Germany’s finest motorway cops, AC upgraded the engine to 294hp so it should be powerful enough to chase down speeders on the Autobahn.

Ferrari FF

The Dubai police force is building an impressive fleet of supercars to track speeding motorists in the desert. With four seats, the FF has a 6.2 V12 putting out 650hp. It’s capable of 0-62mph in 3.8 seconds and a top speed of 208mph.

Chevrolet Caprice

New York City police officers man a checkpoint in Times Square, using their Chevrolet Caprice cop cars to block the road. Notice the rubber bumper bars to ram other cars off the road. The US cops don’t mess around if they want you to stop.

Lamborghini Aventador

It takes a special kind of cop car to keep up with the 200mph+ hypercars you regularly see in Dubai. Step forward the Lamborghini Aventador – one of the many jaw-dropping cars on the local fleet.

Lamborghini Aventador

While it’s clearly more of a marketing exercise, it is expected that the Aventador will have a practical purpose as it tries to reign in the propensity for young male drivers to speed on the quiet desert roads. The Dubai police force has imposed strict new punishments for drivers who speed above 124mph, with hefty fines and even jail sentences on the cards.

Lamborghini Aventador

The £250k Aventador is perfect for the task: its 6.5-litre V12 engine produces 700hp and the car can hit 62mph in 2.9 seconds. Flat out, it’ll reach 217mph. Fast as that is, it will still struggle to keep up with a Bugatti Veyron…

Holden Commodore SS

Police in New South Wales, Australia, clearly have a sense of humour. But there’s nothing relaxed about their Holden Commodore SS police car, with its V8 engine and propensity to oversteer like a one-legged kangaroo.

Ford Crown Victoria

A Ford Crown Victoria police car painted pink to promote breast cancer awareness by the Miami Beach Police Department.

Mercedes-Benz E-Class

Police cars don’t come more versatile or well-built than a Mercedes-Benz E-Class. This one is used by the German police in Stuttgart.

Vauxhall Ampera

The Police Service of Northern Ireland went green with the addition of a Vauxhall Ampera – the first force in the UK to trial the range-extended electric car.

Alfa Romeo 159

Polish police demonstrating a sense of style with an Alfa Romeo 159 in Polanica Zdroj.

Ferrari 612 Scaglietti

Council taxpayers would undoubtedly be up in arms if our local constabularies started spending our hard-earned taxes on Ferraris such as the four-seat 612 Scaglietti. This police version, with the optional handling pack, was used as part of a road safety awareness drive in 2007, when it was driven from Belfast to London by real cops.

Ariel Atom

This is surely one of the sportiest – and fastest – police cars ever. Avon and Somerset Constabulary recruited a 350hp Ariel Atom 3.5R to support the Safer Rider campaign, aiming to reduce accidents and deaths amongst motorcyclists. The British-built Atom, with its skeletal frame design and supercharged Honda engine, is about as close as you can get to a motorbike on four wheels, and is most often seen tearing up track days.

Lotus Evora

This group shot shows some of the most familiar UK police cars – the BMW 5 Series and Volvo V70 – with a less common one: a Lotus Evora. The Evora has rear seats, but squeezing someone into them is tricky, so we suspect the Evora isn’t often used to transport criminals.

Caparo T1

This thing makes the McLaren look like a Volvo V70 in terms of practical police car-ness. While the Caparo T1 might struggle to carry a traffic cone, it does hit 60mph in less than 2.5 seconds. Robbers have no chance of escaping the T1. Unless they go down a speed-bumped road, of course.

Morgan Aeromax

To celebrate 100 years of making hand-built British sports cars, Morgan jokingly mocked up an Aeromax in the guise of a German police car and displayed it at the Cheltenham Festival.

McLaren 12C Spider

Seen here with TV’s Angus Nairn is one of West Midlands Police’s promo tools in their war against speeders. We’re not sure what happens to the blue lights when the hardtop is removed…

Mitsubishi i-MiEV

This isn’t one to use as a pursuit car: the tiny i-MiEV’e electric motor only provides 66hp and its range is limited to around 100 miles. Strictly for those on a city beat, we think.

NYPD police trike

The New York Police Department (NYPD) uses these little trikes to beat the city’s traffic and to patrol Central Park. Don’t waste your energy racing one on foot – you could outrun it at a mere jog.

Toyota Land Cruiser

Israeli police patrol the Palestinian suburb of Silwan, East Jerusalem, in a rugged Toyota Land Cruiser complete with a sophisticated anti-brick device: mesh on the windscreen.

Lotus Evora

Romanian Police drive their Lotus Evora through the streets of Bucharest. If the intention was to attract attention it seems to be working…

Subaru Impreza

German police lead a tarmac rally in a Subaru Impreza police car as part of an unusual road safety campaign.

Volvo V70

Was any car ever better suited to its role than a police Volvo V70? Fast, spacious and discreet, this estate filled the role brilliantly, whether marked or not. In turbocharged flex-fuel form as here, it was also very quick.

BMW X5

Police in Leicestershire, UK, patrolling the streets in a BMW X5 3.0d, the perfect crime-fighting car thanks to its go-anywhere 4×4 ability, powerful diesel engine and council tax-friendly fuel bills.

Police quad bike

The Metropolitan Police used versatile quad bikes to patrol the Olympic Park during the 2012 Olympic Games in London. Perhaps they should make cops-on-quads an Olympic sport…

Volkswagen Beetle

Now let’s turn back the clock and look at some of the great police cars of the world in years gone by. This is the iconic VW Beetle, which the German Polizei in the sixties regularly used for inner-city crime fighting.

Ford Escort Cosworth

The Ford Escort Cosworth was one of the most frequently nicked cars of the 1990s and, if you were unlucky, a car you were likely to be nicked in, thanks to a few police forces taking delivery of these 150mph machines.

Jaguar MkII

If you can’t beat ‘em, join them: in the sixties, criminals loved the Jaguar MkII as a getaway car – as did the police, who revered its effortless performance and superb roadholding. It also proved popular with television detective, Inspector Morse.

BMW Isetta 300

The German police took possession of one of BMW’s cute little bubble cars, although with a 53mph top speed it wouldn’t be much use reeling in speeding executives on the autobahn.

Ford Capri

The Ford Capri was a 1980s legend and about as cool as cop cars get. This one was used by Greater Manchester police, who no doubt drove it through piles of cardboard boxes everywhere.

Vauxhall Senator

This unmarked Vauxhall Senator police car was peppered with bullet holes following an armed robbery on a security van outside a Barclays Bank in Sidcup, Kent, in 1993. The Senator was a dolled-up Carlton and a firm favourite of the UK constabularies.

Vauxhall Senator

Based on a longer wheelbase than the Vauxhall Omega, the Senator was a great traffic cop car with a lusty 24-valve, 3.0-litre engine upgraded to ‘police specification’, which meant increased low-end torque and terrific crim-catching ability.

Rover SD1

Defendants In the ‘Knightsbridge Safe Deposit Robbery’ are transported to court with a police Rover SD1 escort. Most SD1’s have rotted to oblivion, but in its day it was a force to be reckoned with and one of the most iconic British police cars.

Ford Granada

Police carry out a traffic check on the M25 at Chertsey in 1984 in a Ford Granada, a stalwart of British police forces in the eighties.

Kia Stinger

We conclude our patrol of the world with the Kia Stinger, which is becoming a firm favourite of road policing units across Australia. We suspect this has something to do with the 3.3-litre turbocharged V6 engine. The name probably helps, too.