Cops and Robbers: The Story of the British Police Car. Ant Anstead
of police forces as an area car. Although the Cambridge was an Austin design built and conceived at Longbridge, these cars were effectively the same model in five versions, because the Morris Oxford SeVI, Wolseley 16/60, MG Magnette MkIV and Riley 4/72 were basically the same cars with different lights, grilles, interior trim, or, in the case of the MG and Riley, more powerful 72bhp Twin Carburettor engine. The Austin was the cheapest of the range, which is one of the reasons why it was the most used by the police. BMC churned out around a million of these cars, in all badges, and they were used successfully. However, they were based on a floorplan and mechanical package, including all-round drum brakes, that went back to 1954 and by the mid-1960s were starting to be slow and under-geared for police work, which increasingly required more high-speed work, especially on the new urban dual carriageways that were starting to be built in this period.
The Austins did not catch on quite as much as had seemed likely, as the area car role was fulfilled by more modern designs such as the Mk2 Cortina. Why BMC never raided the corporate parts bin and updated this fundamentally sound if unexciting range by fitting the MGB’s 1800cc version of the same B-series and its matching overdrive gearbox is one of many missed opportunities in the complex world of BMC/BL history. Many members of the Cambridge-Oxford Owners Club, which is a thriving group of enthusiasts restoring these cars, have fitted MGB engines and gearboxes, which says it all really! (There was in fact a quasi-official attempt at this.)
It would be 15 years or so before another Austin product got the green light as a prospective candidate for area car use, with the Maestro and Montego both finding favour in several forces including the Met, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Cumbria, Hertfordshire, Dorset and the West Midlands forces. They had adequate performance and a reasonable amount of room but suffered in the reliability department, like so many other British vehicles at this time. That said, let us not forget that the area car has an incredibly hard life; it’s on the road 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and gets caned by a variety of different officers during its relatively short but high-mileage police career. I certainly would not want to own an area car that my team and I had used …!
Hertford area car, Austin Montego 1.6.
Morris only ever produced one car that was used as an area car, but that didn’t stop it gaining legendary status; sadly, though, this was for all the wrong reasons. The Marina was virtually force-fed to the police by a government desperate to keep its ailing and by now state-owned car industry from total collapse, and by the mid-1970s several forces had been ‘persuaded’ to take them on, including Essex, Hertfordshire, South Wales, Cheshire, Hampshire, Thames Valley and the West Midlands. It wasn’t the fact that bits would fall off or its tendency to boil over at regular intervals that gave it its bad reputation, but more its legendary handling – or, rather, its complete lack of stability whilst negotiating anything resembling a curve in the road! It was quite simply appalling. Official complaints were made to senior officers that the cars were unsafe, with some officers refusing to drive them at all. Those unfortunate enough to crash one were hailed as heroes by their colleagues for managing to get rid of the car! The photo shown here comes from the Hampshire Constabulary and is an official photograph taken to show how bad the car was. It is a 1.8TC saloon negotiating an average-sized roundabout at less than 20mph with massive understeer and a suspension set-up that induced motion sickness.
Ford has made more cars that are suited to the role of area car than just about all the other manufacturers put together, thanks largely to the Cortina. The original Mk1 wasn’t particularly popular, with only Wakefield City, Surrey and Bedfordshire Police experimenting with them. But in Mk2 guise it received far more attention, especially in 1600 GT form. The car was good for 100mph, with decent handling and a fair degree of street cred to go with it. Essex Police, Devon and Cornwall, Cumbria, Merseyside and Hampshire all bought Mk2s for area car duties. The Mk3 Cortina was just as popular, although its 1970s build quality left much to be desired. As a police car it looked terrific, and several forces even used the estate variant as an area car, including the Devon and Cornwall Police and the Lancashire Constabulary, who painted theirs bright orange. Mk3 saloons were used by Kent, Surrey, Hampshire, Lancashire, Thames Valley and South Yorkshire Police, with most opting to use the 2000 GT model. But these were no ordinary versions, oh no – in order to keep the price to a minimum the plush GT seats with their integrated head rests were replaced with the standard 1300L seats with no head rests or back adjustment, the carpets were replaced with a rubber matting and most of the other interior GT fitments were also missing!
In 1976, with the launch of the Mk4, the Cortina had become a firm favourite as a company rep-mobile and found more police customers, including the City of London, Essex, North Wales, Cumbria, Dyfed-Powys, West Yorkshire, Hertfordshire, Hampshire and Thames Valley Police. In 2.0S trim it came with the excellent 2.0-litre Pinto engine married to a slick and very precise 4-speed manual gearbox. It also got an all-black interior and black treatment to the window frames and bumpers, giving it a rather mean look. By the early 1980s the Mk4 had got some slight cosmetic updates and became the Mk5, but few forces seemed interested as other cars were starting to make a dent on Ford’s monopoly.
Along the way there were a few Ford oddities thrown in, such as the Mk3 Zephyr 4 from the mid-1960s, whilst in the 70s quite a few forces used the Consul GT and later the Mk1 Granada, including the fabulous 3.0S. The Granada was one of the few cars that managed to fulfil both traffic and area car roles. It was a large car with a good strong engine and excellent road holding for its size, although manoeuvring the thing at low speeds without power steering took some doing. Even the Ford Corsair got a look-in with a couple of forces, including Cheshire, Wiltshire, Somerset and Bath Constabulary and the Wolverhampton Borough Police. The Ford Orion saw service with Hertfordshire and Devon and Cornwall Police.
In the early 1980s Ford gave us the ‘jelly mould’, otherwise known as the Ford Sierra, in both hatchback, saloon and estate variants, and it was a very popular choice for area car services in virtually every force in the country. Here was a medium-sized car made available with a number of engine options from 1.6, 2.0 and 2.3 litre that the police could choose from, and they bought them by the bucket load. The car even starred in that new TV series of the era, The Bill, and was an integral part of the opening credits, with PC Alan Stamp, the Relief Area Car driver, behind the wheel.
In automotive terms, the Sierra was quite short-lived, being replaced by the first series Mondeo in 1990. Even though the cars were pretty similar in size and specification, the Mondeo was nowhere near as popular in police use. As the car morphed into the Mk2 Mondeo things did improve slightly, but by the mid-1990s there were huge changes taking place with the advent of common rail diesel engines being pioneered by BMW and Peugeot, which had Ford and every other manufacturer playing catch-up. It was over a decade before Ford could fight back with the Mk3 Focus that a lot of forces opted to take on in an era where costs were playing a significant role once again. At this stage, it’s worth noting that just changing a car is only the tip of the police car iceberg. Before that decision is taken, the car has to be thoroughly tested to assess its suitability for the role, then the workshops have to be kitted out with all the latest computer software applicable to that make and model; specialist tools would often need to be purchased, and in some cases technicians were sent off to the manufacturers’ training establishment to undertake courses to learn about the latest technology involved. However, at the end of the day, if the bean counters upstairs didn’t like the figures there would be a sharp intake of breath through gritted teeth as they stated rather firmly that they didn’t think the car was ‘best value’. So in twenty-first-century Britain you’ll find a huge number of Ford Focus area cars in your neighbourhood, although you might find it nigh on impossible to decipher which is the section car (current term for panda car!) and which is the area car, as they will both look identical, dressed in their modern Battenburg clothes.