Cops and Robbers. Ant Anstead
in 2016.
Unlike the panda car, whose introduction was down to one man and has a confirmed starting date, the origins of the area car are slightly more difficult to define. Nottingham Police may have been the first to have wireless cars in 1932. They used two-way wireless telegraphy (Morse), which was fully operational in vans, combos and single-manned cars. The method of operation was bizarre and would have gained them a £200 fixed penalty notice and six points on their licence today, whilst the health and safety people dived for cover to fill out their next claim form! Using his left hand, the driver would operate a Morse key on a large box where the passenger seat would normally have been fitted. He listened via an earpiece attached to his hat, whilst continuing to drive using his right hand! The Chief Constable of Nottingham in his 1940s book Mechanised Police Patrol refers to Radio Motor Patrols in an area scheme and in specimen exercises speaks of No.1 Area Patrol, No. 2 Area Patrol, etc., so it is likely that the term was eventually shortened to just Area.
The other early form of system came from the Metropolitan Police, who, in 1934, introduced the ‘Area Wireless Car Scheme’, whereby the Metropolitan Police District was divided into 75 wireless areas, each patrolled 24 hours a day by a radio-equipped car, manned by two uniformed officers in direct radio contact with the Information Room at Scotland Yard. Their mandate was to deal with all matters and incidents that required immediate police attention. The Met’s very first area wireless cars were Ford 14.9hp saloons, followed by Hillmans, Wolseleys and Humbers.
In 1937, Wolseley produced a special ‘police tourer’ version of the 14/56 chassis. It was not offered to civilian customers.
One of the earliest forms of area cars belonged to the Southampton Borough Police, who in 1956 devised a new concept in mobile policing that is still used today. Called Team Policing, it involved the use of Series 1 Hillman Minx estate cars, one being placed at each of the six sub-divisions within the Southampton Borough, and they were responsible for attending emergencies that fell outside of the remit of the Traffic Division. The cars were painted dark grey with a light grey roof and the only police markings consisted of a telltale roof-mounted radio aerial. To get through the traffic, crews would put the headlights on, and that would be enough in those days to ensure that the public would obligingly move out of their way! The team car experiment was a huge success; in later years the word ‘team’ was dropped and the term area car was adopted.
Unlike the panda car and indeed the Traffic Division cars, which were vehicles of a very specific type, the area car could be almost anything, depending on the force it belonged to and how it utilised the role. For example, in the 1960s the Cardiff City Police were using the Austin Cambridge A60 as an area car, whilst the Met Police used the much more powerful S-Type Jaguars, and by the late 1970s Kent County Police were sending their crews out in Morris Marina estates whilst the Met again gave their boys Rover 2.6 SD1s. We will concentrate on the most common cars, with perhaps an occasional oddity thrown in for good measure.
One of the big hitters in the 1960s was Austin and its Farina-bodied Cambridge. With its B-series 1622cc engine and 80mph top speed, it was used by a fair number 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,