Cops and Robbers. Ant Anstead
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.
Yorkshire Mk2 Cavalier after being involved in an RTA.
Vauxhall’s area car contribution in the 1960s included the Victor FC with its 1600cc engine, which was similar in styling to the later Mk3 Cortina but not as popular with either the public or the police. Most of Vauxhall’s other models were either the bigger-engined Traffic cars or the panda car range, with little in between. It wasn’t until the advent of the front-wheel-drive Mk2 Cavalier that Vauxhall produced a car that would be able to cut it as an area car. The Cavalier was a good, strong workhorse made available as a saloon and a hatchback with a willing engine that produced reasonable performance, and, like the Cortina, it soon found its niche as a response vehicle. Merseyside, Derbyshire and Sussex Police took on the Cavalier, and, in later Mk3 and Mk4 versions, forces like the Met and Lancashire also brought them on board. But just like Ford in the mid-1990s, Vauxhall were caught napping and missed the move towards diesel power, and it was several years before we started to see cars like the Mk2 Vectra and the Mk5 Astra make a fight back towards the lucrative police market.
This picture of Woolwich Police Station yard in 1968 shows the eras changing, new Escort panda cars coming in to replace Anglias, but an S-type area car still being used along with a Hunter, Rover P4 and Mk2 Cortina.
Think Jaguar and most of us will think Traffic car; whether it be a 1960s Mk2 or the latter XJ6 range, we generally remember the big cats for cruising the country’s motorway network. But the Metropolitan Police decided that the S-Type Jaguar would make an ideal area car – and who would possibly argue? Certainly not the boys tasked with driving them! Probably one of the best-looking saloon cars of all time, the S-Type Jaguar still stirs something in most of us, and in police trim it looks positively fabulous. The Met employed these cars as both traffic and area cars, with the former painted in white and the latter in black. These cars were produced on a separate production line – but only at the weekends – and were some 33 per cent cheaper to buy than the standard production car, but then there were some significant changes to facilitate that reduction that makes these cars unique. For starters, the 3.4-litre engine was changed in favour of the more powerful 3.8 unit, which was married to an automatic gearbox and a low-ratio Power-Lok limited-slip differential. There was no power-assisted steering and the tachometer was removed. But it was the interior where most of the savings were made, by removing the polished walnut veneer dash and door cappings so often associated with the marque and replacing them with very cheap wood painted matt black. Out came the deep-pile carpet and in went rubber floor matting. The door cards were plain black vinyl affairs with no door pockets or arm rests. In total there were more than 150 changes made to each car, and between 1966 and 1968 the Met Police bought 266 S-Type Jags, making it the single-biggest order for one model ever made. Of those 266 units, 183 of them were black area cars whilst the remaining 83 white cars were designated as Traffic cars. It must have been quite a thrill to drive one, on a shout with the Winkworth bell chiming away through the streets of 1960s London, although it’s doubtful whether it was possible to get anywhere near the car’s 120mph top end very often. A total of only five police-spec S-Type Jaguars have been saved and restored to their former glory, with three of them being area cars. As a restorer, personally I think it’s a shame that more of these cars were not saved.
Prior to the Met buying S-Type Jags, their area car of choice was the Wolseley 6/110. The big Farina cars were powered by a 2.9-litre straight six engine mated to a 3-speed gearbox. They were all finished in black and carried a large PA speaker on the roof. The cars were good for just over 100mph and the officers who crewed them rated them as the best area cars they’d ever had. In most other forces the cars were used as Traffic cars, with the last ones still in service as late as 1972. Their subsequent success on the banger racing circuit (big BMC Farinas were the banger of choice in the 70s and 80s) oddly required much the same qualities as those needed in a police car. Shame so many got destroyed, though.
Rover’s foray into the police-car market didn’t really begin until the introduction of the P6, but with it came instant cult status. Prior to the P6’s introduction a couple of forces had dabbled with the P4 – namely Cheshire, who had an entire fleet of them in green! Like the Wolseley 6/80 and the Jaguar Mk2, the Rover has become an iconic police vehicle revered by many, especially those officers who were tasked with driving them. Although many forces used the 3500 V8 as a Traffic car, with some using the smaller 2200 as an area car, only the Met sought to use the V8 as an area car, taking over the role from the outgoing S-Type Jags. They were all finished in Zircon blue, with a single blue light and a couple of Mickey Mouse spot lamps adorning the roof, and they will