#police

Every few years, Beijing’s government lashes out against billboards that advertise an ostentatious lifestyle. These exhortations are largely ignored, which preserves an endless source of involuntary humor.

It’s not out yet, and it won’t be before the end of the year, but Opel is already flogging the Euro-version of the Volt, the Ampera, as the perfect cop car. Main selling point: It’s a veritable multi mission vehicle. “Whether emission free on patrol, or silent during undercover surveillance, or fast and persistent when in hot pursuit – the Opel Ampera is the ideal police cruiser,” brags Opel, which appears to humor AutoBild.

You’re driving down the road at a spirited tempo when you see a big, black, tuned Taurus. No biggie, right?

Ever since the China Automotive Technology & Research Center, a government agency that “assists the government in such activities as auto standard and technical regulation formulating, product certification testing, quality system certification, industry planning and policy research, information service and common technology research” started issuing monthly car sales numbers, we had our issues with them.

Month after month, they came out with data early, received headlines all over the world, and when the official CAAM numbers came out, they were totally different. There were attempts to explain that CATRC reports registrations, whereas CAAM reports deliveries to dealers. But the numbers were too far apart. In August, we yelped “Come on, guys. China is the world’s largest auto market. Why do we have to endure this rigmarole every month?” When we reported the September numbers, the CATRC was conspicuously absent. Now, we know why.

I may have mentioned before (or you may have read about it) that the UK is undergoing a huge austerity program. In order to balance the UK’s books, massive spending cuts are being implemented. But in order to secure votes, the Conservative government (along with the Liberal Democrats) pledged that the NHS would not suffer these cuts in budgets. Wow! A right wing government actually PROTECTING nationalized healthcare? Those crazy Europeans! So this means that other facets of government spending are going to be hit hard. Very hard. In particular, the police. Greater Manchester Police won’t be hiring any new recruits for 2 years in order to save money. That’s how hard we’re talking. So any opportunity to save money will be welcome. Enter a bunch of South Koreans…

A crop of new police cars drew more than 400 law enforcement officials to Chrysler’s proving grounds in Chelsea today to see the Michigan State Police put the cars through acceleration, braking, high-speed handling and other tests.

This article isn’t gonna end well for Ford, and not just because it’s Panther Appreciation Week here at TTAC.

It has been almost three years since a young Saint Louis, Missouri motorist drew national attention by videotaping an out-of-control police officer’s profanity-laced tirade during a traffic stop ( view video). St. George Police Sergeant James Kuehnlein was fired because of the bad publicity generated by the incident captured by the taping system that Brett Darrow, 23, installed in his 1997 Nissan Maxima. On Saturday, St. Louis County Police stopped Darrow once again.

There’s lots of places to find old cop car photos, but I was perusing a 1953 Popular Science at bed time the other night, and remembered a story about the just-opened NJ turnpike and its new fleet of cop cars. Here are one of each of the fleet of 23 Fords and stealthy Chryslers. The Fords came with Mercury engines installed; their 255 cubic inch flathead V8s had a whopping 125 hp instead of the stock Ford 110 hp. The also had dual exhausts, “souped up rear ends”, and heavy duty cooling systems. The ten unmarked Chryslers “are capable of 120 mph”, which I wouldn’t question given their 180 hp hemi engines. Three “portable” radar timers (roadside, not hand-held) were also in the arsenal. And every trooper was trained in auto mechanics as part of the training; they would have known how to stop their runaway car.

Old Popular Sciences are a treasure trove of the bizarre and curious, reflecting American’s folksy inventiveness. I couldn’t resist scanning just two of these and sharing: