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| By Henry Biggs, November 02, 2006 Revealed: 211mph Police Lamborghini A few years ago I remember seeing one of those “Police Slow” signs at the side of the road, upon which some wag had scrawled: “they are, aren’t they?” Well if that gentleman or any other miscreant think they can outrun the long arm of the law, let me tell you, its reach has just got a lot longer thanks to a 640bhp Lamborghini Murcielargo LP640. No more BMW 535d patrol cars for our boys in blue. Instead they will have a bellowing Italian 6.5-litre V12 and four-wheel-drive at their disposal, good for 211mph and 0-62mph in 3.4 seconds. That should have the joyriders giving up and coming quietly before they’ve even managed to hotwire the ignition. The world’s coolest cop car is going to be on display at the Metropolitan Police stand at the MPH ’06 show at London’s Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre which starts today and runs until November 5. And it’s not the first Charging Bull to wear “jam sandwich” livery. Last year the Met unveiled a Lamborghini Gallardo traffic car but perhaps with a mere 500bhp from its 5.0-litre V10 it’s no longer up to the job. And definitely outclassed these days is the Lotus Esprit S4 deployed as part of the thin blue line in 1994. Although, thanks to the Esprit’s low kerb weight, a mere 264bhp was still good enough for 165mph and 0-60 in 4.7 seconds. Well okay, the Murcielargo, like the Gallardo and Esprit is only a styling exercise designed to strike fear into the hearts of any ne’er do wells with a screwdriver and a hooded top. But the Italian Carabinieri don’t mess around with such half measures. The Roman cops simply ring Sant’Agata and ask for a couple of Gallardos to be delivered in a fetching shade of blue with some flashing lights on the roof. Yup, the patrol car you see here really does prowl the Salerno Reggio Calabria highway outside Rome waiting to catch flying Fiat 500s. And it’s not the first time such exotica have been used on patrol, in the ‘60s a Ferrari 250GTE was pressed into service. But hang on, what do they do with the bad guys once they’ve caught them? There aren’t any back seats. |
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