Model Police Vehicles

As the needs for policing grew, so did their fleets of vehicles. In the early years they British police used patrol cars, but slowly more specialist vehicles were introduced.

Additions to police forces included:

• Area Cars
• Response Cars
• Traffic Cars
• Armed Units
• Dog Units
• Mounted police Vehicles
• Motorcycles
• Horseboxes
• Removal Trucks
• Custody Units
• Umarked Cars (a challenge to spot!)

In the early years, the colours of these vehicles differed, but by the mid 60’s the iconic Panda Car appeared in Light Blue and White and became a popular image on TV ‘soaps’ like Heartbeat. Nothing got the heart racing more than the sight of the blue flashing light or the wail of the siren as police officers raced to an incident.

In the 1980’s there was a move to standardize these to white with stripes. In recent years the Battenberg markings have been used on white and silver vehicles as the needs road policing increased.

The addition of helicopters has also added the need for roof marking on the police cars.

The Oxford range of scaled diecast vehicles has many authentic liveries, so if you are modelling there is sure to be a UK police car  in our range that is suitable for you.

See some of the great Classic Cars at Motor and Sports magazine.