UK: Sussex police get Lotus Exige cruiser
Click image for photo gallery
Over in England, the East Sussex police department has a new machine in the motor pool, and there's no doubting it's the class of the bunch. The force recently took delivery of a fully-liveried Lotus Exige, right down to the flashing blue lights. While it sounds like the perfect speed enforcement/pursuit machine, the car's actual purpose is more diplomatic in nature. Speeding and generally obnoxious driving habits by teens have apparently become a bit of an issue, and the Lotus serves as a rolling ambassador to the lead-footed youth population. Brought out for public awareness campaigns and gatherings, the Sussex police department says that the car brings teens to them, and that makes it easier for the police to sell their safety message to the kids. If it works, good for them. Lord knows we'd be doing anything but setting an example if we were handed an Exige as our work vehicle. It'd be more like this: "Alright then, kids. Here's what not to do." Cue the squealing tires...
[Source: Auto Trader]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Aaron B Brown 8:55PM (10/25/2007)
I wanna be a cop in Sussex RRRUUUUMMMMMM! RRRUUUUMMMMMM!
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Lamborgini 7:05AM (10/26/2007)
What's next ? Aston Martin/Lamborgini rofl
http://lamborgini.notlong.com
schlomo 10:10PM (10/25/2007)
reminds me of the sweet STi at the end of Hot Fuzz...
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Mobius_1 8:06AM (10/26/2007)
For the greater good...
Hank 2:10PM (10/26/2007)
bring on the fuzz!!!
i love that movie lol
zamafir 9:41PM (10/25/2007)
best... police.. car.. ever. Good luck getting away from that... anything. lol
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schlomo 10:14PM (10/25/2007)
to be fair, I do believe a 'vette ZR1 or better could outrun it.
I know if I was driving a Koneigsegg, Bugatti, Enzo, etc. I wouldn't think twice before passing that Exige doing 50 over.
With that being said, I do enjoy the drive of a Lotus far more than any other car I've experienced (sadly, no Enzo or Bugatti drives for me, but I've had my fair share of drives in exotics). Overall, it should make a great police car, even if the suspension keeps it confined to nice flat pavement.
zamafir 10:27PM (10/25/2007)
Have you ever tried to out muscle an exige on the freeway... in traffic? on anything but a completely opened Montana freeway? I don't care how much HP you have, if you're on anything with more then two lanes, you're not beating this.
cwcentral 10:48PM (10/25/2007)
Cool so when the cop gets out of the car, I can gun it since it will take him 5min to get back in.
Nice that the cops can keep up in a chase, but ease of entry/exit maybe more important, especially if you're packing.
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chris 1:41AM (10/26/2007)
There's an Exige doing pretty much the exact same role in Sydney as well. Just drives around to try and discourage hoons and such.
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Phil Perman 6:13AM (10/26/2007)
I'm a youth, and I live in Sussex! Appears I'm the target audience.
We get some nice cop cars down here, I saw an unmarked Audi A8 the other day, and I'm pretty sure theres an unmarked Merc E class estate buzzing around too.
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Dr. Greenthumb 7:18AM (10/26/2007)
I am not going to argue if this is the best police car ever or not or if can even keep up with an M5 or CTS-V or Z06 on an open Highway. You're an idiot if you think it can. These are the best, most nimble cars in tight confines. Race tracks and city streets.
One other thing, THIS IS NOT A CRUISER. Cruising is a realm that is reserved for cars with MONSTER motors. Cruiser is a car that can lope along @ 1500 - 3000 RPM. No 4 cylinder car is a cruiser.
A proper crusier has a SLUSH-O-MATIC transmisson.
The term "police cruiser" refer to cars such as Crown Vics and Caprices with 454 & 427 motors or anything driven by the Blues Brothers.
The sexiest police cruiser ever?
http://www.autoblog.com/category/cadillac/page/2/
Now, is the Sussex Police Lotus Exige bad ass? Hell yeah!!
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zamafir 8:17PM (10/26/2007)
LMAO. soo when my four banger lopes along at 80mph under 3,000 RPM it's not the exception to your magic rule is it? Gearing having nothing to do with a car's ability to turn low rpm at high speeds. lmao.
Dr. Greenthumb 7:24AM (10/26/2007)
http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2007/08/img_0001.jpg
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cowboy bob 8:28AM (10/26/2007)
Isn't this all rather stupid? What possible excuse could one have to make a police car out of one of these, or anything like it for that matter. About 98% of a police cars life is patrol of highways, or responding to accident, robberys, fires, or investigations. New York State Troopers , where I live, bought about 25 Comaros with LT1's in the late 90's as "persuit vehicles". Within one year, 60% had been wrecked, and the rest went to auction within another year. They now use two wheel drive Chevrolet Tahoes and Crown Vic's as staples. They still manage to wreck these on a regular basis, but at least the percentages are down. Police chases are rare, and who wants some jacka*s running 150MPH on public roads for any reason anyway? We just had a 23 year old NYS trooper kill a mother of four after plowing into her from behind at over 100MPH in a Tahoe while "responding" to a supposed problem involving another officer.
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chris 9:44AM (10/26/2007)
Did you even read the article? If you actually read it, you'd realise your entire comment was largely pointless.
cowboy bob 10:32AM (10/26/2007)
Chris, "Fully liveried, right down to the flashing blue lights", says to me that someone went to the expense and work to make a police car out of this thing. "More diplomatic" doesn't indicate that this won't be used in police business. My comment was "Isn't this all rather stupid?", and I would stand by that statement. I brought up the Comaros only because of the further example of stupidity in placement of a vehicle in a purpose for which it is obviously ill intended. Your opinion as to my comment clearly missed my intent, which was to say that this conversion was not the most intelligent use of resources, in spite of the dubious "diplomatic" benefit.
Richard 12:01PM (10/26/2007)
First, the Exige doesn't squeal its tires. That's what overweight muscle cars do. Maybe you'll get a bit of a chirp if you dump the clutch at 8000 rpm, but this car has more traction than torque.
Second, cops don't have a "safety message." This is propaganda to cover the true purpose of traffic enforcement: raising revenue from easy targets.
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cowboy bob 5:55PM (10/26/2007)
Richard, you are absolutly correct about cops. As far as the tire thing, I'm sure that sombody can make noise with almost anything. Back in the day of the old flathead sixs you could lay quite a "patch" by running backwards, and then pulling it into first (crunch) and flooring it. What fun at 16.
Evan Brom 2:52PM (10/26/2007)
I think it would be funny watching the cop take 1 min to get out of the little shoe box. Or just terrible to have to sit in that this for long hours while not going fast.
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