Trinity said:
They get sent to specialist tuners who modify pretty much everything. This will see the plus side of 170mph and will hit 60 in around 3-4 seconds at full chat.
I doubt that very much. I don't know of any police spec traffic car that will hit 3-4 seconds, more so a Volvo and that is no disprespect to them because most traffic plods will tell you the T5 is pound for pound one of the best traffic cars there has been so far. 3-4 seconds is territory that even some Ferrari and Lambos cannot achieve.
It is an urban myth that traffic cars are tuned before delivery except that wiring loops may be different to support the lighting and gadgetry in a modern traffic vehicle. Also, an ARV may get upgraded brakes and suspension as they carry a lot of weight in terms of ballistic protection.
Lets look at some of the traffic vehicles in operation.
BMW 530, BMW 330, Mercedes 320 Kompressor, Volvo S60, Evos .... the list goes on and these cars have excellent performance out of the box. Is there any need to tune a police car of these types ? The majority of cars they will pursue will be older motors that have been stolen to commit crimes in but invariably there will sometimes be a performance car that is pursued that may have better performance but 9 times out of ten the police driver is a far superior driver which counts for a lot when the more inexperienced driver loses it on a corner, which is what happens a lot of the time.
A car that is failing to stop and accelerating away is never faster than digital communiations and the copper chopper which will be called on as will other class 1 drivers to try to effect a T-Pack manoever while the helicopter vidoes the lot overhead.
The Dark Side is clearly on the ball mentioning cost. It costs a lot of money to tune a car, especially a fleet of them and already stretched police budgets could not manage that, especially when they have to justify such costs to a police authority who bankroll the force and who will want to know why a 3 litre beemer needs tuning which will shave operational life out of it as a result.
You will occasionally see Lambos and other performance cars striped up but it is usually for show only in conjunction with a supplying garage. Which police authority will give the go ahead for such an exotic and totally unjustified spend ?
