Dubai splurges on 700hp, 217mph Lamborghini police cruiser
There's nothing quite like obscene amounts of oil revenues
Pix The Dubai police force can expect a flood of applications to its cadet academy now that it has added a 217mph Lamborghini Aventador to its cruiser fleet.
How much did it set back Dubai's Finest to get their hands on this stylish bit of four-wheeled extravagance? It depends upon whom you believe: Sky News puts the price at £250,000 ($385,000), Metro says £350,000 ($535,000), and the Huffington Post can't make up its mind, with one story saying $400,000 and another, $550,000.
Whatever. No matter what the price of this beast, it's a safe bet that neither you nor your ink-stained Reg hack will ever have the pleasure of pressing the Aventador's pedal to the proverbial metal, and having its 6,500 cubic-centimeter, 700 horsepower V12 engine's acceleration thrust us back into what we can only assume is its fine leather driver's seat as it accelerates from zero to 60mph in three seconds, as reported by the New York Daily News.
Oh, and the Daily News says it cost $450,000.
While the Lamborghini Aventador may seem a wee bit over-the-top for a cop car, it does have its practical uses. Sky News reports, for example, that 15 per cent of the traffic tickets issued on any given day in Dubai are for speeding in excess of 130mph – and this Lambo has more than enough giddy-up to overtake lead foots (lead feet?) with effortless celerity.
This is decidedly not your standard-issue London Metropolitan Police panda car.
Sexy, indubitably – but how many doughnuts can it carry? (source: lainformacion.com; click to enlarge)
But then again, the Met police don't have to deal with what Sky News refers to as "the emirate's notorious Sheikh Zayed highway," site of many of Dubai's 122 deaths and 2,161 injuries in auto accidents during 2012.
And speaking of the Met police, we can't resist comparing Dubai's new cruiser to a few other cop cars with which our readers may be familiar. There is, for example, one of the cruisers used by said Met plods: the BMW 5-Series:
One of the better rides enjoyed by London's Metropolitan Police (source: Police Car Photos; click to enlarge)
Here at Vulture Annex in San Francisco, however, most of our boys in blue patrol the streets of the Cool Grey City of Love in a hefty Ford Crown Victoria:
It's big, it's sturdy, it's a Crown Vic (source: Highway Patrol Images; click to enlarge)
Once we San Franciscans hop onto the freeway – that would be the motorway, for you UK folks – jurisdiction switches to the California Highway Patrol, which is transitioning from the Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor to the Ford Explorer–based Police Interceptor Utility:
The PI Utility has plenty of room for miscreants and their ill-gotten gains (source: Motortrend; click to enlarge)
The CHP once patrolled California's vast freeway network in lightweight, swift Ford Mustang SSPs, but those days ended about 20 years ago. 'Twas a far sexier black-and-white than the PI Utility, to be sure, but not one that could put the fear of the deity – be he Jehovah, Yahweh, Allah, or whomever – into you nearly as effectively as a Lamborghini Aventador bearing down upon you at 217mph. ®
COMMENTS
@AC 06:37 ".... Women of course are not allowed to drive cars, restricted visibility of the burka could lead to loss of life."
I think you'll find that the restricted visibility of the burka has nothing to do with women not being allowed to drive and that it is entirely down to narrow minded religious shite!
Lived in the UAE..
Women are allowed to drive. At that point (some 5 years ago) they needed written permission from their employer or husband though. Things may have changed as the UAE is a lot more progressive than other GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries.
While I was living there, I witnessed first hand the appalling driving standards. Arab drivers in particular are very aggressive behind the wheel, brake-testing being a common reaction to any situation where they are held up for a few minutes. (Happened to me once, but my UK Driving habit of leaving space and driving within the speed limit meant I was more than ready to slow down a little without causing problems for anyone else).
There was a mighty crash in 2008 where 60 vehicles were involved and 300+ people injured. (http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/traffic-transport/horrific-accident-on-abu-dhabi-dubai-highway-near-ghantoot-1.90996) which caused a major debate. Add to this the prevelance of overladen, under-maintained HGV's where tyre blowouts are common, and the highway isn't cleared of the resulting strips of discarded rubber means you have to be on your toes.
For what it's worth though, the trip is usually uneventful heading from Dubai towards Ras Al Khaimah & Oman. Sharjah is a bottleneck, but once past there, it's open, wide highway (5 lanes in places) where you can happily trundle along at twice the speed limit without police intervention (witnessed, not done myself) As for the Lambo? it's nothing more than a show of wealth for an Emirate which is in financial trouble. (It borrows from Abu Dhabi regularly, which is the wealthier state and holds most of the oil resource for the UAE). All show.
The accidents on Sheikh Zayed Road are partly due to it having slip roads that are far too short, which result in traffic queuing on the highway, but mostly down the the generally low standard of driving.
The cops will have bought a Lambo for the same reason as every else who has one in Dubai, to crawl along at 15 mph revving the engine and generally looking like a twat.
« It's the only way they can catch the younger members of the Saudi royal family. »
1. Saudi Arabia != Dubai
2. Women *do* drive cars in Dubai (and also in Saudi, only without a licence)
Classy
Read a comment from head roof police saying it won't be used for catching baddies, its job will be to tour the tourist areas to show how classy Dubai is.
I always thought that if you have to tell people you've got, you haven't.
