Articles and Stories

April 17, 2017

We all dream of owning a high-performance car or at least driving one every now and then or just being able to drive fast enough that we could outrun the police and avoid that speeding ticket (not that we would ever drive that fast). If you have no chance of driving a super car or a muscle car, maybe you should sign up to become a police officer.

In Italy, the police force has been presented with a new Lamborghini Huracan. Its top speed is 200 mph and it goes from 0 to 62 in 3.4 seconds. This is the latest model and second Lambo car that was given to the police. The first one, a 2009 Lamborghini Gallardo, was often used to transport organs to patients or blood supplies to accident sites, and, of course, to chase anybody who tried to outrun the police. That Gallardo, which was driven for 150,000 kms will now go to the police car museum in Rome.

This Lamborghini Huracan is only one of the super cars that police use around the world.

Here is a list of the most expensive police cars and those that perform the best:

Austria – Porsche 911
Qatar – Porsche Panamera
South Africa – Lamborghini Gallardo
England – Lamborghini Murcielago
Germany – Mercedes Benz Brabus Rocket CLS
Dubai – Bugatti Veyron

The fastest police cars in the U.S. have top speeds of around 155 mph. The Americans typically refer to American-made high performance vehicles as ‘muscle cars’. This is a very American term and not easy to translate.

The Germans also use the term ‘muscle car’ or ‘PS-Monster’ (‘PS’ stands for Horse Power, and ‘monster’ has the same meaning as in German), or simply ‘Boliden’. The English translation of ‘Boliden’ refers to the word ‘bolides’ which is ‘a large meteor that explodes in the atmosphere’.

There is no Italian term for ‘muscle car’, the concept itself does not exist in Italy, it’s very American. Italians might say “macchine sportive” (sport machines) but that does not convey the exact same meaning as in English.

The French use the term ‘gros bolides’, which back translates to ‘huge bolides’.