Some police officers were also just drivers

Martin Sigrist
05/01/2025

Sweeping around the bend with blue lights, passing traffic on the left in front of the red light and ignoring any speed limits with a serious expression - some people may count this image among their childhood memories. A police car exerted a special fascination, a fact that is reflected in the vast number of toy cars that were available as police versions. If you look back and search through various archive blogs, Facebook pages of the Swiss police corps or the websites of city archives and the like, you will find a colorful bouquet of former Swiss police cars. It is clear that there were three main brands that dominated between 1960 and 1980: Volvo, VW and BMW. But the outliers and exotics are all the more interesting - from the Montage-Suisse-Chevrolet or Automontage-Schinznach-Plymouth to the Porsche or even Alfa Romeo.

Giulia of the Zurich city police in action during the 1980 youth riots

This blog was prompted by an acquaintance from the United Kingdom who, over a coffee in the sun in Einsiedeln, remarked with some astonishment as a fire department Land Rover drove past that he was surprised at how many different brands are used as official vehicles in Switzerland. Whereupon I told him about the Zurich Porsche 356 and 912 for the highway, the Jaguar Mk2 of the Aargau police for the same purpose or even the Alfa Romeo Giulia of the Zurich city police. Well, my colleague has long since returned home to Scotland, but after night-time forays on the Internet I came across some more amazing official vehicles.

Wolseley 6/80 of the St. Gallen police - a classic police vehicle for colleagues on the island at the time

The Wolseley in use in St. Gallen around 1950 was truly remarkable, not to mention THE preferred police vehicle of British police forces at the time, as was the motorcycle team used by the St. Gallen police: a veritable HRD Vincent Rapide with 1000 cubic centimetres and around 45 hp, with which you could ride right at the front in the early 1950s in pursuit of bad guys and other mischief-makers.

After all, you didn't treat yourself to anything else: HRD Vincent - one of the finest motorcycle brands of its time - in the St. Gallen police service!

THE Swiss police machine par excellence of the 1950s: over 20 police corps relied on the quality of the Universal 580 from Oberrieden on Lake Zurich, and the St. Gallen police force even received 5 of the "Model Sport B 50" with OHV engine.

The police corps of the canton of Aargau was also able to really step on the gas from 1963. At that time, the first three Jaguar Mk2 3.4s were put into service, and shortly afterwards a 3.8-liter was added to the fleet. With its 220 hp, this was probably one of the fastest police cars in Switzerland, perhaps even a touch faster than the Porsche 911s used by the Zurich cantonal police from 1966. Previously, the Zurich police had gone on the hunt for criminals in open 356s.

Here still with AG 290, the Jaguar Mk2 3.8 of the Aargau police later bore the sign "AG 5". With its 220 hp, it was probably one of the fastest emergency vehicles in Switzerland in the mid-1960s. The car still exists and is currently being restored.

The Alfa Romeo Giulia of the Zurich city police, which were still on duty in the city on the Limmat until the early 1980s, were by no means underpowered either, alongside the almost obligatory Volvo - from the Amazon to the 240 of the 1970s.

Volvo Amazon 122 S in service with the Zurich city police in the first half of the 1960s; the choice of tires was pragmatic.

After all, it was clear that even back then the pursuit of traffic offenders was not one of the core tasks of the police, and it was and still is much less nerve-wracking to hide quietly and secretly in order to operate a speed trap. A comfortable VW bus was enough to transport them. This is my own personal guess, any correspondence with reality is purely coincidental. And even those who don't always drive past the police without any nervousness should be aware that even back then some of the law enforcement officers were big car fans and understood very well where, when and why the right big toe occasionally twitched. No wonder, given the fleet of vehicles you were offered in this job back then. By the way, if neither the Audi e-tron nor the Tesla Model X can persuade you to become a police officer today, you might want to prepare yourself to write an application in Arabic. The law enforcement officers in Dubai recently took delivery of a Rolls-Royce Cullinan with a special treatment from Mansory...