It’s official: police in Scotland love a retro cop car

What’s the oldest police car you’ve seen on the roads? Police in Scotland are running nearly 100 cars more than a decade old – and one was registered as early in 1989.

That’s according to information released by the Scottish Liberal Democrats following a freedom of information request in a bid to highlight “the state of Police Scotland’s vehicle fleet”. We’ll leave politics aside for a minute, and ponder what exactly Police Scotland could be running that’s nearly 30 years old.

In the Guardian’s coverage of the story, there’s a photo of a lovely old 1985 Ford Cortina used by Strathclyde Police. It appears to be in a museum though, and hasn’t been taxed since 1991 – so it’s unlikely that that’s still on the fleet.

Instead, we suspect the oldest vehicle is a specialist bit of kit and may not be used very often. It isn’t necessarily a police car – it could be a van, lorry or even a bus. The chances are, it’s probably sitting forgotten about behind a police station somewhere.

“We’ve seen reports of cars held together by duct tape and cable ties and now this new data sheds more light on the state of the Police Scotland fleet,” said Scottish Liberal Democrat justice spokesperson Liam McArthur.

“People will be surprised to learn that the police still own a vehicle from 1989. Maybe it is an Audi Quattro.”

The data also revealed that a third of Police Scotland’s fleet is more than five years old.

Until recently, Humberside Police had Proton Impians in service, but they were the “butt of many jokes throughout the ranks and to the general public”.

Read more:

• Lotus Carlton: the bonkers saloon that made the headlines
• Ford pledges to save historic cars traded in under scrappage scheme
• Santa would drive a Subaru BRAT