Italian police to get Lamborghini Gallardo

[James Kimbley]

Looks like I wont be speeding in Italy anymore when on holiday.

Italian police to have supercar
Traffic police patrolling a motorway in southern Italy have a tough decision to take: who will get to drive the force's first Lamborghini Gallardo?
The gift from Lamborghini has been unveiled in all its blue and white glory, marked with the word "Polizia".

With a top speed of 309 kph (192 mph), it should have the edge in any chase on the Salerno-Reggio Calabria motorway.

However, the car is just as likely to be used for emergency deliveries such as human organs for transplant.

The sleek two-seater, topped with a flashing blue light, was put on display in Rome at a police event before entering service on the notorious motorway in the south.

It is a six-speed luxury vehicle with a 500-horsepower engine designed to go from zero to 100 kph (60 mph) in four seconds.

Donated by the Lamborghini factory in Bologna, its list price is US $165,000, probably making it unlikely that the Italian police force will actually buy any for its fleet.

Other traffic police forces which cannot boast a Lamborghini resort to devices of their own against speeders: in Russia, for example, officers have been known to shoot out the tyres of offenders with machine-guns.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/h...pe/3717471.stm

Published: 2004/05/15 14:36:02 GMT

[429CJ]

Here's some more pics:

http://www.theautochannel.com/F/news...13/194600.html

[rdjones]

Well its different is it.....

[KA]

It wouldn't be the first time it's been done either- the Italian police (if I remember the article in a Classic car magazine correctly, it was in Rome) used the Ferrari 250GTE in the 60's:

http://www.poliziadistato.it/pds/chi...ferrari250.htm

[kickstart]

James, interesting story about Russian cops shooting out tyres on speeding drivers. Somehow I think that is apocryphal.
I go to Russia regularly,part of my family comes from there, and have been stopped for speeding on 3 occasions there. I should point out that I am not some sort of loony and that on two of these occasions I was not speeding, but I was stopped anyway. The Police either fine you on the spot about 10 dollars or you can offer a "gift" to the Police to forget about it.
If you are driving a flash car generally the cops want to have a look or go for a ride in it.

[Homer Simpson]

Originally posted by kickstart
The Police either fine you on the spot about 10 dollars or you can offer a "gift" to the Police to forget about it.
If you are driving a flash car generally the cops want to have a look or go for a ride in it.

I used to live in Ecuador, and the cops there will stop you for no reason other than to check if your engine VIN code matches your registration. Most of the time, the cops there (and in certain other South American countries) expect nothing more than a cigarette, but it's much easier to just fold u.s. $5 bill underneath your license when they ask for it.

[Bigguy]

A colleague had worked for years in Panama. He told me that when a police car came up behind with siren and lights on, the only answer was to put your foot down, because the policeman was highly likely to rob you! Scary place. The company used to pay their expatriates double, and pull them out within four years, as the odds of nervous breakdowns got too high after that!

The company was a major bank, and at one stage they got stuck with a warehouse full of contraband liquor, so they did what any major bank would do (NOT!)... they hired a plane and smuggled the stuff into another country to get their money back! True story!

[Vicki]

I have a teenage friend who says he would rob an Italian bank just for a ride in that Gallardo police car! Is he mad or is he a normal teenage boy? I love cars and stuff, but I'm not that stupid! No offence meant to any men, my friend is a bit mad!

[Bluebottle]

Sounds normally mad to me!!!