Great cars them Senators.Even today's traffic cops working in that era would say nothing topped a senator back then.
I did say what it was One of only 2 twin turbo 3 litre Vauxhall Senators ever built. We also has a special 4.2 litre Jag XJ6 built which Jaguar would replace every 3 years, it was bespoke for Police use, and unlike most Police vehicles which are actually slower than their civillian counterparts, Jaguar guaranteed that it would be the quickest thing out there. It worked out cheaper as the Police would not have needed to buy the vehicle and then take a hit on the resale value, it would have been leased, but the powers that be did not want to be committed to just one make. Makes you wonder how we ended up with these pieces of poo This was my old motor. Biggest pile of junk going
Tell u what though, those SD1's were great banger cars. Square steering wheel,dash board cloth used to peel off,dashboard bits used to fall off and the electrics were shocking.
Yes it was. I went to Cowley to watch them build it. Very quickly I realised and found out why they fell apart so quickly and why BL had such a poor reputation. Very shortly after we switched to the Senators But hey were not always without problems.
Yes it was. I went to Cowley to watch them build it. Very quickly I realised and found out why they fell apart so quickly and why BL had such a poor reputation. This was the standard Senator we had
When I first went on Traffic, this was our standard Motorway car. This is the Newbury car driven by Chris Bastin based at Newbury. Back in those days we had personal issue
I used to have a Vitesse SD1 V8 when I was 22, only bought it as they were doing quite well in BTCC Touring Cars against the Sierra Cossie's and the like, plus Plod drove em so thought can't be all bad. Sounded ACE driving through town with twin Janspeed Zorts rattling windows and dropping the nickers of the local talent at will!
HD dash cameras and helicopters have long since rendered pursuit vehicles like this a pointless exercise.
Plus the cameras are amazing, I used to maintain similar systems you can see a cigarette ember from 10'000 ft in IR
I've been up in the police helicopter, their cameras can catch you having a piss in a hedge in pitch black dark and tell if you're jewish...
TT racers are quicker than the chopper, it has to cut around the mountain course to catch them at the section further around. What's a police helicopter top speed, 130 - 140?
