Proton’s Lotus marks history into British Police’s stable

 

Proton Wira in service as a British Police car

In the early nineties, Malaysians are proud when their national car Proton Iswara made it into the stables of British Police. Proton UK at the time offered a good deal for the British consumers. It was a definite boost and boon for the Perusahan Otomobil Nasional Bhd., which just went listed then.

 

Proton Waja aka Proton Impian (as known in the UK)

Then the legacy lives on. Malaysian-indigenous Proton Impian (originally Proton Waja) entered the British Police service. In 2005 Humberside Police started to use Proton indigenous -designed-and-developed Gen 2 for the North Eastern English province.

 

Proton Persona

The most recent is recently launched Proton subsidiary’s Lotus Evora, being offered for Midlands Police for the patrol run along all London-west-coast bound major highways.

Britain’s fastest police car

Lotus has donated one of its Evora sports cars to the traffic cops operating in the West Midlands.

Dressed in full panda car livery, the Evora will be a worrying sight for speeders.

Lotus Evora now in service with Midlands Police

Of more concern for law-breakers is the car’s 276bhp 3.5-litre V6 engine, which propels it to 60mph in 4.9 seconds and on to a top speed of 162mph, rendering it Britain’s fastest police car.

The Evora starts at £48,550 and it’s the first car of its type to be used by a police force in the UK.

However, it’s not a permanent fixture, as Lotus has loaned the car to the force, so it will only be on the beat for two weeks as part of a trial.

Drivers can expect to see the Evora patrolling the M5, M6 and M42 motorways as well as the M6 toll road.

Speaking to the ‘Daily Mail’, PC Angus Nairn said: “It’s a very quick car and we hope it will prove an effective deterrent to anyone thinking of speeding or trying to outrun us.

“It has incredible performance yet still does around 30 miles to the gallon. It will attract a lot of attention on the motorways but that is the whole idea – it will remind drivers of the need to keep to the speed limits at all times.”

This isn’t the first time that the West Midlands Police has employed the services of specialist vehicles. Last year it borrowed an HGV to see into the cabs of lorries and catch careless drivers using their mobile phones at the wheel.

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The acceptance of the ‘fastest Police car in the British history’ of the recently Geneva-Auto-Show-launched latest Lotus product would definitely be a major boost for the Proton subsidiary. This automatically placed Lotus in the same league as Porsche, which is currently serving the German Polizei  Highway Patrol.

Proton should optimise this opportunity and go for a major global campaign. This is a precursor of a much larger branding campaign if and when Lotus could be the next Q-issued car for on-screen-famed MI 6 assassin and master-spy, James Bond or “Agent Double-Zero-Seven”. For the record, Lotus Espirit appeared as the ‘Bond-car’ in the 1977 flick “The Spy Who Loves Me” and 1981 flick “For Your Eyes Only”, replacing the traditional Aston Martin ‘Bond-car’.