Fighting crime for 29 years... the police car that just won’t quit

IN 1980s-set TV cop show Ashes To Ashes, swaggering detective Gene Hunt jumped into his Audi police car with the catchphrase: “Fire up the Quattro!”

Now it has emerged that officers from Police Scotland have their own relic of 1980s motoring – and it’s still going strong.

The 1989 Land Rover is the oldest vehicle on the force –older indeed than many of the force’s officers.

Police Scotland insists its older vehicles tend to be kept for specialist tasks, so don’t run up many miles and are in tip-top condition.

But news of the 29-year-old police car has upset one politician, who claimed the force’s cars show evidence of years of budget cuts.

Liam McArthur, the Liberal Democrats’ justice spokesman, said: “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.

“People will be surprised to learn that the police still own a vehicle from 1989.

“Officers and staff do a fantastic job of keeping our communities safe in often tough circumstances, but the SNP’s botched centralisation continues to undermine their efforts as projected savings have not been realised.”

All fired up: DCI Gene Hunt drove an Audi Quattro in ’80s-set drama Ashes To Ashes (Allstar / BBC)

A freedom of information request by the Lib Dems also found that a third of Police Scotland’s fleet is more than five years old and the force has 95 cars that are more than a decade old.

But a spokesperson for the force insisted it was “currently investing heavily in the modernisation of the current fleet”.

More than 250 vehicles were replaced last year at a cost of £5.6 million and a further 290 are due to be swapped out for newer models in the coming 12 months.

The spokesperson added: “We also maintain a number of vehicles which are required for essential operational use, but may not travel long distances.

“A mobile police station at a murder scene, for example, may sit for some time without moving, but is still an essential vehicle, despite not having many miles ‘on the clock’.”

The force says the average age of its cars is now lower than in previous years.

So it’s not just the officers who are getting younger…