Sydney cops a Fiat police car
6 Feb, 2008
32 Comments 
First there was the Lotus, then a TRD Aurion, followed by a Hummer (bottom) and now a Fiat. Sydney’s Leichhardt Police has a new Punto to add to its fleet.
The Leichhardt branch say that by using this car as transport, it frees up normal police cars to carry out their duties.
“A marked up Fiat police vehicle does tend to turn heads!” said Superintendent Wayne Cox, Leichhardt Local Area Commander. “Despite being marked up as a police vehicle, we don’t use the Fiat for normal police work. Used for community policing, it’s a great way of building rapport between young people and police and certainly helps us get our safe driving messages through to car enthusiasts.”
CarAdvice would like to hear what you think. Does a liveried car get the safe driving message through?
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February 6th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
I don’t think the police have any idea to be honest. They can hardly tell the difference between a hoon or an enthusiast and they always seem to pick on the innocent enthusiast. Seriously, my mate’s skyline gets followed or even stalked by the police twice per week (on average) and later pulled over when he has done nothing wrong and there is nothing incriminating looking about his skyline. but obviously as police know absolutely nothing about real performance cars they pick on skyline drivers because they are the only mainstream well-known proven performance cars when the fezza hoons are behind the wheel of some vl bomadore!!1
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February 6th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Why a Fiat, couldn’t they afford a Focus.
The Hummer looks like a great waste of the tax payer money. Nicely marked up though.
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February 6th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
haha..i just love it when it comes to changin “names” -bomadore(LOL)
how does commonwhore sound to u?bhaha
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February 7th, 2008 at 2:13 am
I’m sure it’ll go some distance to building the rapport Police are looking for.
Marked cars serve a purpose, but I’m a big supporter of unmarked cars whose drivers must have the greater opportunity then those of a marked car to catch people doing stupid things…really stupid things.
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February 7th, 2008 at 8:30 am
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Whats next the Nissan Micra with cops in lycra….?
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February 7th, 2008 at 8:51 am
How cute! Hahaha. It’s kinda cool. Maybe they should have imported a Fiat 500 instead!
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February 7th, 2008 at 9:23 am
The Punto looks cute but surely won’t chase anything. The problem really lies on road discipline, and like what Damo said, reckless driving is oftentimes associated with what they drive, which shouldn’t be the case. The country keeps addressing the wrong issues, like adding speed limits to NT highways and focussing mainly on drunk and drugged driving. Even if motorists are not intoxicated, they still tend to drive abusively, especially several P platers swerving around as if they wanna prove something.
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February 7th, 2008 at 9:32 am
for the money spent on the fiat, they could have bought a corolla and saved all our tax money.
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February 7th, 2008 at 9:41 am
May as well just give them a push bike - better for them, the environment and traffic congestion, or do they intend to drive the fiat in the bike lanes?
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February 7th, 2008 at 10:00 am
I can’t confirm it, but I’m sure this vehicle, along with the Hummer & TRD Aurion, would have been provided by the manufacturer free of charge, done purely to gain a bit of publicity for the model and their brand.
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February 7th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Damo, I see more idiot drivers driving the Skylines, Supra’s etc. And a lot of them have not the faintest idea. I would guarantee you percentage wise that there are more hoons driving those pieces of s.h.i.t than Commodores and the reason has a lot to do with the majority of video games depicing those cars makes drivers of those cars think they are invicible.
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February 7th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Damo maybe your mate should do three things which might help number 1. Turn his baseball cap around the right way 2. Put his seat up so he can see over the dash board 3. Turn his music down so people in the street can hear each other? Cops wont look twice lol
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February 7th, 2008 at 10:48 am
JBot would be right, the Police would get the car on loan. Just like the Italian Polizia got the Lambo Gallardo, but they were actually using it for chases.
FMHAHC, Skylines, to begin with, are not pieces of sh*t. There are some people who turn them into pieces of sh*t.
I own a near-original Skyline GT-R and it is not a piece of sh*t. If you would like to come for a ride (with an open mind) I’d be happy to oblige. To my knowledge I have *never* got attention from the police in my car. Once a copper looked it up and down (with a smile) when I got RBT’d but that’s it.
Skylines, like Commodores and WRXs, have a bad reputation. All it takes is a subgroup of owners to drive like f*wits and to some that automatically gives all of us a bad name, so please give the rest of us a break.
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February 7th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
I love the quote from the local police commander, “….. we don’t use the Fiat for normal police work.”
Can’t imagine that it would be suitable - remember FIAT stands for Fix It Again Tony.
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February 7th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Should have got a Mazda 3 MPS instead, and used it as a pursuit car……. Maybe not in the wet though lol
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February 7th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
I wanna see the police ridin in the R32’s!!! or maybe all this talk about skylines, maybe they should be ridin in them and wait for street racers to race them then after the quick street drag BAM!!! you see red and blue lights and a flatbed. Now thats real Pink Slip racing right there.
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February 7th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Queensland cops must think NSW are fool of fags… while they are getting Tyhpoons and TRD Aurions in NSW they are getting….Fiats (Well not entirely true, the Lotus).
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February 7th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Clearly none of you have driven the Punto. I sat on 180km/h the other day on the M4 and it was whisper quiet inside. At 140km/h it was sitting on 1900 RPM in 6th gear.
Launching the Punto on Norton Street makes perfect sense. It is Little Italy.
The Punto is one of the biggest selling cars in Europe right now. FIAT no longer stands for Fix It Again Tony. Much like Alfa, they have lifted their game.
Steve
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February 7th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Steve, you are just the sort of idiot who kills innocent drivers. Wake up to yourself.
180 km/h?
Why is it people like you never seem to get caught?
Or perhaps youve already lost your licence.
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February 8th, 2008 at 1:26 am
The Fiat makes alot more sense then the Lotus or the Hummer.
Small cars like the Fiat would be perfect for most of the run around crap jobs the police do.
At the moment with no small cars manufactured in Australia they can by anything in that class.
Once Ford “if” Ford start making the Focus in Australia they we have to buy the local product.
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February 8th, 2008 at 4:58 am
Blueboy. You don’t even know me, how can you call me an idiot based on a couple of paragraphs.
I could be a cop. I could be The Stig. I could be Batman.
Steve
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February 8th, 2008 at 8:15 am
Steve, 140km/h at 1900RPM??????? I could be wrong, but this sounds like bull%$#&. Also, to get the Punto to 180 would have taken from concord to the toll gates lol. Point 3, i dont care if your Kimmi Raikonnen, but 180km/h on a public road makes you more a
d-head than an idiot.
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February 8th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Not sure how long they’ve had them, but I saw a black Mazda RX8 police car at Enfield last week. Looked very nice indeed.
It had the blue and white checkers along the side but also seemed to have some red logo/writing down near the rear doors - like it was specially tuned or something?
Didn’t get a real good look unfortunately as I was driving. Tried to go around to get a pic but lost ‘em
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February 8th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Nick, Call me whatever you like. I take what’s said on the net with half a grain of salt. I suggest you do the same.
But with that, the car was going 1,900 RPM in 6th at 140 km/h.
I careless if you believe me or not. Go test drive one.
Steve
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February 11th, 2008 at 11:50 am
This is a bit OT but Steve’s comment about going 180 on the M4 -
Reasons why it could be very dangerous - for instance doing it in heavy traffic. On the Autobahn the norm is to do this speed or more - countering that, the people who drive in Germany (generally speaking) have the etiquette and skills to maintain that sort of speed “norm”.
>>Aside from breaking the law
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February 11th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Aargh. Stupid forum cut half my message off because I used angled brackets.
Anyway what I was trying to say is that, aside from the traffic - ASSUME AN EMPTY ROAD - the M4 is essentially the same as an autobahn. It is a 3 lane freeway which is dead straight for several kilometres at a time with virtually no changes in elevation, is practically devoid of wildlife straying on the road and has no tree cover to drop leaves / sap etc on the road. In clear daytime conditions with a car that is properly maintained and roadworthy (take a BMW 540i for example) 200km/h would be a walk in the park and hardly dangerous.
Not that I would encourage this sort of driving…
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March 1st, 2008 at 6:37 pm
“FIAT no longer stands for Fix It Again Tony. Much like Alfa, they have lifted their game.”
That is simply not true.
You, and most people here, obviously haven’t been on fiatforum.com or have dealt with Ateco. Ateco simply does not give a $hit about its customers. I’ve submitted three formal complaints about my faulty GP within 16 months, and the last one they’ve ignored.
ACCC here I come.
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March 1st, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Kev - don’t take us seriously, we’re having a laugh
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March 2nd, 2008 at 11:52 am
I think the concept of the Fiat is a great idea. It works over in europe. Fiat cars are really good.
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April 26th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
I think some people here need to calm down a bit…these ‘fancy’ cars such as the Fiat, the Hummer and the RX8 etc to name but a few doing the rounds in various States are donated/sponsored vehicles used by Crime Prevention Officers etc for visits to schools/public events etc to raise the profile of Police.
They’re not general duties vehicles nor are they pursuit vehicles and they’re not “wasting taxpayers dollars”.
As for the whinger commenting about mates being ‘pulled over for nothing’…matey as a driver the Police can stop you anytime, anywhere for the purpose of RBT.
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April 26th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
I have no problems with the Police… Id prefer they pull anyone over who they suspect as being suss and catching 1% then missing that 1% of idiots. Ive been pulled over a few times for ‘reckless’ driving, as long as you aernt an arogant twat they are quite reasonable.
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April 26th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Being based in trendy Leichardt/balmain in inner sydney I suspect the Fiat will be used to patrol the streets and pull over anyone who either: doesn’t drive a european car;
isn’t wearing at least one piece of designer label clothing; doesn’t have one of those small dogs shoved into their handbags or is walking around without a triple espresso-moccha-latte-cino in their hand
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