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BMW M5: Victoria Police take delivery of Australia’s fastest highway patrol car

There's a new police car to watch for in your rearview mirror – and there’s no chance anyone will be able to outrun it.


It’s the fastest and most expensive highway patrol car to ever wear a police badge on active duty in Australia. 

And with a staggeringly quick 0 to 100km/h time of just 3.4 seconds – as fast as a Porsche – it will be impossible for the bad guys to outrun.

Victoria Police are about to be the envy of their colleagues across the country with a pair of high-performance BMW sedans making as much power as a V8 Supercar.

Two new BMW M5 sedans are poised to join Victoria’s state highway patrol alongside its fleet of BMW 530d diesel and Volkswagen Passat Turbo sedans that are gradually being rolled out as replacements for the homegrown Ford Falcon and Holden Commodore pursuit cars.

With the end of local car manufacturing, other states are also trialling the Kia Stinger and Chrysler SRT as possible replacements for highway patrol work.

But nothing comes close to the BMW M5. It’s powered by an epic twin turbo V8 with an output of 441kW – or 600 horsepower in the old money – matched to an eight-speed auto and all-wheel-drive.

And while the $230,000 price tag may initially cause alarm, the pair of M5 sedans won’t cost taxpayers one cent because BMW Australia has loaned the vehicles to police for 12 months.

A blue BMW M5 was photographed at Victoria Police’s fleet department and the images (above and below) were posted on a Facebook page dedicated to Australian Police Vehicles with the caption “M5 Competition Pack on loan from BMW to be fitted up and used as a Highway Patrol vehicle”.

While the car is yet to earn its stripes, it is expected to be fitted out and on the road within weeks.

BMW Australia declined to comment but CarAdvice understands the M5 sedans may be used as "halo cars" and for "light duties", but will be operational as highway patrol vehicles.

Other states have had halo highway patrol cars before – such as Porsches, McLarens, a Ford Mustang and a HSV GTS – but they were for public events and not operational vehicles.

According to the Facebook post, the BMW M5 sedans are expected to be deployed across various highway patrol sections in Victoria for certain periods over the coming 12 months. 

Other high profile Victoria police highway patrol cars in recent years were the Mercedes-AMG E43 sedan and the GLE63 AMG coupe. As with the BMW, both were operational vehicles and on loan at no cost to taxpayers.

Police across Australia are grappling with what to replace the Falcon and Commodore highway patrol cars that have dominated their fleets for decades.

Tasmania police are using Subaru Liberty sedans, South Australia police are trialling the imported Holden Commodore V6 while West Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory are trialling the Kia Stinger.

NSW Police are currently trialling BMW 530d and Chrysler SRT sedans; Victoria police have a mix of BMW 530d diesel sedans, BMW X5 SUVs and Passat Turbo models.

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Joshua Dowling

Joshua Dowling has been a motoring journalist for more than 20 years, spending most of that time working for The Sydney Morning Herald (as motoring editor and one of the early members of the Drive team) and News Corp Australia. He joined CarAdvice / Drive in 2018, and has been a World Car of the Year judge for more than 10 years.

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