Move Over Holden: The Kia Stinger GT Is Australia's Newest Police Car
With the Ford and Holden factories in Australia now long gone, police forces across the country now face a dilemma: when all those Falcon and Commodore patrol cars retire, what should they be replaced with?
For Queensland Police, the answer came in the form of of the new Kia Stinger GT. It makes sense, doesn’t it? It’s rear-wheel drive, it’s pretty large, and it has a large engine. Well, it’s 3.3-litre twin-turbo, which is pretty damn big compared to what you’d find in the average UK cop car.
It’s certainly of the same ilk as the Falcon and Commodore, and 50 will make their debut on the Queensland fleet this week, News.com.au reports. All 200 of the force’s patrol cars will be replaced by Stingers eventually.
Mike Keating, Queensland Road Policing Command Assistant Commissioner, had plenty of praise for the car. “The Stinger performed very well in all areas and we had nothing but top reports from all the field officers,” he said.
As for other forces, New South Wales has opted for BMW 530d and Chrysler 300 SRTs, with Victoria ordering only the BMWs thus far. According to News.com.au, Kia is thought to be “actively pursuing the police fleet business,” so we may yet see more Stinger GT patrol cars.
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
I honestly don’t know how to feel
While I love the Kia Stinger and all
Is it really worth it to have one over the patriotic Commodores. Cause tbh in my opinion the Police car of a country should show national Pride and having a Kia instead makes me feel weird
But I like the Stinger Though…….
Pretty much nowhere, except maybe US police forces show national pride. Like in UK most police cars are Fords, BMW’s, in some cases Subarus.
The police should use whatever car suits their needs best. Besides, the current Holden Commodore (aka. Opel Insignia) isn’t any more Australian than the Kia Stinger.
Think how we feel being British…. We used to have V8 Rover P6’s, Range Rovers and Jaguar’s. Now we have Hyundai’s, BMW’s and also Kia’s.
Well, here in the U.K. cops used to use V12 Jags and V8 Rovers as patrol cars, but have since switched to BMWs. So, it’s not just the Aussies that are affected.
The police need a car that has plenty of spare parts. You wouldn’t want to damage your comadore and because it’s out of production you spend a great deal of time finding new parts
Dope
Meanwhile in my city…
I thought all Crown Victorias’ were retired
Can’t wait to see the first troll wrapping his stinger in the scheme of a police car, just to muck some people.
I think a key part of any police car involved in pursuit work (as I’m sure the Stinger will be) is to have an aggressive face, and…yep, it ticks that box; if I saw the front of that bearing down in my rear-view mirror with its blues-and-twos ablaze, I’d get the hell out of the way xD!
I think the more interesting thing in this article is that NSW is using the 300C SRT. Umm wut?
They still sell SRT 300s in Australia, but as far as I know thats the only place they’re still sold.
Meanwhile in America we still use old crown vics
We have the mighty Mahindra Scorpio, Thar and the Maruti Gypsy as police cars here in India, although there are some Toyota Innovas too. No cool super sedans but they work quite well in our conditions.
Interesting names, in my city we have Lancers, Kia Optima, Mitsu L200 (or L300, not sure), Toyota Corolla, and that’s it I guess..
Now all of the fast cars used in the police can do 250km/h and are b-roads weapons. Kind of hard to outrun, but that’s the point 😂
Well in Germany the typical cop cars are BMW 320d Touring, VW Passat TDI Variant and Mercedes-Benz C & E Class Wagons