The Czech Republic has turned up the heat on joyriders, enlisting the services of a Ferrari 458 Italia previously seized from criminals to bring the street racers down.
Police repainted the car from red to silver with yellow and blue reflective stripes and added a standard red and blue light bar on the roof. It will be used to chase stolen cars and to crack down on illegal road races, police said in a statement.
It will be used by a special surveillance department and operated only by trained officers. Jiří Zlý, head of the police’s traffic department, said the car would be used nationwide against some of the “most aggressive” criminals on the Czech road.
Considering the Ferrari had already been seized, the police didn’t need to spend a fortune of taxpayer money on it. The official release says it cost about the same as a new Skoda Scala, around NZ$35k. Most seized vehicles are resold, with the proceeds used to cover damages caused by offenders.
The Czech Republic isn’t the only country using supercars for police work. Italy has an agreement with Lamborghini, which uses their cars to transport urgent blood supplies to accident sites, and we all know about Dubai’s fleet of high-powered interceptors.
It’s not even an especially modern idea either – the Greek police did a similar thing back in the 1990s with the Sigma Group.
It used a mix of cars bought directly from dealers and impounded from previous offenders, like BMW E30 M3s, Audi RS 2s, Ford Sierra Cosworths, Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16s, Ford Mustangs and even a Porsche 911 Turbo.
