Japan’s best police cars

This week, a Japanese police force was gifted a Nissan R35 GT-R as a patrol car, which reminded us of the other awesome cars used by the Japanese police.

Even though they’re mostly destined for public relations, rather than actually utilising their potential, these cars inspire a lot more respect from rev-heads than the likes of the standard patrol cars.

Nissan R34 Skyline GT-R

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Starting as close to Japan’s newest performance cop car as we can, the R34 GT-R is peak Skyline, where its evolution culminated in the ultimate Godzilla.

The idea of having one of these RB26DETT-powered monsters chasing you along the highway is enough to make you keep your act clean.

Nissan R33 Skyline GT-R ‘Autech Version’

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A rare form of the R33, the Autech Version has four doors and was limited in build numbers by Autech in the same way HSV or FPV would build limited numbers of GTS or GT cars.

Nissan 350Z Nismo

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Atmo V6, rear-drive, and fun enough that officers would want to go on patrol? Tick.

Space in the back to put anyone who gets arrested? Err…

Mistubishi 3000GT

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The high-tech ‘Mitsi’ was aiming to contend with Japan’s other supercars at the time, though didn’t quite make it.

Still, it seems the police in Japan liked it enough to hold onto one as a patrol car, and its twin-turbo V6 would have made it quite useful if not for its hefty 1700kg+ kerb weight.

Subaru Impreza WRX STi

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Simon Pegg’s character drove a WRX at the end of Hot Fuzz to signify that he had loosened-up and become a more humanised police officer.

If that’s the result of cops driving an Impreza, we dread to think how laid back the police driving its rally-bred hi-po counterpart would be.

Mazda RX-7 (FD)

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The most iconic Mazda rotary is also the one chosen by one Japanese police force as a public relations car.

Now all they need is a Toyota AE86 and they could recreate an equally iconic InitialD scene. Not that we think police should do that...

Honda NSX

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Arguably Japan’s most iconic supercar (in the traditional sense, anyway), an NSX cop car is the equivalent of British police driving a McLaren F1 or German police driving a Porsche 911 GT2 RS of the era.

We envy them greatly.

Let us know in the comments below which 'black-and-white' is your favourite!