For More Than 30 Years, the Dutch Police Force Was One of Porsche’s Best Customers
Anyone speeding through The Netherlands from the early 1960s until the mid-’90s would have faced a startling sight in their mirrors.
Coming up fast with lights ablaze and siren blaring would have been one of the 507 Porsches ordered by the Dutch traffic police to patrol its highways.
It’s a relationship that began in 1962, when the country’s motorways were unrestricted and serious accidents were commonplace. Dutch cops demanded high-performance rapid response vehicles and headed across the border into Germany for the solution.
Picking Porsche over the likes of BMW or Mercedes came down to a truly unique requirement: These pursuit vehicles needed to be open-topped to allow an officer to stand up and direct traffic without leaving the vehicle. Porsche’s 356 Cabriolet was just the ticket.
The first cars were delivered in pure white, with little to identify their official purpose beyond the word “Rijkspolitie” writ large on the front, a light pole attached to the windshield, and a siren rigged to the rear deck.
Traffic police were expected to drive roof-down in all weathers so were dressed like their two-wheeled counterparts in leather riding gear. So taken were the Dutch rozzers with the 356 that when production ended in 1966, they made sure to buy up the last 10 cars off the line.
That’s because, although the 911 was already on sale by this time, a closed coupe failed to meet their quirky cop spec. With the launch of the Targa in 1967, however, the fast feds had their replacement.
The earliest examples retained the near-standard look of the 356, albeit with the light pole moved to the chunky Targa B-pillar, but soon a patriotic orange livery would be added to make the cop cars more of a deterrent.
Porsche 911 Targas would continue to make up the majority of the high-speed fleet, progressing through the G-Series, 964, and 993 generations (with a few 914s and 924s along the way) until 1996, when a combination of restricted speed limits and restricted budgets meant that the cost of maintaining them could no longer be justified, and the world’s biggest Porsche police force was disbanded. Today, you’ll be pulled over by a BMW or Audi instead.
On the plus side, many of the ex-forces Porsches still survive in private collections around the world. If you fancy some cop cosplay yourself, we found a 1992 example for sale for €139,911.
Corgi used to a 1/43 diecast of a police 911 Targa, although it may have been green and white German Polizei livery. The important part is it was a Targa and had the siren and flashing light so you could easily repaint as Dutch. The British used Triumph Spitfires and Daimler SP250s as motorway patrol vehicles in the 60s before reverting to sedans
Those of us on the 1981 Treffen became very familiar with the Dutch 911 patrol. In those days, we travelled between cities by bus. As our 2 buses crossed the border from Germany towards Amsterdam, two Dutch police 911’s chased us down, took positions in front and behind the buses and escorted us off the Autobahn, through back roads to the police garage where we enjoyed a wine and cheese reception surrounded by Dutch police 911s, 924s, even a couple old police 356s. It’s not often you get to enjoy wine and cheese surrounded by police cars.