The Volvotuning 90th Celebration of Volvo cars held at Rockingham Raceway on Tuesday 25th April was an excellent opportunity to reunite an Ex Cambridgeshire Police Interceptor with its original crew and officers some 20 years on after first being commissioned into service.

R775 FJE, or Tango Seven Zero, was one of 14, V70 T5 CD Volvo's introduced to the Cambridgeshire Constabulary over the Christmas and New Year period in late 1997 to early 1998.

Each car was finished in new livery, designed by the Police Scientific Development branch in St Albans. The high visibility Diamond Grade blue and yellow battenburg livery was a first of a kind replacing for good, the red stripe and county crest found on traffic and enforcement cars of old.

Each car cost approximately £20,500 and were fitted with Tracker, Vascar, Gunboxes and roof mounted search lights.
The Volvo V70 quickly became a working legend and was favoured by serving officers over the Rover V6 827's and Vauxhall 3.0 Omega's. The Volvo used the 2.3, 5 cylinder engine which churned out 240 plus brake horse power, could reach 0-62 mph from rest in 6.9 seconds and possess a top speed in excess of 140 mph. (In its day a surprisingly quick and very fast car).

It was genuine pleasure to see Mick Gipp and Paul Stubbings reunited behind the wheel of their car which severed the county and the public until late 2002.

I would like to thank and acknowledge the efforts of Mick Healey for performing the original restoration of the car, Mick Gipp and Paul Stubbings for helping locate and provide much of the historical documentation and original photographs of the car which are found featured in this short video.

All 14 Volvo's before entering service where filmed at MOD Weathersfield on December 12th for the BBC Top Gear show. The ordinal Top Gear clip is also included here at the end of the video.

Kindest Regards,
Millsy

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