Ford Granada MkII 2.8i, Sussex Police
The Granada modelled was based at Worthing Traffic Office and wore the 'Jam Sandwich' livery pioneered by Sussex Police Chief Constable Sir George Terry in the 1960s after he had seen it in America. It carried an aerodynamic Ferrie Plastics triangular roof box and roof-mounted spotlights. The car was in the standard police specification which was a basic L model interior with 'Bristol' fabric trim and wind-up windows mated to the 'S Pack' sports suspension, fuel injected V6 and a manual 5-speed gearbox. All traffic cars were equipped with a Pye Westminster radio which worked on two wavelengths, VASCAR, for countywide car-to-car communication, and UHF, which connected to beat officers' hand held radios.
Sussex Police were created on January 1st, 1968, by the amalgamation of the five County and Borough Police Forces in the region and still today covers a wide area, from Chichester to Hastings, which includes Gatwick airport and Brighton. The majority of their Traffic Division cars or 'Tango Units' (from the phonetic alphabet word for the letter T) as they were known during the early 1980s, were Rover SD1s, which, due to their hatchback design, could carry more of the equipment forces were increasingly using such as road signs. However, the Sussex force concurrently used around a dozen Mk2 Granadas which were popular during this period, being comfortable fine handling cars requiring less maintenance than the faster but sometimes troublesome V8 SD1s.
Engine: 2792cc V6 OHV
Power: 160bhp@5700rpm
Torque: 162lb.ft@4300
Maximum speed: 117mph
0-60 mph: 8.9secs
Unladen weight: 3009lbs