Cheshire Police Range Rover

Cheshire Constabulary was only the second UK police force to buy the original Range Rover, taking five in 1971 for its motorway patrol unit, and the Range Rover went on to become the archetypal British motorway patrol car: fast, commanding, and able to carry the cones, signs, lamps and rescue kit a motorway incident demands. Cheshire stayed loyal to the model through all of its first three generations.

The third-generation L322, developed under BMW ownership and built from 2001 to 2012, was the last Range Rover to serve the force. DK54 HSU, a 2004 example with the 4.4-litre V8 and six-speed automatic gearbox, patrolled Cheshire's motorways until its retirement in 2007. A serving officer who had regularly driven it campaigned for its preservation as an ambassador for road-safety campaigns and for the Cheshire Police Force Museum, keeping it exactly in its in-service state complete with its full complement of motorway emergency equipment; it now resides in the Dunsfold Collection alongside the force's last classic Range Rover, the armoured armed-response vehicle M718 AFM.

Cheshire was not alone: other forces ran L322s in the standard white base with yellow-and-blue Battenburg markings, among them Scotland's Northern Constabulary, whose example is pictured at the force's Inverness headquarters, and Merseyside Police, whose 2007 car PN57 USY - described as the force's last ever Range Rover - survived into preservation and restoration. As leasing economics and newer 4x4s took over motorway fleets in the late 2000s, the L322 closed an era of police Range Rovers stretching back to 1970.