Romania's highway patrol is currently testing the Seat Leon Cupra as a potential squad car. The police will use the vehicle on loan into November before making a final decision on its usability.
The Seat Leon Cupra has a 240 horsepower 2.0-liter TSI engine, which takes the car from 0 to 100 km/h in 6.4 seconds. This car goes from a dead stop to the one kilometer mark in 26.4 seconds, topping out at 247 km/h.
But is it enough to catch speed cheats racing to the beach for a day of sun? To compare, the Jaguar XF Diesel S being considered for the same purpose in the U.K. gets to 100 km/h a half-second quicker, with a top speed of about 250 km/h.
Executives at Porsche Romania, the official importer for the SEAT brand, thinks the car will do just fine. "We are very happy to make our contribution to reduce accidents on the highway," said Seat Brand Manager Bogdan Militaru. "Our clients are people that appreciate sportiness and dynamism but we do not encourage braking the rules and trafic. It's our way of declaring that we encourage driving sporty but not outside the law."
SEAT Leon Cupra Police Car Testing in Romania
SEAT Leon Cupra Police Car Testing in Romania
By Zack Newmark
June 4, 2009 4:27 PM
Filed Under: European, Seat, Specialty
Tags: Seat Leon, Seat Leon Cupra
Comments
HEMI426
June 4, 2009 4:36 PM
I allways wunder why you don't see fast police cars. Where I live they have vw golfs tdi and opel vectra's. And they will lose from many cars
afterace2
June 4, 2009 4:43 PM
I don't know, in my country they have alot of V6 Passats, V6 Vectras, Octavia RSs etc., they are not supercars but still faster than most usual cars on the road.
tomi.ro
June 4, 2009 4:46 PM
yeah right. what a wonderful way to spend money they don't have. the politicians "struglle" with this financial crisis and in all their statemenssay there are no money and now we see this hare pulled out of the hat. what you see here is corruption. the seat official dealer gets a favour from nomatter wich minister to help it get by in this automotive sales pitch. TDI is already selling. why not get rid of some cupras from the stock
ytbu
June 4, 2009 4:53 PM
For HEMI426 and AFTERACE2 I say we do not think that in Romania all police cars are Leon Cupra because this is the only specimen of this kind. All the other police car in Romania is Dacia Logan 1.4 75HP. So... should be very happy that in your country the Police have Golf`s and Vectra`s
Renegade
June 4, 2009 5:18 PM
"Romania's highway patrol is currently testing the Seat Leon Cupra as a potential squad car. The police will use the vehicle on loan into November before making a final decision on its usability."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but when you want to buy stuff using taxpayer's money, and you can test the products, you need to do the test with at least 2 different products. Like if they put an EVO X, a WRX STI and that euro Ford Focus RS in this soup, the Seat won't sand a chance. BTW, the romanian police trim looks pretty crappy, still slightly better then the flashy blue and green all over the car ones they are using in the UK.
Edited by user on June 4, 2009 at 5:21 PM
N20_Purge
June 4, 2009 6:49 PM
Well European police cars need those bright colours so when they are on the streets at night, they have their colours reflected so drivers can see them, and not wreck their cars. As annoying as those colours may be, they do a very good purpose.
OT: That Cupra is one hot fuzz car! Police cars around the world are getting better and better!
Renegade
June 4, 2009 7:10 PM
The german, italian and french police cars trims aren't that bad looking, this italian one looks pretty good. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/2june_2007_015.jpg
tsiebrand
June 4, 2009 8:01 PM
I quite like our police cars: http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:BPOL-BMW-blau-silber.JPG&filetimestamp=20070409074104
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Hannover_(DerHexer)_Polizeifahrzeug.JPG&filetimestamp=20090311184337
Razz
June 4, 2009 8:16 PM
Well ... what can i say, nice to hear on wcf.com about my country's Street Police dept. Cupra.
It's too bad that only for 6 months will be this kind of car on their car lot.
Swifty
June 4, 2009 9:18 PM
I would be happy if our police had flappy cars with less than 75HP!!! instead of Superb V6, Passat V6, Alfa 156GTA, Octavia RS, S60 T5, Honda Accord...etc.
Max_Speed
June 4, 2009 10:20 PM
Where are they going to use it? There is only one "highway" (if you can call it like that) in Romania and that's like 100 km long and on top of that usually is full of potholes so there are no speeding vehicles. Just F******g useless.
tomi.ro
June 4, 2009 10:50 PM
this is a great car for police to own http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Japanese_NISSAN_SkylineR34_GTR_police_car.jpg and on the other side of the spectrum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Smart_mp_praha_2124.JPG
norther
June 4, 2009 10:51 PM
suppeerrr...maybe. if they pay 75.000$ or euros for those modified logans (i couldnt believe it)..how much are the cupras going to cost? and the policemen will ruin it.
in a way, yeah..waste of money. they have so much other problems over there. like food and crap like that.. but whatever, give `em the cupras boss.
ShinyG
June 5, 2009 12:00 AM
PSA: If any of you guys notice a surge in people not agreeing with the Romanian Police trial testing the Cupra do not panic/worry! These users are Romanian and like most Romanians, they tend to b1tch around a lot about everything in their country! Please do not feed the Romanians any approving comments as their inner troll will take it as a compliment and come back to haunt this otherwise very nice site you have here. Thank you for your attention! PS: to b1tch is an commonly accepted verb used to describe a person that complains too much/says mean things. Not to be confused with the insult!
Dragos_DreS
June 5, 2009 6:59 AM
LoL thats probably the only Seat Leon the romanian police will purchase.
There is only one highway in romania and its about 5 meters long!
JK
I love Romania!
Michael
June 5, 2009 8:42 AM
In fact, Romania has two highways, but quite short ones. Something like 100 km long one and 170 km long the other. The Seat Leon Cupra patrols on the "longer" one, heading from the capital city Bucharest to the Black Sea Coast resorts. So you can imagine that during summer that highway is very crowded. I am pretty sure that eventually the Romanian police will not buy that Seat Leon Cupra. As Renegade said, if faster cars are to be purchased, a bid is to be organised by the police. Anyway, that arrangement is a good one for both parties: the Romanian police can use for free the car during the summer, while the police Seat will be very visible for those travelling on that highway (which is a kind of advertising for the dealer).
P.S.: ShinyG, you are right. This is the way we are :)
Edited by user on June 5, 2009 at 8:45 AM
Mol02468
June 5, 2009 10:13 AM
Well atleast your not here in Australia, where the highway patrol cars use v8's and if my memory serves me correct i think there the 5.0ltr kind but not 100% sure on that
e36mmm
June 5, 2009 3:57 PM
mol02468, the highway patrol cars we see in australia are supercharged 5.7L v8 300 kw engines:D a bit hard to run away from to be honest :) but italy and germany have are more nuts with their lambos and gemballa police cars :)
fusion01
June 11, 2009 7:44 PM
As much as I love your country and would like to emigrate, this really is BS. Ozzies and Americans seem to have too much in common in this regard. Emissions on motors of this calibre are massive and it really does show a country to be totally and utterly inept at making changes when it should be completely and utterly obligatory. UK are going with diesels which we all know have lots of torque stock, which emission levels being somewhat lower than petrol. In South Africa we have VW Golf GTI MK5's for the rapid response units and - as others have pointed out with regards to the Cupra - it's more than enough. While being on the right side of responsible to the big issues we're facing today.
Little investigation into UK Jag: 'Powered by the same 275PS (202kW), 600Nm 3.0-litre parallel sequential turbo diesel engine, the Police-spec XF will do 0 - 60mph in 5.9 seconds, deliver a C02 emissions figure of just 179g/km and an average fuel economy figure of 42mpg'... less emissions than my Golf 5 GTI with tons more power and torque. Ok costly granted, but you can't argue with progression over the 5.5 litre V8's.
Edited by user on June 11, 2009 at 7:49 PM
radmeister
June 8, 2009 5:21 AM
Romania doesn't need a ferrari police car, even the dacias are fine, because chances are that anyone with anything faster is connected well enough that even if you catch them they wont give them a ticket.
Carexpert
August 24, 2009 11:15 AM
Hi, I'm an Aussie who has been in the car industry for over fifteen years including 7 years in the UK. I grew up on Holden and Ford V8's and thought they were the ants pants. Sadly I was wrong. 7 years driving all manner of European and Japanese cars has taught me Aussie cars are far from the top of the tree. E36mmm is totally wrong, Aussie Highway patrol cars are 6.0 litre V8's, aren't supercharged and run 270 kilowatts straight from the factory. They also run 5.4 litre V8 fords and 4.0 litre turbo sixes (also Ford). I had the pleasure of owning a SEAT LEON CUPRA shortly before returning to Australia and I must say they are capable cars for a country like Romania. I suspect the LEON CUPRA is the prefered car for them because they aren't anywhere as expensive as Lancers or Imprezas, don't cost half as much to service and are lighter on fuel. It all comes down to cost, so stop baggin the Romanians for their choice of Patrol car. For the Money there is nothing more capable.
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