UFO

"Officer, there's a UFO over Hugo's!"

Ever wondered about those bleary-eyed clubbers one sometimes encounters when travelling to work on a Monday morning? Whilst most readers were sleeping this morning, Kings Cross at 3am was jumpin'. Local favourites Sneaky Sound System's UFO features in one example of a club scene.

Wonder no more, have a nice day.

Comments

[Kezza]

Wait, the cops are in a Camry? Oh dear. Something about that doesn't scream "respect the law" like it should. What happened to the SS Commodores which were once standard police issue? Hell, even Victoria Police are issued with Hummers for duty in the CBD now!

[Juffy]

It's a pursuit car for errant scooters and powered wheelchairs.

[Rainer the cabbie]

I say, in all my years of driving young ones to and from festivity's, Gen. Y tops the class in the the party hard department. All care of Mr. American Express and Miss MasterCard of cause, but hey, as long as there is credit there is no crisis. Your X mas card from the Taxi council and the NSW Treasury is in the mail. And thanks for recommending Kings Of Leon to me, I'll make it the feature album in the cab this week.
Now, the bad news is that your goal of retiring a multi millionaire at the age of thirtyfive may be delayed a bit. But Mum and Dad will help you out. Cheers.

[nashdale]

You been moonlighting in the press again Adrian, nice photo, who is the bloke in the photo?

K.B.

[Goldstein]

Re: Kezza and Juffy above..

I reckon the Toyota looks great as a cop car -I drive them a bit and they go great -where can you use V8 power in the Sydney CBD without careening off the road into a terrace house or whatever ?

Sydney's streets are narrow and crowded -if I was purchasing for the NSW Police I'd buy them the Toyota Yarus or Mitsubishi Colt -small narrow cars to zip down the laneways of Potts Point, Darlo, Redfern.. Big cars are great for the freeway, but shithouse when you're trying to park in Darlinghurst Road to attend a job upstairs in some dump..

And by the way -the NSW Police Department has a history of using small cars -I remember they used Holden Sunbirds (1.9 litres of utter gutlessness) and Ford Lasers and Meteors (notchback Laser) in the early '80s -and I recall some Mitsubishi Cordia turbos were used on the coast by the H.P. at such places as Batemans Bay..

I have a nice photo of the laneway behind Redfern Station, circa 1982, showing a Sunbird cop car with the rack on the roof, etc, and also a snap of a uniform Cordia, in H.P. regalia, Batemans circa 1986 ..

[adrian]

Nashdale, dunno, some random cabbie...in Webwatch-print only(?)

[kae]

They drive all sorts of things in Qld.
I've seen Toyota Aurions in the pineapple-car livery.

They look good, too.

I've got a 2008 Corolla and it goes like a rocket (perhaps becuase I was used to driving a ten year old Corolla?).

[Dataceptionist]

They have Mitsubishi Lancers now too if you pay attention. Whoever will do the best fleet deal I suppose. A V8 must be fairly costly fuel-wise now too, why not go with a more fuel efficient Toyota?

[Goldstein]

Re: Kae, above..

Yes indeedy ! Those Corollas go like the powers !!

I rented a 1.8 litre Corolla sedan from Avis at the top of William Street a couple of years ago -$39 per day as they were in a price war with Europcar over the laneway -and drove down to Melbourne, then to Adelaide. It would sit on 100 - 130 km/h all day, had great passing power, comfy, quiet at highway speeds, good stereo, handled great.. And it gave around 40 mpg on the highway !!

I actually loved it -kept it a week and drove all over the place -if my 4.0 litre ute shits itself I'll happily park my ass in a Corolla.

[Steve at the Pub]

Goldstein, if you remember back far enough, the police in NSW used to use Mini Minors.

They were able to hide in the most unlikely spots (behind a shrub).

[Goldstein]

Steve -no, my memory doesn't go back quite that far -I can recall the H.P. Chargers though, and XC Falcon 5.8 litre pursuits.. I was coming up the Hume one day in around 1982 after driving from Melbourne all night, I went through a radar trap doing about 160 km/h and an XD Falcon in full Highway Patrol mode came tunnelling out of its hiding place behind a billboard -they were over-excited, and came out like they were shot out of a cannon, and so overshot me.. I pulled up and they had to reverse back a ways to get to me -the car sounded like something from the Bathurst 1000, lumpy cams etc. Back then it was no big deal, they gave me a T.I.N. for about $100, and off I went -these days I'd get an instant ban, huge fines, and they'd probably seize my car..

My best early memory of NSW Police cars was seeing an HT Holden Kingswood with the siren and light going, blasting up William Street toward the Cross, with five fat coppers and what looked like a shotgun squeezed in it, in August 1970. We were in the big smoke on holidays and my pre-pubescent brain was overwhelmed with all the lights and gaudiness of the Cross -flashy women, the first African Americans I'd ever seen, G.I.s on leave from Vietnam hanging out of the Bourbon, I got a peek into a club where the girls were dancing in sort of cages, my mother pointed out someone called Lovelace Watkins coming out of the Sebel, gaudy black guy with a blonde on each arm, which made my mother scrunch up her face for some reason -the Cross was really something back in those days..

[adrian]

Goldstein, Lovelace Watkins was here in 1967, check this out.

[Kezza]

I see the point in having something smaller and more fuel efficient - I'd never considered matching the vehicle to its surrounds, I'm used to open roads and country towns where V8s make sense for the cops because crims have plenty of room to run and also drive big V8s. At the end of the day though it's all about fleet finance so for almost $10,000 less than a Commodore or Falcon why not have a Camry? UK cops use Astra Diesels which may sound funny at forst but makes perfect sense, maybe we'll see more of this kind of thing in future over here - the one thing I would like to see though is all cop cars painted like Victoria's highway partol SMART cars, bright and lairy so you can't miss them, none of this shady, revenue raising undercover stuff.

[Goldstein]

Adrian -cool link -and was he the essence of gaudy or what ? Very wild look indeed.. I guess my mother just decided whoever it was, was Lovelace Watkins.. Being as square as she was/is -a loudly dressed black guy, Sebel, blondes, KX -must be Lovelace.. I'm just surprised she even knew the name, she was more your Sammy Davis Jr type.

Kezza -Absolutely. Do you remember the bright yellow VICPOL T.O.G. cars -V8 Commodores and Falcons -in the '80s ?

If you want to see sly, try Adelaide -they put cameras on long extension leads behind poles etc so you only see them once you're past them, they constantly tell us the "road toll" is too high -despite having decreased about 70% since the mid-70s peak -so they introduce more and more laws to facilitate fining drivers, they keep installing fixed red light/speed cameras -driving used to be a pleasure, now it's all about checking your speedo every few seconds, making sure all passengers are wearing seat belts, being pulled over regularly for random licence/roadworthy/drug/alcohol checks..

They now have dogs sniffing people randomly for "drugs", and now because one Sudanese youth was stabbed to death in the city by another Sudanese youth, they are looking to randomly run metal detectors over people in the street to check them for "weapons"..

I'm just waiting for the random "we'll just take a quick look up your quoit -bend over, sir" checks..

[manlycabbie]

that police car is kings cross 14 which is the supervising sargents car thats why it not a ss comondore or v8 falcon don't know why but the supervisors get crappy cars to drive.