In the US government vehicles tend to be American. It probably makes politicians look bad if they buy foreign cars, but some slip through. We’ve heard some states have Subaru police cars though we’ve never seen one. The Pentagon used to have unmarked Camrys but we’re not sure if they’re still in service. California uses Priuses, usually for parking enforcement, but we’ve seen Nissan Frontiers and Jukes in the colors of CalTrans, the state highway agency, and Toyota Tacomas and Tundras serving as lifeguard and beach patrol vehicles. The holy grail would probably be a vehicle painted in the mint green of the US Forest Service. The coolest one we’ve actually seen is a Mitsubishi-built US Navy Dodge D-50.
Have you ever seen Japanese government vehicles outside of Japan?
The most entertaining comment by next week will receive a prize. Scroll down to see the winner of last week’s QotW, “Which once-derided Japanese car will make a comeback?“.
The most nominated Japanese cars due for a comeback seemed to be the box-mobilies of the early 2000s. No one called out the Scion xB, but the Honda Element got Franxou‘s vote, while the Nissan Cube was nominated by Lakdasa, Ryan A. and Taylor C.
Other outliers included Ryan S‘s pick of the much-maligned Toyota Tercel, Fred Langille‘s Honda Z600, and Streetspirit‘s Murano/Mazda 2/Mazda RX-8 combo.
However, the winner this week is steve, who called out two classics and two modern alt-fuel atrocities:
Datsun F-10, that was derided as an awesome pile of junk. If you can even find one now. And it’s cousin, the B-210 Honey Bee version, those would make future generations fall in love with bad design.
And how about for super future good time’s sake, the Honda Clarity and the Toyota Mirai, the first generation. Those are super duper stooper, and made fender skirts famous again. Add in the previous generation Prius Prime, like 2021, and you have a trifecta of bad style certain to make a comeback….and that prime has that moustache on the back end that will make the index finger of GenX’ers twitch uncontrollably.
Omedetou, your comment has earned you a set of decals from the JNC Shop!
In Canada where I live, I do not even know if they choose cars manufactured in Canada or not, but I mostly see US and Japanese manufacturers for government fleet vehicles…
Only looking at police cars, I always thought they chose Ford, Chevrolet and Dodge simply because of chauvinism. Police cars always were large cars with easily repairable body on frame, and switched to unibody when these old dinosaurs went the way of the dodo.
But something has been bugging me for a while, what do we see now? Trucks and SUVs? They can be fast in a straight line, but what will they do when there is someone speeding somewhere else than high speed roads?
I get that they likely skipped the Malibu, the Chrysler 200 and the Avenger, but the late Fusion AWD turbo V6 was fast… I cannot understand why they seem to choose Trucks for most of the fleet instead of using cars like Camry V6, Honda Accord and Mazda 6 that would do wonders for both city patrol and highway duty instead of heavy trucks with house-like momentum when comes time to steer.
And now, imagine what the ten-years-from-now teenagers could fetch for cheap for their first car… What is available on the used market, let’s see… Cool but expensive sports car, family SUV, cheapo SUV, pick-up truck or… a police-pack turbo-6 Subaru Outback!
Police-pack were always great for cheap speed, throw-away cars and high-mileage or high-hours but still strong engine swaps, so now one could fetch a cop-motor and put it in any old or nostalgic car!
Please, Mazda, make a big rwd sedan with your new inline-6, and make a police-pack out of it!
Make your 6-oh the new 5-0!
The only one that comes to mind is I’ve seen several first gen Subaru Outbacks converted to RHD for rural USPS delivery. Although technically, I think those are privately owned, not government vehicles. But they are doing government work, and they look cool!
My favorite vehicle built by a Japanese company and operated by an American governement agency would probably be the Kinki Sharyo P3010 operated by Los Angeles Metro on their light rail lines!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinki_Sharyo_P3010
Yeah actually. The Post office near me has a few RHD toyota vans and a Mitsubishi Delica as their “Rural Deliveries Vehicles”. Just goes to show you how well a entirely foreign built vehicle can stand up in the rugged terrain of the corn fields of central united states.
I haven’t seen a Japanese Government vehicle in the US, but I’ve seen a RHD 4-door Jeep Wrangler with a manual transmission. The Jeep’s private owner said RHD Wranglers are made for government parking enforcement agencies.
Burlington, VT has a few Subarus in the city and school district fleet. That plays into a stereotype but probably goes to the fact the Subaru-Hyundai dealership is the only one within city limits (the local “auto row” is mostly in South Burlington).
I’ve seen numerous 2003-2005 Civic Hybrids used by California jurisdictions for official ‘civic’ duty. Local police departments also tend to use Camry’s, Altima’s and RAV4’s for unmarked police cars.
Hilux in France for “Office National des forets”: https://media.ouest-france.fr/v1/pictures/MjAyMzA2ZDU5OWQ1YTNjNjM3YzIyNDRhMzJkNzMxM2ZlNWVmZTU?width=1260&focuspoint=50%2C25&cropresize=1&client_id=bpeditorial&sign=fb24fbafdb8ab2569a58d710ef87dd8d32f5a2bee5440a8fe02c3832247f9f6e
There used to be a bunch of KEI trucks running around Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (west of Seattle) & sometimes outside the main gate. They looked “well used”.
Here in Winnipeg, Canada I have seen only a tiny handful of Japanese cars in government service. The local Fire Department has 1, maybe 2 2010-ish period Mitsubishi saloon cars in use for fire inspectors. The local VFH (Vehicles For Hire) Authority, which watches over taxi and Uber drivers has 1 or 2 Toyota Prius saloons. Likely these cars were put into service because they were the personal vehicles of agency members and were simply repainted and decaled up to look more official.