An Interview with John Dorsett

An interview with John Dorsett:

The senior archivist for the Metropolitan Police Museum as well as a retired traffic policeman...

What kind of car is it?

It's a 1961 Daimler, SP250 Traffic patrol car for the Metropolitan Police and it was, designed and built and used by the Met Police to try and cut the road deaths in the late 50s and early 60s. They were killing themselves, because of driving and riding to fast, at nearly one a day. So the London Force, bought 26 of these cars over 10 years and they were used to warn other motorists or motorcyclists that we now have a car that is capable of catching you, and we will deal with you for motoring offences. So that's why these cars were brought into Police service.

Have you ever taken your car abroad?

Not yet... But we were invited to take the car to Malta, for a special car show but that's a long way to go. So probably not...

Do you have a name for your car?

Um, no... Well, I have 2 of these, and my other car is called Belle so we can call this one Belle 2.

How long have you had this car?

I've had this car 5 years, and I haven't done anything to restore it, we've just serviced it and kept it up and running. This is to try and reserve the originality of this car. So we're not gonna paint it, we'll just do what needs to be done to get it through it's MOTs every year.