Ant Anstead
Ant reveals his former self to all.
When a friend whom I haven’t spoken to for months calls me out the blue I can pretty much guarantee they are calling about one of two subjects. They either want car advice, usually because their car has broken down or they have reversed into a lamp post and need a favour. Or they want legal advice because they have done something rather silly. And that is because friends who have known me for some time knew me as a police officer.
With the news of my police past spreading I now seem to get asked more and more police-based questions by more and more strangers. And they vary, ranging from inquiries about those exciting stories people want to hear about like car chases and drugs busts, to the morbid tales not suitable for this publication.
Question time
Without fail now when I attend a car show I will undoubtedly get asked a police-based question. And it got me thinking… is that not strange? After all, the majority aren’t seeking legal advice, they just want to know the details, the secret stuff and at car shows they want to know about police cars. And then I worked it out… people have an obsession with the police car!
Think about it for a second: police cars are quite probably the most recognizable car on the road. Every single person on the planet knows what a police car is, and (go on, admit it) you act slightly differently in the presence of one. Its embedded within our psyche. And I have been on both sides of the mystic, black magic, workings of a police car, both as the officer pulling a car over and a member of the public being pulled over.
What’s strange is I have also noticed that it’s not a single demographic that is obsessed with the police car. Male or female, old or young we all seem to want to know more. We remember those famous police cars from film and television and, when spending time with Philip Glenister its apparent that the public love his Audi Quattro and, even more so, they love what it represented. Be honest, if you could strap a blue light on top of a performance car and whizz through rush hour traffic at decent speeds, would you do it? Hell yeah you would! Even the most hardened of bad guys would admit that they would want to get behind the wheel of a police car.
Then there is the question I get asked the most. What is my all time favourite? That title belongs to the Volvo T5 estate. When I joined the TFU (Tactical Firearms Unit) we had two ARV’S (Armed Response Vehicles). A Mercedes-benz estate and the Volvo. On paper the Merc was the better car, but we used to get in early to be the crew to nab the Volvo keys as that car was so much better! Everyone knew it!
The Volvo was a performance car! It looked so average yet was so fast. It never broke down, in fact it never missed a beat! A truly great car.
The results are in
Over the past 12 months I have been writing a book about the Great British police car. I have received a huge amount of help from retired and serving police officers, historians and constabularies, with a special mention to John Lakey and also Steve Woodward of PCUK. It’s been a huge labour of love and I am utterly humbled that I have fulfilled a lifelong dream since I was a kid to publish a book. I have been very lucky to have many careers in my time, from police officer to car builder and now TV host. What a strange journey it’s been. When I look back at my time in the police, I do so with great pride. It shaped me, helped me and grew me. And it feels fitting that now I get to combine these two subjects in my life: cars and cops.
The new series of Wheeler Dealers is on Discovery Channel, while Cars and Cops is on sale at all good book retailers. Priced £14 or £9.99 for the softback version.