Last week was the Dubai Motor Show, where Cadillac unveiled the XT5, a new small crossover. But in a city with Aventador and Veyron cop cars straight out of Need for Speed, no one rightly cares about a $50k Caddy. Instead, the Dubai Police stole the show, debuting yet another hypercar with light bars, the Porsche 918 Spyder.
Why? The police force currently has the following in its fleet: Ferrari FF, Mercedes SLS AMG, BMW i8, Roush Mustang, Brabus G-wagen, Camaro SS, Audi R8, Porsche Panamera, McLaren MP4-12C. Oh, and an Aston Martin One-77, a discontinued ultra-limited coupe that’s nearly impossible to buy. Eventually, the residents said, “enough, your Excellency, this is irresponsible.” So His Excellency lieutenant general Dhahi Khalfan, Dubai’s chief of police, ordered a sold-out, Porsche plug-in hybrid that’s “environmentally friendly.”
This sort of charade has been a regular occurrence for a couple years now, although there are no NFS-style hot pursuit chases to speak of. Supercars on patrol are rolling PR for the city and the police force, for no other reason than to demonstrate immensurable wealth and an extremely fine taste in exotic automobiles.
In the tax-free haven of Dubai, dropping a million bucks on a Porsche cop car isn’t crazy. It’s just what you do.