Police vehicles in Japan

Police vehicles in Japan are vehicles used by Japanese prefectural police for patrolling, consisting of a variety of vehicles depending on the environment and situation. Most police vehicles in Japan are manufactured by domestic automakers such as Toyota, Nissan, or Subaru.
The formal Japanese term for a police vehicle is keirasha (警邏車), but the term patokā (パトカー), an abbreviation of "patrol car", is also widely used. The acronym "PC" is commonly used in police terminology (including over the radio).
Unlike how some departments in the U.S. and Canada allow their officers to take home their police vehicles, Japan does not allow officers to take home any kind of law enforcement vehicle. Every marked police car uses a black-and-white two tone livery, and police motorcycles are usually all white. Riot police vehicles are painted blue and white, and TMPD rescue vehicles are painted green and white.
Unlike fire trucks and ambulances, patrol cars often seen in the city are operated as mobile regional police units. They actively patrol the city to detect and prevent crimes and accidents rather than waiting at police stations, and are prepared to quickly arrive on scene whenever an emergency call is made. In addition, both traffic police and criminal police units do not only carry out police operations and investigations in the city, but also serve an operational purpose to quickly reach a scene from within the city.
The beginning of police cars in Japan is said to be at the Asakusa police station in January 1949 (Shōwa 24). Following post-WWII turmoil, security in Japan was poor, with many robberies and thefts. Therefore, the local municipal police at the time painted a US military-sourced car as a trial "mobile police" (移動警察, idō keisatsu) vehicle.
In June 1950 (Shōwa 25), the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department deployed three so-called patrol cars, which were modified sedan-bodied WWII-era Nissan 180 truck chassis with radios. As the Korean War broke out at around the same time, the Japanese Red Purge became popular under the MacArthur Directive, and the role of the municipal police increased.
These first three police cars were of poor quality with a harsh ride, and broke down frequently. As a result, subsequent police cars were based on Ford and Chevrolet models sold by the US military. Due to a stated risk of radio jamming and interception, police radios were prohibited at the discretion of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, so police cars often got lost. VHF radios were finally allowed from the late 1950s.
In the 1960s, when the quality of domestic cars began to rise, police cars also began to be based on new domestic models, such as the Toyota Crown-based Toyota Patrol. The Nissan Cedric and Isuzu Bellel were also adopted as base vehicles for police cars, and before long, only domestic models were used as police vehicles.
When the expressway system opened, sports cars were adopted as base vehicles for police cars. Cars such as the Nissan Fairlady Z and the Mazda Cosmo Sports were involved in speed control on expressways. In urban areas, where illegal parking became a problem, police kei cars, commonly known as mini-pato (ミニパト), begun to play an active role. Mini-pato base cars included the Suzuki Fronte and the Daihatsu Fellow Max, and they were mainly driven by female police officers (婦警, fukei).
From the end of the 1970s to the 1980s, foreign police cars reappeared in small quantities. The Porsche 911 and BMW 3 Series were painted in black and white as marked cars, and the Mercedes-Benz W124 was deployed as an unmarked car. The most notable and famous of these is probably the Niigata Prefectural Police's 1978 Porsche 911SC. This model, which was first deployed when the Hokuriku Expressway opened, has also been used as a PR vehicle for the prefectural police and has been in use for over 20 years, which is very unusual for a police car in Japan.
Shortly after WWII, some municipal police units used jeep-type vehicles painted white for transportation. However, since roads at that time were unpaved and most of the domestic vehicles then were painted white, the vehicles were heavily damaged and polluted, as well as not easily identified. As a solution, American police cars were used as a reference. The sides and front of the body, which easily got dirty, were painted black, the roof was left white, and the hood was either painted black or white to easily be able to identify police vehicles. This led to the black-and-white two-tone police livery that is used in Japan to this day. However, the modified Nissan 180 that was first deployed used a white-and-green (some say white-and-blue) two-tone pattern, also similar to American police cars of the time. It was only in 1955 (Shōwa 30) that the black-and-white two-tone livery was made a nationwide standard.
Regarding the car's livery, the National Police Agency stipulates that "the body is to be painted in black and white, equipped with red warning lights and loudspeakers on the top (roof) and front, and the name of the prefecture is to be written on the side''.
As stated above, in 1955 (Shōwa 30), in order to distinguish police vehicles from other cars which were mostly white at the time, the lower half of the body was colored with black paint to make damage and dirt less noticeable. However, there are no detailed regulations at the national level, and each prefectural police force has slight differences in the livery and emergency lighting, among other details.
The Japanese-language text on the sides usually takes the form of the name of the prefecture, followed by the suffix fukei (府警), ken-kei (県警), or ken-keisatsu (県警察) (e.g. Osaka-fukei (大阪府警) and Kanagawa-ken-keisatsu (神奈川県警察)). Whether a Mincho or Gothic typeface is used also varies between prefectures. Currently, only a few departments, such as the Kagoshima Prefectural Police and the Kumamoto Prefectural Police, use a Mincho typeface. The Gifu Prefectural Police is the only department in Japan that has their department name written in white on the bottom of the front door for only expressway patrol units, replacing the "POLICE" notation. The Aomori Prefectural Police has a white swan illustration on the bottom of the front door.
Police cars are not equipped with red warning lights and sirens specifically because they are police vehicles, but rather emergency vehicles in general, as stipulated by the Road Traffic Act.
Normally, it is customary for marked patrol cars in charge of leading the Imperial motorcade to have one side of the lightbar changed to blue, but in recent years, the red lights have been left as they are and a detachable streamlined blue warning light became mainstream instead. In December 2008 (Heisei 20), when guarding the China-Japan-South Korea Summit Meeting held in Fukuoka Prefecture, each country's police cars were equipped with warning lights of different colors for identification purposes. South Korea used red and blue warning lights, Japan used red and blue front warning lights, and China used red and green warning lights. The Ōita Prefectural Police used to have cars equipped with American-style red and blue warning lights, but these vehicles were only used for guarding the Imperial House. In addition, some police cars used by United States Forces Japan are equipped with red and blue lights.
In 2007, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department decided to implement a yellow reflective material for the "POLICE" lettering on the sides and rear bumper, to make police cars more easily recognizable to foreigners and improve visibility.
Police cars differ in displacement and output depending on the type and purpose. Standard police cars generally have 1.5–1.9 L (91.5–115.9 cu in) engines, mini-pato cars have 0.66–1.5 L (40.3–91.5 cu in) engines, and expressway patrol cars have 2.0–3.0 L (122.0–183.1 cu in) engines. For this reason, vehicles are largely restricted to their initial departments, so new orders are placed for dedicated vehicles for each purpose. However, there are cases where sports cars are acquired by donation or ordered by the prefectural police, and among them, the Nissan Fairlady Z has a track record of all generations having been made into police cars.
Many police cars have the name of their affiliated police station and a station-specific vehicle number written on the roof (so that it is visible to police aircraft), and the TMPD and some police headquarters also have this notation on the windshield. As an example, unit 1 of the TMPD's Kōjimachi Police Station will have "Kōjimachi 1" (麹町1) and "Kōji 1" (麹1) on the windshield and roof respectively. An expressway patrol car can be identified with signage such as "Kōsoku 3" (高速3, "High Speed 3") and "Soku 3" (速3). Each car is also assigned a prefecture-specific number used for radio communication, with, for example, a car identifying itself over the radio as unit 217.
Roof signage and radios for communication with police aircraft are mostly absent in traffic enforcement and kōban vehicles such as mini-patos. Unmarked police cars also lack roof signage to preserve their disguise.
As a distinctive freature on the exterior, there are one or multiple antennas for the police radio system. These antennas are usually disguised; early on, the "F-1" antenna that imitated a personal radio antenna was used, and in the 1990s, the "TL" antenna that imitated a car phone antenna became mainstream. This was in turn followed by the "TA" antenna that is disguised as the diversity antenna of an in-car analog TV since the early 2000s, the "Euro" film antennas adjusted to the frequency of police radios, and short rod-shaped antennas (manufactured by Nippon Antenna: MG-UV-TP, WH-UV-TP, etc.), which are currently the mainstream design. Each subsequent antenna type was adopted due to the disguise becoming ineffective as in-car technology evolved. However, as an exception, some prefectural police cars use antennas disguised as amateur radio whip antennas.
Japanese police cars are mainly divided into marked police cars (equipped with a two-tone livery and either a red rotating lightbar fixed to the roof, or a single deployable red rotating light) and unmarked police cars (equipped with a deployable red rotating light that can be hidden or stowed away).
A standard police car is operated by one or two uniformed police officers. This is the most common and numerous patrol car in the Japanese police force, and it is mainly used in local police activities, the deterrence of collisions and traffic violations, and the investigation and crime vigilance activities of the detective department. When tailing a suspect in a criminal investigation, it is necessary to conceal the identity of the police from the suspect, so an unmarked car is used, but other police activities are carried out in an easily identifiable marked car.
Each car is assigned not to an officer, but to one of a number of departments, including mobile patrol, traffic enforcement, and expressway patrol. There are about 9,000 police cars that have been purchased with national funds and are deployed in various places nationwide, excluding unmarked cars.
As of 2022, the Toyota Crown is the most common marked police car in each prefecture, though the Yamanashi Prefectural Police uses the Toyota Mark X. The previously common Subaru Legacy is on the decline. In addition, the Saitama Prefectural Police uses the Nissan Teana as their patrol vehicle.
Some prefectural police forces have operated numerous high-performance police cars in their fleets, with a notable example being the Tochigi Prefectural Police. High-performance cars operated by these forces include the Nissan Skyline GT-R (R34), Nissan GT-R, Subaru Impreza WRX STI, Honda NSX, Nissan 370Z, and Lexus LC 500. Alongside regular use for traffic enforcement on the various expressways of Japan, these cars are often used for publicity and ceremonial purposes. On some occasions, such cars have been donated to prefectural police forces by either private owners or vehicle manufacturers.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Japanese police used Ford Mustangs such as the Ford Mustang Mach 1.
Mini-pato (ミニパト) cars, named for being miniature patrol cars, are vehicles within the kei or "5-number" (roughly compact-sized) size classes of cars, with a maximum engine displacement of 1,500 cc or less and a maximum total length of 4,500 mm (180 in). There are exceptions such as the Suzuki SX4 and Suzuki Baleno, both "3-number"-sized cars with a total width exceeding 1,700 mm (67 in).
Mini-patos come in marked and unmarked variants, and are often deployed at kōban or police stations relatively far from the main station, or used exclusively for parking and traffic enforcement. The former, called "compact patrol vehicles", were deployed for the first time in 1974 to 100 police stations with severe road and weather conditions nationwide (Shōwa 50 edition "White Paper on Police"). A large number of 1,000-1,500 cc compact cars were introduced by the National Police Agency and deployed nationwide, and are now a common sight on the streets of Japan.
As mini-patos are not equipped with radios or radar systems, police officers riding in them are required to carry portable radios or radio receivers. However, antennas are installed in many mini-patos, and are meant to be connected to an officer's portable radio. Some vehicles are equipped with data communication terminals and location tracking systems. The equipment present on the base car is left as it is, so factory-equipped navigation systems may be present, but are seldom used due to the operational environment. In addition to the standard V-shaped light bar found on standard police cars, mini-patos are also equipped with an auxiliary red warning light.
On occasion, prefectural vehicle procurements may differ from those at the national level. Whereas national mini-pato orders are often for kei cars due to their maneuverability on cramped and congested urban roads (particularly in Tokyo), prefectural police in less urbanized areas may opt for so-called liter cars, taking durability into account because of larger operation areas and thus longer travel distances. Since most orders are from prefectural governments, there is no single standardized model nationwide.
An unmarked police car, or fukumen-sha (覆面車, "masked/disguised car"), has the same default appearance as a normal civilian car, with hidden emergency lighting being deployed in the event of an emergency. In Japan, unmarked cars are used for traffic enforcement, escorts, and criminal investigations. The officers within may be wearing uniforms or plain clothes depending on the assignment.
Unmarked cars' emergency lighting is generally in the form of a single red rotating beacon light stored under a panel in the roof of the vehicle that electrically rotates into place when needed, leaving a recess in the roof (sometimes called a "washbowl" (洗面器, senmenki) due to its shape). Early on (i.e. in the 1960s), this light only ascended and descended into position and did not rotate. Some unmarked cars use a magnetic beacon light that is manually attached to the roof of the car,and others have an electronic display board visible through the rear window that can display messages such as "FOLLOW ME" or "SLOW DOWN".
Unmarked cars, like marked cars, have different specifications for different purposes. However, since there is less demand for unmarked cars than marked cars, there are fewer models, and currently only the Toyota Crown is identified as a regular catalog model. However, as with marked cars, the majority of vehicles are purchased by prefectural police, purchased in bulk by the National Police Agency through general competitive bidding, or donated (as with high-performance marked cars), so there are also many unmarked cars based on general civilian vehicles. During the bubble economy, in order to reduce the trade surplus, there were cases in which foreign luxury vehicles such as Mercedes-Benzes and BMWs were purchased with government funds and deployed as expressway patrol units.
The Toyota Mark X pictured above cost ¥33,311,640 for 4 units (¥8,327,910 or roughly US$71,200 per unit) to purchase in 2016. It is a performance model equipped with a special supercharged 3.5 L (210 cu in) Toyota 2GR V6 engine with a torque and horsepower increase over a standard 2GR.