The carmaker says its currently sells between 500-600 police cars every year. Most of them are sold in Sweden, where Volvo Cars has close to 90% of the market, but Volvo police cars can also be found in the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

The new chassis has already had the thumbs-up from the Swedish Police, which designated the 2014 Volvo XC70 D5 AWD as the best car in its fleet after comprehensive tests, with an overall score of nine out of ten.

‘The vehicle fleet of the Swedish police is subject to among the most stringent demands in the world and the Volvo XC70 D5 AWD is the best police car we have ever offered. We see a clear opportunity to increase our sales on a number of markets, both in markets where we previously had a presence as well as in entirely new markets,’ says Ulf Rydne, business manager commercial vehicles at Volvo Car Special Vehicles and Accessories, where Volvo police cars are developed. 

He added: ‘With our new model year 2014 cars with the new chassis, we have an even wider product range and we believe we can double our sales numbers in the coming years. Already now, we are in discussions with at least a dozen different police forces around the globe: seven in Europe, two in the Americas and three in Asia. And we are determined to add more to that list,’ says Ulf Rydne. 

Volvo Cars will continue to offer fully equipped police cars like it has done for many years.

‘However, with our new chassis we now also have the possibility to offer police forces a “base” car with only a specially developed chassis,’ explained Mr Rydne. ‘Police forces can then equip their police cars according to local demands. This approach makes our police cars attractive to a much broader target group, because it allows us to compete on price as well as on quality.’ 

The new police car chassis has been changed in a number of aspects, including the introduction of new anti-roll bars, shock absorbers and springs. The cars are also subjected to a large number of verification drives on all types of road surface: for example, cars are taken on high-speed driving tests on the German autobahns, winter road driving in northern Sweden, as well as high-friction driving in Spain.

Volvo Cars is one of few car manufacturers that have developed a special chassis for police cars.