LAST of the INTER CEPTORS

FOR a fast-car nut, there are few things that grab the attention quicker than a mirror-full of red and blue lights: cherries and berries; whirligigs. You’re being lit up, wheeled, pulled over.

For decades, whenever your gaze darted from the road ahead to this scene in your rearview mirror, those fast-approaching police lights have more than likely belonged to the familiar, locally made Ford Falcon or Holden Commodore. But soon they will be no more.

With the last Aussie Ford Falcons made in 2016 and the final batch of Holden Commodores rolling off the line the following year, the ranks of our mighty home-grown police cars are thinning out. Retirement beckons the last of these Aussie-made lords of the bitumen.

Usually Ford or Holden and usually V8 (but with a few other brands and some fast fours and sizzling sixes sprinkled into the mix, too), these special-build police cars