Man donates Honda NSX supercar for Mie police patrol use
A donor has gifted a speedy Honda NSX, a top-grade two-door sports car with an engine displacement of about 3,500cc, to be reborn as a speedy police patrol car.
The NSX, donated to Mie prefectural police by a resident of Shiga Prefecture, has been repainted to meet the specifications of a patrol vehicle.
Its license plate is 110, the dial number for police in Japan.
The car was seen roaring at full speed to mark the special donation ceremony held at Suzuka Circuit in Suzuka, Mie Prefecture, on April 21.
The donor was Toshiya Kobayashi, a real estate agent who lives in Kusatsu, Shiga Prefecture.
Kobayashi's hobby is motor racing. He said he has visited Suzuka Circuit many times to watch races there.
Kobayashi, 43, has also competed in motor racing himself.
Toyota Crowns account for the bulk of the Mie prefectural police's patrol car fleet. Suzuka, however, is the seat of a Honda Motor Co. factory.
Kobayashi said he wanted to show his gratitude to Mie Prefecture, which he loves so much, to mark 10 years of his entrepreneurship.
He bought the NSX secondhand and offered it to the Suzuka Police Station as a donation in June last year.
'An offender on the run could never get away from this car,' Kobayashi said.
The donated NSX was manufactured in 2019.
Officials of the prefectural police's accounting division said that NSXs of that model sell for around 25 million yen ($175,000) even in the used market.
The Tochigi prefectural police department also keeps an NSX in its fleet, which, however, is an earlier model, the officials added.
Incidentally, the police department of neighboring Aichi Prefecture, the seat of Toyota Motor Corp., utilizes a Toyota Crown Sport, with an engine displacement of about 2,500cc, which has been adapted into a patrol car.
'Ours is the only one NSX of the latest model that is kept by any police department in Japan,' said Yoji Tsurusawa, head of the Mie Prefectural Police Headquarters. 'We hope to make sure we will be saying proudly that we have this NSX in Mie Prefecture.'
The Honda sports car will be used at awareness-raising events and on other occasions.
It will also be used, among other things, in patrols and for traffic policing in different parts of the prefecture.
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