There are few moments more capable of scrambling one’s sense of place than spotting a Broward County Sheriff’s Office cruiser perched in the English countryside. That’s precisely the scenario vacationing American Rodney Price encountered, an episode recounted in Miami New Times. Amidst rolling fields, sheep, and the reliable drizzle of a British summer, Price found himself face-to-face with what looked unmistakably like a Florida police car—thousands of miles from its sunbaked habitat.
His selfie with the vehicle, which Miami New Times notes was taken in Stevenage (about thirty miles north of London), swiftly gathered more than 3,000 likes on Threads, the social media platform where Price posted it. The cruiser in question bore a “Pompano Beach” tag and sported the agency’s vintage motto, “Pride in Service with Integrity,” in cursive. Lest anyone think this a fever dream brought on by jetlag or overenthusiastic consumption of English breakfast, Price confirmed the sighting with photographic evidence, sunglasses and all.
Whose Squad Car Is It Anyway?
Online, theories bloomed as quickly as British wildflowers. A glance at the comments section—summarized in Miami New Times—noted everything from navigational errors (“Somebody took the wrong exit off the Sawgrass!”) to homespun philosophy on Florida’s inescapability (“You can leave south Florida but South Florida will never leave you”). One user, perhaps hungry or simply inspired by location, declared: “Someone is going to jail for beans and toast.”
But why was a BSO car parked quietly in England? When Miami New Times put the question to agency spokesperson Veda Coleman-Wright, the answer was a studied shrug. Coleman-Wright explained that, if the car is indeed an authentic former BSO patrol vehicle, it was legally required to have its decals and police markings removed before being sold at auction, in keeping with Florida law. Any official-looking gear or insignia, she clarified, would have had to be added after the car changed hands. It’s a plausible scenario, but leaves plenty of wiggle room for both the practical and the peculiar.
The agency couldn’t confirm whether the car in the photo was truly one of their decommissioned cruisers. Even so, the official line is consistent with Florida’s legal code—no department surplus cars go out into the wild sporting full law enforcement regalia, at least according to the agency and as described in Miami New Times. Is the Stevenage specimen a one-off, or evidence of a broader trend?
The Global Life of Retired Cop Cars
There’s a whole world—sometimes literally—of American police cars plying foreign roads. As Miami New Times details, a viral video last year showed a Sacramento County Sheriff’s car rolling through a small Polish city, causing a similar avalanche of questions. The trend, as explained in Miami New Times (citing various sources including local CBS News coverage), has an unlikely origin: European hobbyists. Some collectors delight in acquiring authentic American vehicles, then dressing them up with replica police-style finishes, decals, and the odd bit of department swag. Miami New Times references a website linking enthusiasts with both former patrol cars and sticker sets for departments as iconic as Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago.
It makes one wonder: What motivates someone a continent away from Miami to import a bit of Stateside law enforcement paraphernalia? Is it a love of vintage American muscle, a fascination with blurred cultural lines, or just the irresistible urge to own something that would look right at home in a Michael Bay film—but absolutely nowhere else?
Small Mysteries and Subtle Wonders
The image of a Broward County cruiser in Stevenage is a convergence of two worlds that otherwise seldom meet. No matter how thoroughly Miami New Times investigates—or how many police surplus auctions get combed—there’s a delightful absurdity to the very idea of these retired vehicles finding new purpose and unexpected celebrity as trophies, conversation pieces, or just extremely specific parade floats.
When you stumble onto a symbol of your hometown in another hemisphere, what emotion takes center stage: nostalgia, confusion, pride, or just the low-boil amusement that life insists on serving up? Could there be a more perfect icebreaker with British locals than, “Do you know this car once patrolled South Florida?” (And would they believe you, even with the photo?)
Final Reflections
As chronicled in Miami New Times, the journey of an ex-BSO car across the Atlantic captures something essential—and a little bit wonderful—about the way human curiosity and personal obsession can quietly upend the expected order of things. There’s no real harm done, except perhaps to local traffic norms and the occasional startled tourist.
Are there more decommissioned American squad cars living secret double lives in far-flung countries, or is this just a rare convergence of happenstance and deep automotive nerdery? Sometimes, the world quietly conspires to delight us with a riddle—a Florida cop car in the English rain, along with all the mysteries (and memes) that follow in its wake.
What’s the most bewildering chunk of home you’ve ever bumped into abroad? The universe, it seems, is always looking for new ways to remix and relocate the familiar—one police cruiser at a time.
