Corgi 00502; Z Cars Ford Zephyr 6 MkIII; Police, White

Year of Release: 2000

Z-Cars is a British television police procedural series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby, near Liverpool. Produced by the BBC, it ran from 1962 until1978.

The stories revolve around pairs of officers patrolling Newtown in their Ford Zephyrs. Riding on changing social attitudes and television, the social realism, with interesting stories, garnered popularity for Z Cars. It was initially somewhat unpopular with real-life police, who disliked the sometimes unsympathetic characterisation of officers. Being set in Northern England helped give Z Cars a regional flavour when most BBC dramas were set in Southern England. It directly challenged the BBC's established police drama Dixon of Dock Green, which at that point had been running for seven years but which some considered 'cosy'.

This Corgi was sourced in December 2022 from a private collection