From the mid-1970s up until the late 1980s, the most popular police car on British streets was powered by a Rover V8 engine powerful enough to take part in high-speed pursuits and even help transport life-saving organs to critically ill patients.

Outside of the Range Rover, arguably the most popular car to be powered by the Rover V8 was the Rover SD1 executive saloon.

One of the most famous police cars during the “jam sandwich” era of British policing, the Rover SD1 was fast, had a lot of space and its racing pedigree meant that it was remarkably manoeuvrable in high-traffic scenarios, something that turned out to be vital.

Alongside the characteristic red stripe, white paint and blue sirens, police-spec SD1s also featured automatic gearboxes, uprated brakes and black bumpers.

Whilst most police forces with a large enough stretch of motorway or dual carriageway used SD1s at some point, some police forces liked them more than others.

Some had the misfortune of dealing with build-quality issues, leading them to replace them early with Vauxhall Senators and Ford Grenadas.

However, other forces such as the Metropolitan Police, loved the SD1 and it became a very regular fixture on the roads of Greater London. It was even prominently featured in the popular police procedural The Bill, only being replaced by the Ford Sierra police car in 1993, long after the SD1 had been discontinued.

Possibly its crowning achievement, and the one that highlighted everything right about the SD1 and the Rover V8 that powered it, was the famous Liver Run.

With just 35 minutes to drive 27 miles between Junction 7 of the M11 to Cromwell Hospital in Kensington, two Rover SD1s drove through Central London on a busy Friday afternoon.

They made it with just four minutes to spare, and the person who received the new liver following a life-threatening rejection of another transplant survived and made a full recovery.