Deutsche Polizei Green

Deutsche Polizei Green, the green of German police vehicles

The shade is named after the service vehicles of the German police, which for decades ran in a green and white combination: a green body, white doors and a white roof. This pair of colors was bound up with the police in Germany so firmly that a patrol car was recognized at a distance before the lettering on its flank was legible.

Where the subject comes from

The green and white scheme accompanied German patrol cars from the 1970s and survived several generations of machinery: vans, mid-size sedans and highway specials with a prominent light bar. Only gradually, from roughly the middle of the first decade after 2000, did the individual federal states move to today's blue and silver form, so green vehicles belong today to the historic part of collections. The green itself is dark and saturated, without the olive cast of the military colors with which it is occasionally confused.

What the shade will be put to use on

• Bodies of patrol, highway and service vehicles of the older generation
• Vans and buses of public order units
• The green fields of two-color schemes with white doors and roof
• Helmet and gear details of figures for a police scene

Whom the shade will serve

It is meant for collectors of period service vehicles and for builders of city dioramas, where a patrol car is meant to look credible at first sight. It is with exactly this subject that it matters that the green does not slide into olive: a police car has to be recognizable as a police one and not as army machinery in a civilian setting.