In the early 1960s, something unprecedented happened at the State Police. While many agents still have to do their work on bicycles and the Netherlands of reconstruction have to turn around every inch, a young lieutenant knows how to get rid of twelve Porsche 356s with the Minister of Justice. It is the start of the most legendary police unit ever: the General Traffic Service (AVD). Better known to the general public as the Porsche group.
From first The Hague and later Driebergen, the Porsches 356, 912 and finally 911 were literally in charge of the highway in a whole series of forms. In total, five hundred Porsches served with the Dutch police. This makes the hermandad still the largest Porsche fleet owner ever in the world.
Almost two decades after the last Porsche 911 drove out of the gate in Driebergen, there is now a book about the history of this unit. AMK editor Olof van Joolen and official AVD archivist Lex Goumare go back to the late fifties with their explosively rising number of road casualties. Dangerous roads and inexperienced drivers ensured that thousands of people never came home every year. The Porsches and their crews were mainly there to raise them. With a good conversation and only when it could not be otherwise with a fine.
Thanks to the stories of the men of the time and a lot of unique, never before published, visual material, the book gives a picture of the thirty years that the white and orange sports cars patrolled our highways. Especially for the book, two-time Le Mans winner Gijs van Lennep stepped into two former AVD Porsches for a road test on the traffic practice circuit of the police in Lelystad.
Boss of the Highway is a document about a police unit that is also unique worldwide. The book not only covers the heyday of 'Driebergen', but also the interplay of forces that cost the Porsches the head of the early 1990s. Boss of the Highway, police Porsches 1962 / 1996 is available through the webshop of Autovisie.
www.telegraaf.nl/autovisie/autovisie-shop/
Boss of the Highway costs € 19,95.