Volga GAZ-21 Traffic Police 1972

In 1968 the USSR developed a paint scheme for police vehicles, documented as “Colours and Identification Markings of Special Cars and Motorcycles”. The work was prompted by growing vehicle numbers and traffic intensity in Soviet cities.

Civilian cars were increasingly painted bright, saturated colours, making the single-colour vehicles of emergency services harder to identify. This hindered their unimpeded passage to incidents.

Lemon yellow, the most conspicuous signal colour, was chosen as the primary police colour, with blue as the secondary one. Blue was used for a side stripe adapted to the body shape, the boot lid, rear door and smaller details. Individual models had variations: on the GAZ-21, the stripes covered the uninterrupted upper surface of the front wings up to the bonnet joint. The service name appeared in white on the stripe on both sides. The USSR coat of arms was placed on the front doors below the blue stripe, or partly overlapping it where the door shape required.