Meanings
plural Z cars
- AustraliaslangAn official government car, especially a Comcar.
It was hot, which did nothing for the collective irritability, until Senator Chaney turned up and suggested we use his chauffeur-driven Z car — blissfully air-conditioned.
1980s, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies Newsletter, numbers 13-18, page 211 more example
On the Sunday, it was a roughly 900 km drive all the way back north to Woomera. Specially for this very long run we had swapped 'our' Z car for one that had just been serviced.[…]Since it was a government car we had dockets to obtain 'free' fuel, provided we went to an Ampol service station, back then a network of Government-owned garages.
2024, Barry Giles, A Piece of the Action: STEM++ Adventures Below, On, Above and Beyond Planet Earth
Origin
The cars' number plates began with the letter Z.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Z car. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Z%20car
“Z car.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Z%20car. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Z car,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Z%20car.
Source: Z car on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.