When most people take a new car for a test drive they usually bring it back to the garage in one piece.
However Greater Manchester Police has been forced to consider changing its policy on test drivers after one of its officers wrote-off a £40,000 Volkswagen.
The test driver crashed the VW Golf R in the city in the early hours of December 15 last year.
A spokesman for the force refused to divulge details of the crash but told the BBC that "as result of the incident, GMP is reviewing its policy on officers test driving cars".
The driver is reported to have been taken to hospital with a back injury.
A GMP source told the Daily Mail that the test had gone "horribly wrong".
"It was being tested in the early hours and the car had been with the force for a couple of days," they said. "The idea was to get a few officers to get a feel for it - get a reasonable sample before deciding whether to buy them."