Whenever a car chase ended in a crash scene, the cars used would invariably be 3.8-litre S-type Jaguars because the stunt drivers found them to be the safest cars to use. The same cars would be fixed up, repainted, and re-used numerous times.
A red Fiat 850 Coupé car, registration UJB 92G, makes a brief Hitchcock-like appearance in many of the episodes. Usually it is parked at the side of the road as the villains or the Sweeney drive past. It is clearly identifiable from a distance, because its tax disc is placed high-up on the windscreen, rather than being in the lower-left corner.
Two different arrangements of the title music were used. During the opening titles, the music was fast, urgent, and dynamic. During the end credits it was slow, languorous, and reflective.
Many of the famous catchphrases used by Regan (John Thaw) and Carter (Dennis Waterman) (for example, "Get your trousers on, you're nicked" and "We're the Sweeney, son, and we haven't had our dinner yet") were the result of the program's researchers studying the way real members of the Flying Squad ("The Sweeney") talked when off-duty in pubs near New Scotland Yard.
The interiors (squad office, interview rooms, and prison cells) were filmed at Colet Court in Hammersmith, which was the offices of Euston Films, the company which made this show and Minder (1979). Most of the location filming was done within a radius of one mile (1.6 kilometers) of Colet Court.