RE: Armoured Range Rover

RE: Armoured Range Rover

Friday 22nd September 2006

Armoured Range Rover

If you think SUVs are bad news, wait till you try an armoured Rangie. Nathan Millward did.


Armoured Range Rover
Armoured Range Rover

It can be a dangerous life for a 4x4 driver. As well as the Chancellor’s best efforts to tax you off the road, you also have to contend with an environmental debate driven by dodgy facts and a misguided view that 4x4 drivers are single-handedly responsible for the imminent death of mankind.

In fact you’re probably safer on the front line in Iraq than behind the wheel of the latest ‘Chelsea Tractor’. Fortunately for embattled farmers, premiership footballers and school run mums alike, there’s now a solution.

And last week I got to drive it.

Battle cruiser

Weighing in at four tonnes, the Armoured Range Rover is the closest thing you can get to a road-going tank. From the outside it looks like any other Range Rover, but beneath the skin it’s a very different story. Fitted with armoured steel and reinforced glass, the £165,000 battle cruiser can take a bullet from an elephant gun and still keep on coming. Though don’t be fooled into thinking this is just a standard Range Rover in a bulletproof vest.

With a reinforced floor plan and its own oxygen supply, this thing has can withstand grenades, gas attacks and anything else Swampy and his team of eco-warriors have got to throw at it.

The biggest challenge however is getting in. With lumps of industrial steel lining each door, it takes a two handed tug and a puff of the lungs to make an opening. Once inside, the Armoured Range Rover continues the illusion of normality with little to suggest you were in James Bond’s 4x4 of choice.

It’s only then that I noticed a pair of aftermarket buttons that would look more at home on a pub fruit machine. Resisting the childish urge to give them a nudge I first ask what they’re for. “One’s for the ejector seat and the other’s for the side rockets,” comes the response from the PR man. I’m not convinced -- but why spoil the fantasy?

Fettled by Prodrive

On the move, the additional weight does little to detract from the typically svelte Range Rover experience. Thanks to the reworked chassis and air suspension, it certainly feels no more cumbersome or flat-footed than any other 4x4 I’ve driven. The chaps at vehicle development expert Prodrive have a large part to play in this, and if any vehicle was capable of wrong-footing Ken Livingstone as he tries to tag you with his proposed £25 congestion charge, this is it. With fuel consumption of less than 10mpg however, you just have to hope any chase is short-lived.

Power comes from a 4.4-litre V8 producing 281bhp, and while acceleration is no more than brisk, it does possess a turn of speed that would have members of the Alliance Against Urban 4x4s chocking on their lentils. More impressive still are the brakes. With this much weight I expected braking distance to be measured in miles not metres, yet with disc brakes the size of dustbin lids, the Armoured Range Rover stops just as well as it goes.

Stunning

With our tour of the Buckinghamshire countryside complete, it’s easy to see why this motoring armadillo has emerged as the vehicle of choice for D-list celebrities, failed monarchs and pursued religious authors the world over.

Like Arnold Schwarzenegger in a dinner jacket, the Armoured Range Rover looks like any other guest at the party. Fire a rocket at his chest however and you’ll soon realise you’ve messed with the wrong guy.

All in all, the Armoured Range Rover is a stunning piece of kit. It may weigh as much as dumper truck and be as kind on the environment as a nuclear winter, but for concerned parents there really isn’t any better way of getting the kids to school in one piece. For those who value the environment above self-preservation, you’ll probably see the Armoured Range Rover as a vulgar, ostentatious drain on the world’s resources.

You may have a point, but you try convincing me that given half the chance you wouldn’t see if that big red button really did fire your passenger into orbit.

Author
Discussion

dvs_dave

Original Poster:

8,581 posts

224 months

Friday 22nd September 2006
quotequote all
British Embassy and high ranking military bods cruise around Iraq and these bad boys too.

They look totally standard until you see the thickness of the glass!!

vinceh

154 posts

227 months

Friday 22nd September 2006
quotequote all
Although this is as far as most fourbies ever get off the road, he should have thought twice, as he's got a ticket! 1 - 0 to The System.

cathalm

606 posts

243 months

Friday 22nd September 2006
quotequote all
GET OUT OF MY WAY LITTLE MAN!

richardthestag

1,406 posts

232 months

Friday 22nd September 2006
quotequote all
cathalm said:
GET OUT OF MY WAY LITTLE MAN!


GO ON! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? MOVE IT OR I'LL CRUSH YOU LIKE AN ANT!

hehe

randlemarcus

13,507 posts

230 months

Friday 22nd September 2006
quotequote all
Ted, when did DeR join the journalistic ranks? thumbup

sjg

7,444 posts

264 months

Friday 22nd September 2006
quotequote all
article said:
Weighing in at four tonnes


I'm guessing it's classed as a HGV then, as it's over 3,500kg. So people with a regular car licence can't drive it.

Interestingly, it's cheaper to tax - a "private HGV" is charged a flat rate of £165 rather than the £210 you'd be charged otherwise.

Edited by sjg on Friday 22 September 19:37

jumpingloci

216 posts

214 months

Friday 22nd September 2006
quotequote all
Not sure about the HGV licence as I heard today that Hertz hire them out from one of their branches in London. Whether there's restrictions in place I'm not sure.

Sharief

6,337 posts

215 months

Friday 22nd September 2006
quotequote all
Less than 10MPG?! I hope it has a big fuel tank!

Ashok

598 posts

258 months

Friday 22nd September 2006
quotequote all
So politically incorrect - I love it!

FestivAli

1,085 posts

237 months

Saturday 23rd September 2006
quotequote all
Short and Sweet write up. Love the stuff about the anti-4wd brigade, I'd drive one of these if I could afford it just to piss them off. Bunch of uninformed self righteous knobs who think we should all drive Priuses.

Drive what you want and if your paranoid, make it one of these.

Ali.

toxic frog

3,158 posts

266 months

Saturday 23rd September 2006
quotequote all
There's a big article in this quarter's Lusso magazine about them... lots of pictures of them getting blown up and stuff...

cracking magazine...

val

199 posts

233 months

Saturday 23rd September 2006
quotequote all
If not used in military zones, people who actually drive these are compleete jerks.

ed.

2,172 posts

237 months

Saturday 23rd September 2006
quotequote all
Anyone who has been carjacked may disagree...

Edited by ed. on Saturday 23 September 14:29

Sharief

6,337 posts

215 months

Saturday 23rd September 2006
quotequote all
val said:
If not used in military zones, people who actually drive these are compleete jerks.
Why? If I was a wealthy individual, I'd feel safer in one of those than a Phantom or Maybach.

Oakey

27,524 posts

215 months

Saturday 23rd September 2006
quotequote all
Sharief said:
val said:
If not used in military zones, people who actually drive these are compleete jerks.
Why? If I was a wealthy individual, I'd feel safer in one of those than a Phantom or Maybach.


Often face gun wielding 'freedom fighters', RPG's, hand grenades and land mines do you?

petrol_noggin

3,046 posts

219 months

Saturday 23rd September 2006
quotequote all
Sharief said:
Less than 10MPG?! I hope it has a big fuel tank!


A non armoured model will happily chug it down at a rate of 8MPG, and I expect this one to also have the standard 100 litre capacity.

bales

1,905 posts

217 months

Saturday 23rd September 2006
quotequote all
FestivAli said:
I'd drive one of these if I could afford it just to piss them off. Bunch of uninformed self righteous knobs who think we should all drive Priuses.

Drive what you want and if your paranoid, make it one of these.

Ali.


So you don't drive a car for any other reason than to annoy certain people who disgree with your car choice - nice rolleyes

Why don't you just drive a old doubledecker bus if you just want to cause pollution.

dcb

5,834 posts

264 months

Saturday 23rd September 2006
quotequote all
petrol_noggin said:

A non armoured model will happily chug it down at a rate of 8MPG, and I expect this one to also have the standard 100 litre capacity.


FFS.

Nearly 100 quid for a tank of fuel.

In my day it was four bob a gallon and there were
no speed limits on the M1.

Sharief

6,337 posts

215 months

Sunday 24th September 2006
quotequote all
Oakey said:
Sharief said:
val said:
If not used in military zones, people who actually drive these are compleete jerks.
Why? If I was a wealthy individual, I'd feel safer in one of those than a Phantom or Maybach.


Often face gun wielding 'freedom fighters', RPG's, hand grenades and land mines do you?
No.

robdickinson

31,343 posts

253 months

Sunday 24th September 2006
quotequote all
Wonder how the fire brigade's jaws of life would cope if you ran into something tougher than your armoured rangie...