There are many uses for armored vehicles outside the military and, in fact, they have come to play an essential role in many aspects of our everyday civilian lives.
Think of those armored vehicles that we regularly see, for example, outside banks, jewelry stores and other locations where large sums of money or valuables are being moved from one place to another.
Or think about those police SWAT specific response vehicles – you’ve probably seen them on TV if not in real life – that go to crisis situations such as bombings, kidnappings, etc and are sometimes used for routine patrols in troubled areas.
Our amoured prison transit vans, fire engines, and other vehicles that have been reinforced to protect the passengers and contents from harm from outside.
However, armored cars in the 21st century can also look and feel like just about any vehicle model seen driving on the road today – once they have been expertly modified to protect the life of the people riding inside.
These types of armored vehicles are commonly used by VIPs such as film stars, musicians, politicians, diplomats and others, particularly the very wealthy, who may be the targets of kidnapping or assassination plots, or who for reasons of their work have to travel into zones that can threaten their personal safety.
The very best armored vehicle manufacturers in Canada, such as ExecArmor of Vaughan, Toronto, will take the vehicle model of your choice and armor it according to the level of protection and specifications you desire.
They will replace just about every body part to introduce such standard types of protection as:
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- Overlapping ballistic plate throughout the entire passenger area.
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- Contouring ballistic plate to cover the entire roof area.
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- Removing all original vehicle glass and replacing it with multi-layered bullet proof glass (see below) and window power systems, if required.
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- Sealing and armoring the vehicle fuel tank, computer and battery.
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- Armored and sealed louvres to protect radiator (concealed inside hood).
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- Exhaust pipe armoring.
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- Installing run-flat tires on all wheels and the vehicle spare.
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- Installing protective bulk-head, glassed swing door behind original vehicle door.
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- Entire vehicle firewall armored.
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- Reinforcing hinges on inside of all doors and frames to withstand additional armoring weight.
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- Reinforcing and armoring floor so that it can withstand grenade blasts.
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- Armoring protective front fenders to protect passengers from side-impact bullets.
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- Engines, brakes, gear boxes and other engine parts modified and reinforced on request.
The resulting vehicle looks exactly the same as any similar model on the road but affords a heightened level of protection to all passengers and property that can make a very real difference between life and death.
What makes armored vehicles so safe?
The point of an armored vehicle is to be hard, strong, and tough enough to withstand shattering when it is struck by a violent, fast blow, such as from a bullet, shrapnel, grenade, etc.
Many civilian armored vehicles are manufactured out of rolled, homogenous steel which is cast steel that has been forged and rolled to the required thickness in order to iron out imperfections and create a sheet structure in which the elongated steel grains lie in long lines that can better absorb the brunt of a fast, sharp impact.
Steel is an excellent material for this except for its weight – armored vehicles are notoriously heavy. This is why on occasion aluminum is used instead of steel, especially on smaller, armored sedans.
Windows in armored vehicles are usually made from bullet-proof or bullet resistant glass, as the industry prefers to call it. This is manufactured either out of several layers of laminated glass or by means of polycarbonate thermoplastics which look and have all the transparency of regular glass but offer far more protection, particularly from threats such as small arms fire.
At ExecArmor, both materials are combined with the laminated glass being sandwiched into layers of the polycarbonate thermoplastics. The plastic improves the window’s overall resistance to physical assault impacts (meaning, for example. attack by hammer, axe, clubs, etc) while the glass serves to flatten any bullets that come into contact with it, so preventing them from penetrating to the inside of the vehicle.
Like rolled, homogenous steel, bullet-proof glass is also notoriously heavy, largely because it is so very thick – anything from three to almost five inches in depth, which is why ExecArmor reinforces inside door hinges and the frames on which they hang.
Lighter types of bullet-proof glass are under development using materials such as aluminum oxynitride but their extreme expense – they currently cost around US $15 a square inch – makes them suitable for use only in very special circumstances.
If you would like to know more about ExecArmor’s customized armored vehicles made to measure to suit your specifications and lifestyle please call 1 (866) 964-4174 or email us at info@execarmor.com.
ExecArmor of Vaughan, Toronto: Manufacturing armored cars in state-of-the-art facilities in Canada, the USA, Europe, and the Middle East.