Combat ready

No, this is not a vehicle ready for a starring role in an action film. Nor is it an official vehicle from Audi – but it is certainly a very special Audi nonetheless.

For those who take their personal security very, very seriously, US firm, AddArmor, in collaboration with APR, has taken the elegant Audi RS 7 Sportback and turned it into what it claims is the world’s fastest armoured car.

As reported in Carscoops, this particular car was developed to demonstrate that not all armoured vehicles need to be big, often cumbersome vehicles, but can retain their sporting performance and handling even after they’ve be fully armoured and fitted with a full complement of protection devices.

AddArmor President, Jeff Engen, says that the AddArmor APR RS7 was meant to showcase that the company’s expertise could be employed in pretty much any vehicle:

“We wanted to demonstrate how today’s armouring technology allows drivers to pick from a wide range of cars not normally associated with armoured vehicles,” he says.

The Audi RS 7 Sportback is fully fitted with a set of protection devices that would be at home in a Bond film, yet the car remains a high-performance rocket ship, with a claimed 0 to 100km/h time of 2.9 seconds on its way to a top speed of 325km/h. That all comes courtesy of an APR Plus Stage II system by aftermarket tuning specialists, APR.

Armouring of the vehicle and its windows is extensive, so to avoid adding undue weight to the car and killing the performance, special lightweight polycarbonate weave which weighs 60 percent less than ballistic steel, has been used to protect the body. Despite its relative light weight, this composite material is 10 times stronger than ballistic steel. Likewise what we know as bullet-proof, or ballistic glass is in this case a mixture of polycarbonate and ballistic glass. The whole lot added just 91kg to the vehicle’s weight, but provides protection against light arms fire or what’s categorised as European B4 protection level – think Magnum .44 fire. The European ballistic levels go up to B7, where you’re talking about protection from something like a 30.06 AP, or armour piercing round.

That’s just the passive protection featured on the RS 7 Sportback, but the list of goodies goes way beyond ballistic protection. Smoke screen function, electric shock door handles, sound cannon and concealed pepper spray dispensers are all designed to make would be intruders think twice or just wish they hadn’t bothered in the first place. 

If you decide to use the car’s incredible performance to get the hell away from the trouble, run flat tyres allow you to drive even if the bad guys try to shoot out the tyres, and a heavily reinforced front bumper – which is concealed – gives the option of ramming obstacles without causing damage that would disable a standard car.

You could try reasoning with or at least communicating with those outside the car using the external microphone, but needless to say, the car also contains state-of-the-art GPS communications to alert the outside world to the attack. this uses what’s called the Global 911 concierge service – so if you have to, you can sit tight and wait for the cavalry to arrive. 

Of course this all might seem excessive to Australia’s who are thankfully not subject to the levels of violence these systems are designed to protect against. But ours is a particularly safe environment and there is no shortage of people around the world with differing threat levels where this level of protection is a real thing for themselves and their families. Certainly we have car jackings in Australia and often alarming road rage, but AddArmor also caters to those with a very different and very real threat of attack.

AddArmor is a US company that specialises in taking vehicles of all makes and models and turning them into ‘mobile safe rooms’ with armour and protection technology additions depending on each client’s individual needs.

The original appearance of the vehicle remains largely unchanged – after all, there’s no point in advertising this sort of thing. But under the skin, a host of changes with lightweight composite armour, ballistic glass and a range of gadgets that would keep James Bond happy, take what started life as say, a standard family SUV and turn it into something that can potentially withstand attack by hand grenade or rifle fire from an AR-16 assault rifle (depending on the level of protection installed).

Protection levels obviously vary depending on the individual's needs and potential threat levels. From protecting against a thief trying to smash a window or a violent car jacker right through to attack by assailants armed with guns and even explosives – each threat level can be met.

‘Of course all of this high-tech comes at a cost, again depending on how serious the threat and the required level pf protection. But then, if you happen to be in a certain line of work, or indeed find yourself working in a certain parts of the world – this can only be called money well spent.

Certainly the AddArmor APR RS7 demonstrates that heavy protection and firepower needn’t come at the cost of luxury, performance or handling.