BMW Builds the Ultimate Security Machine

[kyleabaker]

Hey, are you a man on the go? Do you have a thoroughly legitimate import-export business run out of Bogotá? Do you provide a much-needed service getting arms and munitions into countries with names that end in “–stan”? Or perhaps you’re a rapper with some real street cred.

If any of those apply to you, then BMW has just the car for you. Say hello to the BMW 7 Series High Security.

We believe in security. We always wear our seatbelts. We are big proponents of motorcycle helmets and back protectors. The HANS device makes sense to us. But the BMW 7 Series High Security seems just a little over the top. This car — actually, it’s two cars, the BMW 760Li High Security and the BMW 750Li High Security — features a the kind of stuff normally found in military vehicles and Jerry Bruckheimer movies.



Tick the “high security” option and you’ll ride around in a bank vault with a suspension tough enough to carry a car weighed down by armor plating and bullet resistant glass.

The vehicle-specific armor plating is made from special steel and is mounted in the doors, the roof, the pillars, the front footwell and the separation wall between passenger and luggage compartments. Model-specific gap sealing ensures that critical areas such as door cut and body-joint lines are safely sealed. Against what, only your mortal enemies can say. Even the 7 Series High Security’s undercarriage is armored with special plating, developed with a particular focus on maximum explosion protection.



Windows? Not to worry. The laminated glass cover is multilayered and “provides a unique level of resistance.” More than two inches thick, the windows are covered with a polycarbonate layer on the inside in order to prevent shattered glass particles from penetrating the interior.



Add an intercom system with concealed microphones and speakers, an assault alarm and a fire-extinguishing system for dousing fires in the engine compartment and below the vehicle. Irritant-gas sensors automatically close all windows, activate the central locking system, shut the fresh air valves and shut off the ventilation system. An internal fresh-air supply system ensures that passengers have breathable air. And BMW offers options such as flag holders (we love those) and, our favorite, a gun case with compartments for two, count ‘em two machine guns in the center console.



Photos: BMW

Source: http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/08/bmw-high-security/