Brazil’s Armored Car Culture
September 11th, 2009This is absurd on many levels, but I couldn’t look away.
Interestingly, the Brazilian government doesn’t allow vehicles to be outfitted with Level 3 and Level 4 armor. In other words, any assault rifle would cut through the armor on these vehicles like a hot knife through butter.
Via: Wall Street Journal:
Everywhere 19-year-old Kareen Passos drives in her pink VW New Beetle, men approach her and onlookers shout “Barbie!”
They can look, but they dare not touch: Ms. Passos’s car is bulletproof.
This metropolis of 10 million is the auto-armoring capital of the world, by some estimates. Last year alone, more than 3,000 automobiles were taken apart, and then put back together complete with steel door plates, windows five layers thick, and tires that keep rolling even after taking a bullet.
Over the last three years, the number of armored cars in Brazil has doubled as an explosion of wealth has sent the newly rich in search of ways to live safely in a class-driven society where the murder rate is nearly five times that of the U.S.
“I wouldn’t drive it unless it was armored,” says Ms. Passos. Her bedroom has a pink computer and pink snowboard in it. “Everything that is mine I personalize in pink. I think it’s a very pretty and expressive color.”
Unlike Ms. Passos and her attention-grabbing car, most Brazilians seek safety by trying not to call attention to themselves, or to their wealth. Publicly traded companies here don’t report executives’ salaries, fearing disclosure could turn them into targets. And the high-heeled feet of São Paulo’s wealthiest women rarely touch the city’s pavement. Many descend from their armored vehicles only in guarded garages.
Brazil’s armoring industry, including some 120 companies that convert vehicles, got its first big break in 1999, when bandits tried to kidnap the children of Jorge Paulo Lemann, the most famous banker in Brazil. A magazine story headlined “The Hero Car” told the gripping tale of how the bandits’ bullets bounced off the car’s windows.
Although the market is still small — less than one percent of all cars sold in Brazil get armored — sales are jumping again, but this time on a quickening of Brazil’s economy that’s expanded the ranks of status seekers. “They want to wear a suit, have a nice watch and buy a nice car, so then it needs to be armored,” says David Silva Ferreira, a salesman employed at a Mercedes showroom.
The country’s armored-car fleet now numbers some 86,300 vehicles according to the Brazilian Association of Armoring, a São Paulo-based trade group. Another 6,000 are added annually.
Even the car-rental company Maxiauto has about 30 armored cars on offer. “You don’t want to be the only one without,” says rental manager Maria Tereza Soubihe, whose customers are often looking to impress clients or friends. On weekends, the company offers a “Bulletproof Bride” special. For $875, a driver in a steel-plated Chevy Omega whisks wedding clients to the hairdresser and then to church.
…
Brazil’s army keeps tabs on rolling fortresses. The army forbids automobiles with so-called Level III or IV armoring, the kind strong enough to resist military weapons. Having such super-cars on Brazil’s roads “would not be convenient for internal security” an army spokesman said, since they could be used “in a rebellion.”
Research Credit: Lagavulin
