Defensive Driving : Vehicles: A car for road warriors is unveiled at L.A. auto show. Its looks are plain--like a retooled police car--but it’s designed to leave occupants unscathed even after a hail of gunfire.
So it has come to this, finally, ultimately, inevitably.
Tucked away in a remote exhibition hall at the Greater Los Angeles Auto Show, showcased by a snappy backdrop of graffiti and razor wire, looms the Defender, a car made in Los Angeles, for Los Angeles, a car you can drive to the apocalypse and supposedly live to tell the tale.
It’s the ultimate car for the true urban warrior, or the truly paranoid, or any variation thereof. All for a price that the masses might be able to afford.
The Defender’s base price, including cellular phone and no-sweat leather steering wheel (for white-knuckle grips) is only $12,777. For a bulletproof version, add another $20,000, more or less.
The other guys (yes, there is a competitive market for this stuff) say that once you supply the car, they’ll bulletproof it for maybe $70,000.
“Our goal was to build an economical, utilitarian beginning point for the average person that will give maximum reliability in any environment,” says Marcus Hays, who designed the thing. “Remember, reliability means security.”
But the Defender--no relation to the comparatively effete Defender made by Land Rover--is not what you would expect. Which, you see, is the point. This is the ‘90s, when ostentation is not only unfashionable, it could get you killed.
So the Defender is a retooled, reinforced cop car--with such options as a retractable bullet screen behind the grille (prevents debilitating hits to the radiator) and “run-flat” tires (allows high-speed getaways even when riddled with bullets)--that will win no beauty prize. It’s ugly, or maybe you’d just call it plain.
“Exactly!” Hays says, squealing, practically jumping up and down. Hays is one of three partners who own Performance Coachworks. Their small Chatsworth factory is where the Defenders emerge from the bodies of 1990 Chevrolet 9C-1 Police Interceptors, heretofore unavailable for sale to the public.
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The 3-year-old company has reportedly armored everything from Cadillacs to Mercedeses to Fords until they would suit the likes of James Bond or Mad Max.
(Note to the uninitiated, the innocent and the old school: In ‘90s U.S. security lingo, an armored vehicle is sleek, not a military tin can. Level 2 will repel 9-millimeter bullets, Level 3 will stop a .44 magnum, and a Level 4 is supposed to beat out NATO rounds.)
“It does not attract attention,” Hays says of his Defender, which is making its world debut this week at the Los Angeles Convention Center. “This is for people who want to get from point A to point B without fanfare. It’s essentially an armored taxicab.”
Other descriptions, too, spring to mind. This is the evil cousin of the battered Volkswagen with a hand-lettered sign letting crooks know the radio is already gone. This is a car that doesn’t shout, but gravely hints, “Beware.”
“You drive Wilshire at rush hour onto the freeway, people will yield and wave you through,” Hays says, citing one of his many research and development runs on the streets of L.A. He hasn’t exactly impersonated an officer, but people do tend to think he is The Law.
“I take high-speed runs on the freeways, keep entirely in the left lane and gauge other vehicles’ reactions. I’ve never been ticketed, but I’ve gotten a lot of salutes.
“This is the only car where people run from me when I operate it. So it’s a good starting point. Of course, it’s a double-edged sword. Police have been shot at in L.A.”
And you don’t even have to wear the optional Tactical Night Finder goggles to get that effect.
Naturally, the car’s manufacturers think the Defender is going to be big, especially in Los Angeles, and even among those who have never seen a “Road Warrior” movie in their lives.
“During the weekend, we almost needed oxygen to breathe, there were so many people around here,” said Performance Coachworks partner Andrew Alenick, who’s on the financial end.
Apparently no other company in this specialized security market has come up with a model designed for everyday people who might equate a jaunt to the ATM with, say, a British diplomat’s call on the IRA.
Another local company that armors vehicles, Fountain Valley’s Classic International Armoring, is sticking with the very high-end crowd for now. A spokesman says the company does a lot of work for the Saudi royal family. Their cheapo goes for about $40,000, and top of the line will set you back $170,000.
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In Cincinnati, Bill O’Gara, president of the nation’s largest and oldest armored-vehicle manufacturer, O’Gara Hess & Eisenhardt, says his company saw the trend for the domestic market in the mid-’80s and designed its Personal Security Vehicle, which was “geared to prevent against random acts of violence, the smash and runs.”
But because his company is not used to retail, O’Gara says they had trouble filling the initial 25 to 30 orders and gave up.
Then about two years ago, O’Gara says the worried calls started coming again. The Los Angeles riots, the Exxon kidnaping and a particularly heinous carjacking in the suburbs of Washington sparked renewed demand.
“At first we didn’t do anything,” says O’Gara, who tools around in an unarmored Volvo himself. “I guess we hoped it would go away. But we kept receiving phone calls, so we took a package that had been sent to Brazil, which was having a kidnaping problem, and repackaged it and called it the Personal Security Vehicle 2.”
He says the company sold 25 armored PSV-2s last year. The prices range from $40,000 to $70,000 and that doesn’t include the price of the car--Jeeps are big--which the customer supplies. Bulletproofing takes about six weeks.
In the meantime, O’Gara says his company is working with major car manufacturers to find ways to incorporate some security measures, such as protection on the side front windows, into cars you’ll one day be able to buy on the lot.
All of which is good news to the guys at Performance Coachworks, who say they are working on something they call the Eluder, which will be geared to those who like a real performance car.
Not that the Defender, they stress, is any slouch. Hays says he has tentative orders from 100 people who have seen the Defender at the auto show.
And a representative for a police force in a foreign capital (one you’ve definitely heard of but which can’t be mentioned here) smiles mysteriously when asked about his plans to pick up 300 of the cars.
“I will say that in the United States, even though they are not law enforcement, these cars will give more police presence on the street,” he says as he stands next to the car.
“It’s not something that people are going to steal,” adds passerby Rene Balderrama, who seems sold on the Defender even without a test drive. “And it’s economical to work on.” Balderrama drives a Mercedes now.
“Just look at it!” gushes Raul Gonzalez, who drives his Buick from Laguna Hills to Downtown Los Angeles every workday. “People will stay away from it. It looks like an official car. And you go look at a $280,000 Aston-Martin and it has a rubber hose (under the hood.) This has steel lines.”
Hays touts such ruggedness as an integral part of the Defender’s appeal, noting that the last thing you want on the freeway is a hose coming loose. With regular, routine servicing, he claims the car will last 350,000 miles.
But where a safety-conscious Volvo plays up the crash dummies big, Performance Coachworks is planning a slightly different approach to calm an anxious public’s security concerns.
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To coincide with a planned first meeting of the Defender owners club in two months, the company will make a video that it predicts will become an important sales tool.
“We’re going to get four water-filled dummies and then riddle the car with a variety of weaponry,” Hays says. “Then we’re going to remove the dummies and see if they spring any leaks.”
Not that such a pitch was working on every visitor eyeing the Defender at the auto show.
“I wouldn’t consider buying it, because I live in a nice suburb,” said Rod McInnis, who drives a ’66 Mustang. “Upland. It’s the city of gracious living.”
“You really don’t need it if you don’t drive in the wrong neighborhoods,” said his friend, Scott MacKay. “It’s a sad testament to our society--or else a cheap way to make a buck.”
