Re: Theft-proofinks (was china angina va..nevermind)

[Chris Maresca <ckm@eainet.com>]

On Fri, 26 Jun 1998, Elliott Potter wrote:

> Brooks Ellis wrote:
> > 
> > On a side topic, have you fellas seen the Kevlar body panels being
> > produced? A few months ago, there was a feature in G&W for law enf. about a
> > company who produces sheets of kevlar, intended to be applied to the
> > outside of existing paint jobs. They fit them around the majority of the
> > door panels (aside from a margin of some small amount), and paint them the
> > color of the car. (most cop cars, this is white) It can be painted any
> > color though, and is supposed to be removable without ruining the original
> > finish, if desired. It's 3/8" thick, I believe...probably threat level III
> > or IIIA.
> 
> You can get an A8 heavily armored from the factory.  Interesting
> details:
> -Audi states that the upgraded suspension will go 1-1.2 million Km
> without any kind of repair or maintenance
> -There's a button that detonates explosives to open the doors
> -Weighs up to 3 tons, depending on how much armor you want
> -The car can withstand the simultaneous explosions of two hand grenads,
> 15kg of geosite (?) charge, and carbin, machine gun, and revolver fire
> *at the same time*.
> -There's an intercom system to the outside (rear windows don't open;
> front windows only open halfway)
> -Special tires, sirens, cell phones, a fax machine, 100 meter remote
> start, AWD, and tiptronic, heated seats, etc etc etc.
> Interesting!
> -- 
> Elliott

My father had a bomb-proof BMW and a Mercedes (he was a diplomat...) and
it had all of those features plus gun ports (outside there were invisible
painted plastic plugs covering the opening, I gues you were supposed to
shoot through them) and tear gas release and a special filtration system
for purifying air.  I remember two very funny incidents with the car.

This first one, I was sitting in a cafe (this was in Paris in the
mid-80's) waiting for my parents who were antique-ing.  My father had
parked illegally, of course ;-).  After about 20 min. a police  flatbed
arrived to tow the car.  I watched in amusement as they put straps under
the car to _lift_ it onto the flatbed...  It was really funny, the police
truck almost fliped over and one of the straps broke from the weight...
The car did not budge.  They left after 1/2 hour.

Another time, we parked in a side street, an went to dinner at a friends.
When we came back, we found the one of the windows had several powdery
dents in it.  Evendently, a would-be car theif with a sledge hammer had
attempt to break the windows, which were about 3" of multi-layer glass...
I would have loved to see the look on his face...

BTW, one of this cars was blown up in Spain, in front of a church.  The
car was thrown over a four story building and landed in the next street.
A panel of experts found that the driver survived the initial explosion
unharmed, but was kill when the car landed and was crushed...

Anyway, just thought I'd entretain you all..

Chris.
plain vanilla '90 CQ