{"id":272109,"date":"2018-09-23T18:00:47","date_gmt":"2018-09-23T16:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=272109"},"modified":"2018-09-21T15:19:01","modified_gmt":"2018-09-21T13:19:01","slug":"how-much-it-costs-to-bullet-proof-your-car-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/motoring\/272109\/how-much-it-costs-to-bullet-proof-your-car-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"How much it costs to ‘bullet-proof’ your car in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Data from vehicle tracking group, Tracker<\/a><\/strong>, shows that South African hijacking are becoming increasingly violent.<\/p>\n

According to Tracker\u2019s records, over the past year, an average of 18 customers a month experienced physical injury during a hijacking, through being shot, stabbed or assaulted. One in ten of these incidents proved fatal, the group said.<\/p>\n

“Criminals are also increasingly taking hostages during hijackings and Tracker has noted that on average that 27% of our activations result in a hostage being taken,” it said.<\/p>\n

Speaking to BusinessTech, Grant Anderson MD of Armormax<\/a> <\/strong>– a\u00a0 manufacturer of civilian armoured vehicles – pointed to a steady upward trajectory in sales for armoured vehicles in the country.<\/p>\n

“This has been driven to a large extent by the continued level of violent crime prevalent in our society.”<\/p>\n

“We have saved 19 lives that we are aware of, in attacks on our vehicles in SA. The majority of these in hijackings where the assailant pulled the trigger which is a scary statistic given that we are a bespoke manufacturer of luxury armoured vehicles and don’t have thousands of vehicles on the road.”<\/p>\n

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Protection<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Armormax has broken down the numerous US and European standards for ballistic levels and settled on Level B4 (protection against high powered handgun rounds) and Level B6 ( Protection against the most common assault rifles found in SA like the R4\/5 ,AK 47 and R1\/FN) for the South African market.<\/p>\n

“Most hijackings are still committed with handguns as they are easy to conceal, and for this level of threat a B4 is ideal,” Anderson said.<\/p>\n

“In terms of costs, we don’t differentiate between vehicle models, but by ballistic levels.<\/p>\n

“Our base level B4 build starts at R550,000<\/strong> and our B6 at R1,500,000<\/strong> (compared with an average cost of in excess of R10 million for a Level B6 from one of the OEM manufacturers.)<\/p>\n

“Our vehicles are amongst the lightest armoured vehicles found globally, with an average added weight of 180 kgs on a B4, and 500Kgs for a B6 (compared to 1800 kgs on some of the OEM builds).”<\/p>\n

According to Armormax’s website\u00a0<\/a><\/strong>a level B4 upgrade will see engineers armour critical areas of the passenger cabin.<\/p>\n

“We replace all the glass with ballistic glass, integrate armour into the four doors, A.B and C pillars as well as the rear seats or boot divider, thus providing around 90% of the protection for a lot less than the cost of a manufacturer B4 level armoured vehicle,” it said.<\/p>\n

“As a client you can choose to armour any additional areas you feel are necessary on your vehicle (eg the roof in a sedan).<\/p>\n

“When we armour a vehicle to a level B6 we create a complete cocoon, including floor, roof, firewalls, engine bay protection etc.”<\/p>\n

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Common models<\/strong><\/p>\n

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According to Anderson, these are the vehicles most commonly armoured.<\/p>\n