Enemies come easy but friends don’t; especially when you are stupendously rich and successful. If you happen to be one those folks that are in constant need of luxury as well as protection and do not want to overplay it with a private military convoy, Mercedes-Benz has just the right solution for you with the 2015 S-Class Guard. The German automaker has commenced production of the fully-armoured W222 Series S-Class, a year after the regular S-Class started manufacturing.
Mercedes’ flagship saloon, the S-Class is favoured by the rich, elite and the very important of the world to carry them in complete luxury and safety and the S-Class Guard model only makes the entire journey even safer from all kinds of attacks without making too much noise. The S-Class Guard is being hand built on two floors of the Sindelfingen plant, Germany where the small series production vehicles like the B-Class fuel cell were made earlier.
The 2015 Mercedes S-Class Guard protects its occupants from attacks and bombings, with the help of the materials used which include armoured steel, carbon-fibre mats and special glass. The windscreen itself is 10 cms thick and 135 kgs heavy; while 5 cm thick steel plates are added on most parts of the luxury saloon that protect against military grade weapons as well as shrapnel from hand grades and other explosives. The S-Class Guard provides VR6/VR7 protection level, while ballistic protection levels are 9 and 10.
Each Guard vehicle is first designed as a data model and Mercedes starts working on the Guard version during the development phase of the regular vehicle. The prototype then goes through extensive tests including maximum load capacity of the body and chassis, ballistic resistance and functioning of all safety systems in a crash. The results lead to the entire passenger cell receiving effective reinforcement against external dangers. This protection concept allows highly effective solutions, while potential vulnerabilities are tracked by specialists and consistently eliminated.
Apart from the S-Class, Mercedes also produces Guard variants of the E-Class, ML-Class, and G-Class models that also offer similar protection levels. The new 2015 Mercedes-Benz S-Class Guard is available only in the S600 variant that is powered by a 6.0-litre V12 engine producing 523 HP and 829 Nm of torque and comes at a very expensive price tag of around 2,00,000 Euros (Rs. 1.64 crores excluding taxes).
