Bulletproof Toyota eases Gauteng angst, if the shoe fits.
We don’t travel to Johannesburg all that often anymore. Sad, perhaps, considering it’s where we grew up and lived happily for so many years. But life moves on. We had to go up a few weeks ago though, and by chance, we were offered… well… a pretty appropriate car for the weekend. To help enjoy the many finer points of that fantastic city, a little better.
Underneath the wrap on this Toyota Prado VX, sits a car that you’d swear is completely normal. It isn’t. This is an Armormax B4 bulletproof Prado VX. Best thing about it, is it not only looks completely standard, but it is remarkably normal at it too. This one’s made to resist small arms fire, the kind of weapon typically used by car hijackers and thieves. They will also build you an Armormax B6 to protect you against machine gun fire, and the like.
Armormax made this Prado bulletproof
Anyway, what is Armormax? Once a partnership with a leading American luxury vehicle armourer, the outfit has since evolved into a proudly South African owned bespoke armoured vehicle manufacturer. They fit state of the art lightweight synthetic armour to cars using international best practice and precise attention to detail. To deliver bulletproof luxury vehicles to families, business professionals and VIPs alike.
Lightweight Armormax cars also ensure a superior driving experience, longer vehicle life and extended service. South Africa’s only acknowledged OEM partner to BMW, Audi, Jaguar, Ford, Land Rover, Nissan, Mahindra, Ford market, Toyota and Lexus and more. Armormax has clad more than 1700 luxury vehicles from its bustling facility over 20 years.
“While we like to think that South Africa is the best place in the world to live, we also understand that violent crime can be part of the deal,” Armormax Marketing Manager Michael Broom explains. “Armormax offers customers the ability to mitigate at least some of the risks and live an unrestricted life by delivering armoured cars that make little difference to every other driving experience.”
Hardly any noticeable difference, inside or out
Once our Prado VX arrived at the factory, it was stripped down to the metal. Then all the doors, panels, the roof, fenders, overlaps and pillars were lined with lightweight composite Armormax B4 armour. The inner body cladding is a kind of carbonfibre mat that arrests any regular ballistic with ease. Just like a bullet proof vest. All the windows are also removed and replaced with custom fit 21mm ballistic glass with a ballistic steel rebate. Not much will get through that!
The car is then reassembled to TUV SUD certified ISO 9001 standards to ensure OEM manufacturer level build quality. Run flat inserts are added to the tyres. Not so much to make them bullet proof, but more to facilitate rapid escape from attack. A handy push-to-talk intercom system is then added to allow communication while maintaining that security cocoon. And voila, meet the Armormax B4 Toyota Prado VX.
The Armormax B4 conversion only adds 180 kilograms to the Prado. The power front windows remain operational, but do not wind fully down. The rear door glass is fixed to ensure maximum security in the rear compartment at all times. Armormax requires a six to eight week lead time to secure and prepare materials before a 4-7 week build time, depending on the car model armoured.
21 mm armormax glass is matchbox thick
Armormax also offers a higher protection B6 conversion for higher levels of protection from assault rifles. Or machine guns, as some call them. It uses extra ballistic steel and 42 mm ballistic glass, among several other additions. Limited to larger SUVs and bakkies, Armormax B6 protection is still relatively lightweight versus most rival offerings.
Getting back to our Armormax B4 Prado. Take away the roadshow livery, and there’s no way one can tell the difference to a regular Prado from the outside. Roll the window down and its clear it’s armoured glass. 21 mm is a matchbox thick. You feel that in the door, which thunks closed far more convincingly. Besides the driver’s window that still peeps out when wound down, and the fixed rear glass, nothing else is different inside.
To be honest, there’s virtually no difference to how this armoured car drives and rides compared to a standard Prado. It’s a little tauter. You’d probably barely feel it , even if you jumped from one to the other. The difference is invisible. And would be forgotten in a matter of minutes anyway.
Armormax Prado adds feeling of freedom, safety
So after ou short tour around Armormax’s thriving workshop packed with pretty much every top end SUV, bakkie and limo you can imagine, and a quick walk around the car, we set off. Northriding’s bomb hole roads were a good first test. Knowing we were in that cocoon made the disrupted afternoon traffic from there over Witkoppen to the N1 and on up Wiliam Nicol feel, well, a little bit more secure.
The Armormax Prado certainly instils a feeling of freedom and safety while cruising around amid a fleet of Jozi Zola Budds, sitting trapped in the traffic among a million vendors, and who knows who else, in the traffic. Or pulling into a Gauteng driveway and waiting for it to open.
Is it worth it? Well that depends how much you value your life. We moved away from Johannesburg 20 years ago after an attack of the kind that this car is designed to resist. Not everyone is in a position to do that. But this car brings a very handy relief to that worry of, perhaps an inevitable attack over time.
So yes, an eight-hundred-odd grand premium seems a pretty fair one to pay over the R1.4 million you need to shell out for a Prado VX. As they say in the classics, if the shoe fits…
Reference
Author: Michele Lupini
Website: https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/life/motoring/2025-05-08-review-what-its-like-to-drive-a-bulletproof-armormax-prado/