I remember posting about Russian armoured automobile maker Dartz about a year or so ago. That time it was basically a Hummer on steroids called the Prombon. Now Dartz, in collaboration with Gray Design, have come up with the Dartz Nagel. This is even more outrageous. An armoured sportsback larger than a Rolls Royce Phantom (5.3 meters long, 2.2 meters wide) and meant to tow luxury yachts and speedboats.

A car a large as a house but looks like a 4 door coupe ala Mercedes Benz CLS. Photographs don't do this moving boulder justice. Sometimes, these Russians amaze the heck out of us. I get very amazed watching Sukhoi SU30s do incredible low speed maneuvers (at airshows), seen those large Russian Mil helicopters dump tons of water over fires (in a demonstration), felt the robustness of an AK47 and have even met a 75 year old Russian rocket scientist/engineer (who was still employed at the time) due to my line of work but when it comes to making cars, the Russians seem to think in ways weirder than even the Americans, who are basically king of oversized vehicles with their extra large SUVs and trucks.

So the scheduled for 2012 Dartz Nagel is made for towing yachts, but it already is a land yacht in my opinion. It is huge and must run a modified truck engine as according to the press release, the Nagel makes 2000bhp. No torque figures were released but the specs say that it can tow yachts up to 5 tons in weight and up to 15meters long. It can also top 250km/h if it isn't towing a yacht. This is even with a whole lot of body armour. I suppose this is in case someone tries to hijack the yacht that the Nagel is towing. Yeah, right. Maybe they should keep an eye out for Somali pirates in Russia.

And I have to share this little item with you readers, the last paragraph in the summary of the Dartz Nagel -