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You would have never thought that the peaceful people of Canada would never come up with a challenger to the throne for the world's most luxurious armoured SUV vehicle. The Canadian company Conquest has come up with the Knight XV. This originally started life as an all American Ford F550 pick-up truck and Conquest strips it down and builds it up into the fully armoured XV which is intended for extremely wealthy people like, oh the usual, drug lord, rich middle eastern arabs, russian tycoons of the dubious kind, or any paranoid people with deep pockets. The XV has bodywork and glass claimed to be capable to stop even a 7.62mm Druganov Armour Piercing round when specified to full ballistic protection option. If you specify full armour option it can supposedly withstand an assault against it and protect its occupants against bomb blasts (mines, hand grenades and the occasional RPG shot at it). If you spec it with the on-board fire extinguisher and oxygen breathing systems you could survive even longer. With the time limited to the food you have on board and the size of your bladder and intestines (while bigger than a Hummer H2, it still isn't as big as an RV where you can fit a decent sized potty/throne to do your business on). You can have night-vision cameras, dark-tinted armoured glass, run-flat tyres that keep the car mobile even after it's been shot up and an anti-theft device (in case someone tries to nick it). As for the luxury aspect of this 'uber Hummer', six leather-upholstered seats, Wilton carpets, laptops wired in to each of the four rear seats, twin rear screens for TV screens, a cigar humidor, security safe, drinks bar and electrically-operated window curtains. At this rate, if you specify a disco ball, the manufacturers would throw one in for free. The Knight XV is powered by a 400bhp 6.8liter V10 engine and has a fully armoured curb weight of 5,454kg. It is as extreme (or even more) than the Dartz Prombon mentioned earlier and has the same level of handcrafted workmanship put into it. Conquest claims that it spends 1,500hours hand building each vehicle to standards that zillionaires are accustomed to. Prices start at US$489,000 and goes up to almost US$700,000 depending on what options are put into it. But only in left hand drive format as its based on an American SUV. It is also larger than a Hummer H2, hence if you see one on the streets of Singapore (which I doubt), it may destroy cars to its left and right on any of the small roads it treads on. You may catch one or two in Dubai if you go shopping there. As I stated in the article mentioned above about the Dartz, the civilian Hummer may be dead, but the concept lives on.

We've all been reading or have heard about that not really important fact that Hummer, the non-military version, is closing its doors for good. The very famous military based SUV used by movie-stars, rap artists as well as people who have a lot of money but little taste is wrapping up all production and will close its doors forever, hopefully. General Motors to date have not found any buyers and as it sold less than a couple of thousand vehicles worldwide last year, they have decided to cut the loss making arm. Those eco-mentalists who despise the Hummer are rejoicing at this fact. But the thing is, there are many Hummer lookalikes out there and these pretenders to the throne are coming out of the woodwork. From Chinese made replicas to Spanish, French made military vehicles we would not really see an end to the Hummer form of design as it still is being adopted everywhere in the world. Maybe that's why Hummer isn't selling strongly as we have cheaper versions coming from all the countries mentioned above. And now from Russia, I bring you the Dartz Prombron. The Dartz Prom..what? It is a 1.6 million Euro monster SUV from Russia that weighs about 3,700kgs. Dartz is a manufacturer in Russia that builds special vehicles for the military and for those Russian billionaires who owns football teams in England and so forth. The company sees itself as a natural successor to those Russian cars made by Russo Baltique that Lenin and Trotsky used when turning Russia into a Communist powerhouse. Somehow I do not feel too enthralled by this marketing fact as the Prombron itself is ridiculously impressive all by its own. The SUV is has sheet metal a couple of centimeters thick and can stop 7.62mm AK47 assault rifle bullets in its track. This is actually good for the military, security paranoid Russian billionaires, Arab billionaires and er, the Russian Mafia? It's no wonder the car weighs like a T72 Main Battle Tank. But this tank can hustle, as it has a 456bhp V8 powering it and a manufacturer stated top speed of 240km/h. The