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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 -

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