THE WORLD’S only stretched tracked vehicle - the incredible “tank limo” - has been built by wielding two tanks together. The incredible vehicle was designed by Nick Mead, the owner of the tank driving experience company Tanks A Lot, based in Northamptonshire, UK, with the help of welder extraordinaire Nigel Smith. They designed the vehicle by welding together two former British Army FV432 APC personnel carriers with an original two-man turret of the FV432 used in the Berlin Brigade. The vehicle can fit up to 10 people and is ideal for arriving in style at film premieres, stag and hen parties, and even weddings. And the 22 foot long, 17 ton vehicle is in massive demand, despite hire charges starting at over $2,000 a day.
Category
🚗
MotorTranscript
00:00You take it to a prom and all these lads have saved up their pennies to hire a Bentley or a Hummer or something like that, thinking, I've got this show stolen.
00:10Then you roll up and drop this lad off at his prom and everybody's like, why do we even bother?
00:16I've done christenings, kids parties, stag parties, we've done hen parties, we've done proms, we've done everything.
00:35And then right at the end we can even do your funeral. We do everything from birth to death.
00:46My name's Nick Mead and I am the owner of Tank Limo.
00:59Probably the only tank limo in the world.
01:02I got into tanks about 30 years ago and I ended up with these two very nice tanks and the idea was to keep one and sell one.
01:20But before I'd even took delivery of them, a company had asked if they could hire one.
01:24And I charged them more than half of the value of the tank for one day.
01:29I could see it being a business opportunity right from the beginning.
01:36I'm Todd Chamberlain, I act as tank commander on Tank Limo.
01:41Tanks turn from the middle, people don't understand that.
01:44They're going to get squashed, I've got to be the eyes and the ears of Nick and warn them of any potential dangers.
01:50Something like a stretch Hummer, it turns from the front.
01:53So where a Hummer can't get, we can get.
01:55And we've been around Soho and in some really, really tight places.
01:59I think the only thing we ever did was rip a wing mirror off a transit van in London once.
02:05And the guy was so pleased that his transit van had been hit by a tank.
02:11He couldn't wait to tell all of his friends.
02:13On the upper part, you can't see the join.
02:19Obviously, we have cunningly, cunningly made it all smooth and you'd never know.
02:23But down here, you can see a piece of strapping going over the top just to make it a bit stronger.
02:28It's ended up with three top rollers.
02:30They normally only have two.
02:32Obviously, bulletproof glass, so as we can still do security stuff.
02:35Sometimes in London, we're asked to do it and we wonder if it's a social thing
02:38or whether it's because they're a bit worried about who's taking a shot at them.
02:45Tank limo is about 22 foot long.
02:49I think it's about 7.5, 8 foot wide, something like that.
02:53We weighed it once and it was only 17.5 tonne and I was surprised.
02:58Speed, I'm not really sure what it does, top speed.
03:01On British roads, you're only allowed to do 20 mile an hour with a rubber padded track.
03:06I have been faster on kind of private roads and I've had it up to 35.
03:11And I think it would probably go a bit faster.
03:13But the acceleration is quite slow when you get up to the top end.
03:16But it's very controllable.
03:18Every turn you do is a skid.
03:21So if you're keeping the power on, you can drift it.
03:24If you let the power off, then it just goes back into your normal turn.
03:31Wow, that's stuck.
03:42Maintenance on tank limo is akin to maintenance on any bit of heavy armor.
03:47Constant, constant battle.
03:49Every time you think, oh, I've sorted that out, something else crops up.
03:53If it was Russian, it'd be easier, wouldn't you agree?
03:55Possibly, yeah.
03:56Possibly.
03:56See, NATO tanks...
03:58Wouldn't be as nice to drive, though.
03:59No, wouldn't be as nice to drive.
04:00NATO tanks, all the tools in the world, still going to be hard to fix.
04:04With Russian vehicles, if you've got a hammer, you're going to fix it.
04:10To describe tank limo in three words, you would have to say big, impressive, noisy.
04:19I can describe it in two words.
04:23Rolling thunder.
04:24Shock, amazement.
04:29Yeah, when they're on the phone and they sort of go, and that look of shock, and then a smile comes on the face.
04:34I love all that.
04:36How do you get her to complain about the noise and the pollution and all that?
04:39Part of the amazement is people just cannot believe it's road legal.
04:44But it is.
04:46It's popular, extremely popular.
04:48We get ten inquiries every couple of days about hiring a tank limo.
04:54I don't think there's another vehicle like that in the world.
04:56When I do all these proms, I see the occasional skip lorry come, which is a bit unusual.
05:01But when it comes to an unusual prom, I'd say the tank limo's right up there.
05:04Joker, the tank limo's right up there is a bit unusual, but you can't read and up there.