German Car Scene

INKAS Armoured S600

Posted 21st May, 2007 in Mercedes | Leave a comment

INKAS and RENNtech have combined forces to create this monster of a Mercedes. A full press release on the 640bhp tank-like S600 can be found below.

Lake Park, FL - Six-hundred and forty horsepower. As enthusiasts, we tend to think of a car that packs that kind of heat in terms of how much trouble it can get us into. If you’re Chris Pecalevski, you tend to think of these things a bit differently.

“We’re in the business of protecting our clients,”
explains Pecalevski, “and that means we have to be
ready for anything.” Pecalevski is the Director of
Business Development at INKAS Armored, a company
known for building vehicles as safe secure as bank
vaults … and bank vaults, actually.

INKAS began building armored vehicles in 1993, and
the company’s unique material alloys and systematic
approach to threat assessment quickly earned them
an impressive client list, which includes numerous
high-profile executives, celebrities, entertainers,
European banks, and the US and Canadian militaries -
and when INKAS applied their “total solution” approach
to the security needs of private individuals, their
reputation followed them. The results were well-
engineered and almost totally invisible armored
vehicles. Still, INKAS realized that, sometimes, the
only way to win some fights is to walk away.

Or, more to the point, to *get* away.

Enter RENNtech, and Hartmut Feyhl. “No matter how
much armor you have,” explains Feyhl, “armor just
buys you time to escape. You can’t just sit there
waiting for the bad guys to run out of bullets - and a
thousand pounds of armor doesn’t make it any easier
to outrun the bad guys, either.”

Feyhl, who started RENNtech in 1989 after being
named technical director of AMG North America,
knows a thing or two about getting a big Mercedes out
of its own way - and when INKAS attention turned to
Mercedes’ S class (in this case, the S600) it seemed
natural to involve RENNtech.

“We looked at the situation together, with the idea
that, if you or your family are in danger, you really
have only a few seconds to escape,” offers Feyhl, “any
car could benefit from tuning in that situation, of
course - but an armored car especially. It needs more
power and better cooling to accelerate away from
danger, and better brakes and suspension to handle
that extra weight during cornering and defensive
driving maneuvers.”

With that in mind, RENNtech took INKAS’ S600 and
beefed up the brakes, employing RENNtech’s 15.2″
two-piece front and 14″ rear brake package, adding
stainless steel-braided brake lines to improve feel and
reduce fade. Under the hood, RENNtech’s ECU
software, carbon-fiber airbox, and intercooler pump
upgrades keep the temperature cool and the turbos on
“boil”, building 640 hp and over 775 lb-ft of torque.

To that, INKAS adds level NIJ Level IV armoring
capable of taking close-range Armor Piercing bullet
fire, run-flat performance tires, and proprietary
armored panels and ballistic glass compounds all
previously tested by authorized test labs.

The result is impressive - and almost invisible. “You
can not tell if you are looking at the vehicle from the
outside, its when you open the doors you see the
professionally finished INKAS Overlap System, but
you’d have to really be looking” says Pecalevski. He’s
right, too - there is almost no distortion in the glass,
and none of the “Mister Magoo” magnification of other
armored vehicles. “From ten feet, five feet and two
feet away, it’s just another Benz - if you could ever
really say that about a Mercedes.”

That kind of invisibility is important. Many of INKAS
customers aren’t celebrities or dictators - mostly,
they’re executives who just want to make it home to
their families. The unfortunate truth is that, in big parts
of the world - and even parts of the US and Canada -
that’s sometimes easier said than done. In many parts
of South America, Europe, and the Middle East,
kidnapping is a real concern. “You can actually buy
‘kidnapping insurance’ when you travel now. Ask your
agent.”

It should be noted that there are different levels of
armor available as well, from lighter “street crime”
packages that protect against handguns and small
arms, to AK-47 and level IV that protects against
Armor Piercing bullets treatment given to this
Mercedes.

For security reasons, of course, performance figures
aren’t being released. When pressed, Feyhl just smiles
and says “It won’t be very easy to catch.”

[Source: eMercedesBenz]