A Luxury Fortress on Wheels-The Audi A8L Security

BENGALURU: For the elite class, a Humvee or Marauder may serve the purpose of protection in the event of an ambush. But what such military styled vehicles lack is the ability to blend with normal environment and most importantly the class and luxury such elites look for. Audi extending its armored version of luxury production models, at the Auto Expo 2016 launched the A8L Security for Indian market with a hefty price tag of 9.12 crores. Cosmetically designed to deceive the outer world for a normal A8, armed with measures that can save the lives of its occupants is a fact only the people sitting inside know. The manufacturer pours in an astounding 450 production hours in each unit manufactured to ensure complete satisfaction in every aspect. Explore further to know some of its world class security features.

Under the disguise:

The car is protected by 70 overlapping steel and ceramic armour plates that meet class 9/10 ballistic protection requirements. Looking into figures the armour plating takes the total weight of the vehicle to 3650 kg, with the doors and glasses alone weighing 360 kg and 303 kg respectively. To ensure highest level of safety for every occupant, every seat has undergone crash testing several times. The car has undergone tests with a range of assault rifles, sniper rifle and hand grenades. Taking the car a notch higher Audi has put the A8L through eight different blast tests that exceeds official requirements for a civilian armoured vehicle.

Under the hood:

Agility is as important as the protection level and a mighty W12 petrol engine powers this three plus ton “luxury wrapped in armours” producing 500BHP and a peak torque of 625NM. Packed with the muscles of two V6 engines, the W12 powerhouse shoots the car from standstill to 100 km/h in just 7.3 seconds. Driving the wheels is quattro all-time all-wheel drive system that makes the car conquer even wet roads with great efficiency.

Emergency exit:

It often happens that after a collision the doors of a vehicle get jammed, trapping the occupants till rescue arrives; the sheer weight of the A8L’s doors may prove troublesome in such a situation. To counter this, Audi has equipped every door with an emergency exit system. Each door is rigged with some controlled and carefully laid explosive lines that can be set off from inside detaching the door without harming the occupants.

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