Hundreds of bullets and millions of rands – What it takes to get an armoured car manufacturer approved

Getting an armoured car approved by the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) is a mammoth task and not one for the faint of heart, nor wallet.

It can take years, millions of rands, plenty of plane trips, and seemingly arbitrary adjustments such as putting up more signage in the factory, and the OEM can still say no.

If you get it right, though, you are allowed to sell an armoured version of the company’s vehicles without voiding the original warranty and service plan, adding plenty of value to a buyer’s purchase.

SVI Engineering, one of the leading firms in armouring solutions in South Africa, recently treated TopAuto to a tour of its facilities to get a better picture of what goes into getting an armoured car OEM approved.

No small feat

SVI Business Development Director, Nicol Louw, explained that it’s rare for an automaker to approach an armouring firm for a potential collaboration. This has only happened once in the company’s history and quite recently, too, following a surge in violent crimes in South Africa.

The usual process goes, SVI approaches a specific OEM with a proposal to armour its vehicles and more often than not, the answer is a brash no.

Those that show willingness need a lot more persuasion to start the partnership, however, and generally ask for a provable track record of building armoured cars for reputable clients, as well as projections on how many SVI plans to build and sell and how long it will take.

Once the carmaker is on board, the hard work begins.

First, SVI procures the vehicle and designs and produces a proprietary armouring solution for that specific model guided by the level of protection it must offer, B4 for handguns and B6 for weapons like assault rifles, which is a timely endeavour that must usually be financed by the armourer since it is the one asking for OEM approval.

Once the protection is fitted, the vehicle is subjected to numerous tests to ensure it meets the requirements set by the International Organisation for Standardization and South Africa’s own roadworthy laws, as well as those by the National Conventional Arms Control Committee.

Several vehicles being armoured at SVI

Passing these tests is only half the story, though, as now the OEM’s representatives are brought in for assessments, and Louw said that each and every brand has its own unique requirements and method for auditing the quality of work.

Most manufacturers require ballistic tests, others durability tests, and some want both.

Louw showed us a vehicle that SVI is currently in the process of getting OEM certification for, with the particular automaker being one of those who asked for both a ballistic and durability test.

The manufacturer just so happens to have an in-house armouring division itself and to ensure that this vehicle meets the same standards, it asked SVI to strip it down to the metal to check for any potential weak spots in the armour plating, and once it was re-assembled, it fired exactly 421 bullets into the car from every angle imaginable to ensure there were no flaws.

SVI ballistic test

Inside the passenger cell, it also installed a thin sheet of paper that is intended to mimic a human’s skin, and if that paper had so much as a needle-sized hole after the barrage of fire – albeit from nothing life-threatening such as a piece of plastic that may have loosened up due to the immense impact of the bullets – the test was failed.

For durability trials, one unlucky SVI employee had to open and close the window 5,000 times, and the door a total of 11,000 times, to ensure the aftermarket protection wouldn’t affect the ownership experience.

Only this portion of the verification has been two years in the making racking up a cost of R2 million in the process, not including the price of the vehicles which is in the region of R900,000 each, and the OEM hasn’t even signed off on the certification yet.

In the past, there have been cases where the carmaker wasn’t completely satisfied and SVI had to make changes to its design.

In one instance, this involved installing a heavier rear bumper to balance out the added weight that was now situated in the nose to achieve a more OEM-aligned driving experience.

In another, the manufacturer simply added a disclaimer that said buyers of that armoured vehicle are not allowed to tow anything if they want to keep their warranty, because the extra 600-odd kilogrammes that the armour adds, combined with a heavy trailer, will put too much strain on the brakes.

SVI-armoured Toyota Land Cruiser 300 ready for delivery

But it’s not only the vehicle that is put under the magnifying glass, all the development, construction, and customer care processes are, too.

For example, every electrical connector that the armourer unplugs is covered with a protective bag until it is plugged in again, and every new hole it drills is sprayed with a corrosion-resistant treatment, as somewhere along the line there was an automaker that required the company to do this and it has since become standard practice.

SVI also doesn’t tap into any factory-installed wiring when fitting aftermarket accessories as certain OEMs do not allow it.

Louw said there have even been car companies that told SVI to put up a list of “dos and don’ts” in every one of its four factories in clear view of the employees, just because that is the same practices the OEM employees at its own facilities.

Select OEMs have also demanded that SVI produce a model-specific brochure that explains all the finer details of the newly-installed protection package, which must be inside the vehicle when it is delivered to its customer, else they may not be aware of what they can and cannot do and unknowingly void their after-sales agreements.

Generic SVI product brochure

Once this is all said and done and the OEM is happy, it will provide a “blanket certification” that allows the armourer to work on any of the manufacturer’s vehicles without voiding their warranties.

Alternatively, if it’s a bit more cautious, the automaker will award a model-specific certification that only allows the armourer the privilege to kit out one car. This doesn’t mean an entire line-up of vehicles that all share the same name. No, only one singular trim in an OEM’s entire catalogue.

Within these certifications there are also finer terms and conditions, such as whether the armourer may only install a B4 or B6 package.

Even if the armourer did everything by the book and met all their nitpicky requirements, an OEM can simply decide it doesn’t want to take the risk and abandon the entire process, and then it was all for nothing.

Ford Quality Vehicle Modifier certification awarded to SVI

Louw therefore advises armoured car clients to ask for the paperwork when an armourer claims they are backed by an OEM rather than taking their statements at face value.

He said many firms out there only have “a good relationship with the dealership down the road” who agrees to repair the vehicles “under warranty” if something goes wrong, and then these armouring companies will say they are “OEM approved, acknowledged, certified,” or something along those lines, despite the OEM itself not even being aware of the supposed certification.

The industry is fraught with corner-cutting businesses that provide shoddy products under the guise of “OEM approval”, putting the lives of their customers at risk in the pursuit of making a quick buck, said Louw.