Mercedes-Benz S-Guard review

It’s said that just before you die, you experience that quick moment of clarity when your whole life’s memories flash across your mind, and then it’s just white light at the end of a tunnel and pretty angels feeding you grapes all the way beyond. Some are known to embrace the time when it comes, some are known to fight it. If you are part of the large majority who would like to fight that light and stay back, I can’t help you all. I can however suggest for a select few, who are likely to see that white light after being the target of a sniper or an explosive device, a car that will very easily, let me repeat for effect, very easily, let you drive past these irritants to let you live another day. That it looks gorgeous in the flesh and has a rumbling V12 under the hood are just additional benefits.

Meet the S-Guard, Mercedes’ flagship armoured car. These pictures you see are the first line of defense for the S-Guard that looks identical to a regular S-Class. It’s meant to blend in to avoid suspicion, unless you turn on the strobe lights of course. It is however not your regular car. The usual customers include Heads of State, important government officials with lives worth saving and business tycoons who’ve crossed too many to be where they are. These Very Important People also need the confines of their tank to be luxurious. So the S-Class is the Mercedes of choice as the latest flagship sedan as it happens to have won the World Luxury Car of the Year award.

What is the S-Guard then, over all the ‘standard’ features in the S-Class we tested last year…

We’ll let you read about the amazing massage chairs and exquisite Burmester sound system in the S-Class review. This story is all about the Kaboom bits. The S-Guard is built under the Guard program, Mercedes’ arm that builds and sells armoured vehicles around the world. The company tells us that it has a share of about 78 percent of the global armoured vehicle market among car manufacturers. This doesn’t include aftermarket specialists but clearly shows that the Guard team knows what they are doing. The S-Guard is the first of its kind vehicle to come with complete VR9 ballistic protection and resistance certificate. It is the highest level for a road car and here is what that means…

At the bodyshell stage, protective components made of special steel are filled into the cavities between the structure and the outer body panels. Aramide and PE Components under the sheet metal handle splinters from explosives. There are layers, all around the passenger cell made of high grade military materials like Kevlar for instance to keep the nasty stuff from penetrating into the cabin. 

The glass windshields and windows are bulletproof, 65mm thick and weigh between 50-80kg each. It can withstand 7.62 caliber AK47 bullets, something that will kill a guy behind a five inch brick wall. Large caliber Sniper fire can’t penetrate the glass too. The Guard car doesn’t get the auto up feature for these windows that generally stop the glass from rolling up when an object is blocking its path. If a hand for instance comes in to punch you in the face, all you need to do is roll the window up and the glass will chop the hand off is what we were told, without the slightest hint of exaggeration. The underbody is protected from mine blasts or any kind of fire under the car. The force of the blast will all but give the car a light jump and then you can continue the pleasant drive. 

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The S-Guard has a panic alarm system, an automatic fire extinguisher, an emergency fresh air system that flushes out the foul air with the cabin when you are in the middle of a gas attack and pumps in air for an hour from a oxygen cylinder and a spare battery to start the car if the primary battery has drained off. The tyres are special Michelin PAX runflat tyres, capable of running over spike strips, losing all the air in them and then rolling on for another 30km with full steering control after damage. Besides firing torpedoes, it’s quite the car!

All that armour does weigh the car down. We are told it is somewhere in the region of 4 tonnes, or the weight of an E-Class atop a standard S-Class. To lug all that mass around, the S-Guard comes with a V8 or a V12 under its hood. We drove the latter and boy that masks the weight quite well. It’s got the necessary 530PS and 830Nm on tap to help propel the mammoth ahead at fairly brisk speeds. It’s got a top speed restricted to 210kmph and I suspect a 0-100kmph sprint is done in about 7 seconds. It may not seem fast but considering the weight, the S-Guard is like a wrecking ball barreling at irritants in its path.

The airmatic suspension we have loved so much in the S-Class for its magic carpet ride is also standard on the S600 Guard. The suspension has been beefed up to match the stock car’s ride quality though. Air springs at the front are reinforced and the rear axle gets additional steel springs. The brakes are larger too to get the S-Guard to a stop. Larger brake discs and bigger six-piston brake calipers up front give fantastic stopping power. The S-Guard is so composed during direction changes and heavy braking due to the suspension and brakes that it doesn’t give you a sense of the weight it is carrying. We also drove the armoured E-Guard and M-Guard with VR4 ballistic protection rating, which is a far lower level of armour, and in comparison, the S-Guard felt the most composed. 

There are two stages of life, the first before birth where the safest spot on earth is the mother’s womb. The second is out here in the big bad world where the safest spot is inside the S-Guard. That’s if you have Rs 8.9 crore, ex-showroom Delhi for a stock S600 Guard and a few Crores or so over that for taxes and accessories. For the rest of us, as the good folks in the Game of Thrones say, Winter is coming!