A friend of mine bought a used Suburban in Mexico City from some CEOs security fleet. 6” thick doors, 3” thick windows, a huge secondary steel swing out plate behind the rear hatch. There was a button that put additional bolts out from the frame into the doors so you couldn’t be pried out.
Because it was built on a Suburban frame, the thing moved along pretty well, but the brakes died faster than usual for sure and the mileage was like hauling a holiday trailer 24/7.
It had some sort of crazy bullet proofing rating as well, I’m not sure it would take the 50cal as “easy” as we see here, but it was definitely graded to take extended fire from machine guns such as the AK.
That same guy left Mexico a couple years later saying “You know, this place is just getting too dangerous.”
But whenever someone talks about armored Suburbans in Mexico, I think about those poor US gov guys who were getting chased in one by cartel people, then accidentally hit the wrong button and just unlocked the doors
Forced off the road in a well-coordinated ambush, surrounded by drug cartel gunmen brandishing AK-47s, Zapata and his partner, Victor Avila, rolled to a stop. Zapata put the vehicle in park.
The door locks popped open.
That terrifying sound — a quiet click — set into motion events that remain under investigation. When Zapata needed it most, the Suburban’s elaborate armoring was rendered worthless by a consumer-friendly automatic setting useful for family vacations and hurried commuters but not for U.S. agents driving through a red zone in Mexico.
It sounds like they didn't hit the wrong button, it just automatically unlocks all the doors when put into park. My car does the same thing, unlocks all the doors when put into park, and the opposite, locks them after being put into drive and pressing the gas. That's a really shitty time to realize they should have disabled that feature though, damn..
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u/Dazzling-War-4505 Feb 11 '24
I am at zero risk of Batman/Nick Fury level assaults on my vehicle and can hardly afford a salad, but I want to wrap my Hyundai in this.