The S680 Guard is a stylish, V12-engined luxury armoured Mercedes

Are you a high-ranking politician? Head of state? Someone capable of annoying people so badly they turn homicidal? Well, Mercedes has just released the car for you, and it’s called the S680 GUARD. It's basically a stylish tank.

As the name suggests, it’s based on the latest-generation of S-Class, a car that’s been used by the great and good since 1972 (and the W116-generation), the newest in a long line of über-protected, factory-specced ‘special protection’ vehicles from Merc. But this one is top-line; it gets the highest rating for civilian occupant protection possible, called ‘VR10’. Basically, if you want a vehicle more robust, you’ll have to join the army.

And it looks… pretty much like a normal S-Class. Sort of. The idea here is that people who require this stuff probably don’t want to draw extra attention to themselves, so the Guard just looks like a long-wheelbase S-Class. The windows look a little odd - they have larger framing on the inside - and the tyres and wheels look weirdly bulky, but tap on the aluminium skin - like a regular S - and it sounds like a normal car.

Rap a knuckle on the glass or tyres though, and it’s like tapping thick marble. Things are not as they first appear.

Very basically, the car is designed to incorporate a safety cell that’s impregnable to anything short of heavy ordnance. Handguns? A .44 Magnum or .357 will barely graze the internal armour - though it’ll leave a hole that needs buffing out on the exterior skin. A 7.62x39 calibre - something like an Kalashnikov AK-47 - leaves a small mark.

Everything else? Shrugged off, albeit scarring the sacrificial bodywork. And that goes all the way up to something like a Russian Dragunov sniper rifle (7.62x54R rounds, calibre fans) using a steel-jacketed, hardened steel core round with an incendiary head. That’s the VR10 certification, which means you’ve annoyed some really naughty people.

And don’t think you can just shoot the edges of the doors or the seams of bodywork, because the armour is overlapped to prevent it. More aggressive attacks? The S680 will stand up to IEDs (improvised explosive devices) with several kgs of explodey-stuff inside them, even if you lob it at the roof.

So how does it do it? Well, the glass is layered, inches thick and lapped into the frames of the doors. It still shatters if you shoot it, but will absorb the impact of a projectile and spit molten glass back towards the shooter. That’s ballistics for you. Behind the normal aluminium panels are sets of ‘mazed’ steel armour, webs of exotic materials like Aramid woven underneath.

The doors weigh 250kg. Each. But they open like normal doors thanks to powered actuators, and yes, there’s anti-trap. If you got your hand caught in one without it, you’d lose the ability to type very quickly. Want to try and smoke someone out? The car can store hundreds of litres of fresh air; if it detects gas, it simply shuts all the intakes and overpressures the interior for the vital moments it would take to get away.

There are in-built fire extinguishers. And it’s got sirens and mobile comms/radios and external speakers for communicating with the outside while you shelter in safety. There’s a big red button inside the cupholders that will essentially turn this thing into a mobile panic room. They didn’t let us press that.

Of course, these things are not unstoppable. If you drive into a lake, you’d still drown. If you were shot at by an actual tank, you’d still be well-dressed paté. But the idea for a car like this is not to stand and fight, but to survive long enough to run away. Hence the Michelin PAX runflat tyres, which can be driven on for 30km even if they’ve been shot to bits - there’s a solid rubber ring mounted inside, with steel rods that effectively beadlock the tyre on the rim. S-Class ride quality goes in the bin in favour of tactical retreat.

Probably a point at which a 4.4-tonne kerbweight and 4Matic all-wheel drive becomes an advantage if you have to get all medieval and just bulldoze another vehicle out of the way. Which also explains why a car with a 600bhp, 6.0-litre V12 ‘only’ manages 0-62mph in eight and half seconds. Stately relative progress these days, but with reason.

What’s almost as interesting is how they certificate the S680 Guard, because it’s not about offensive capability at all - it’s about making sure the soft and squishy humans inside stay the right amount of soft and squishy. So the certification to protection level VR10 is carried out by the Beschussamt Ulm (‘proof house’) in accordance with the test guidelines of the Association of Test Laboratories for Attack-Resistant Materials and Constructions (VPAM). They use what they call ‘biofidel’ crash-test dummies - but these ones have 42 bones, skin and twelve soft tissue analogues and internal organs.

During testing, the S680 was shot at, blown up and abused, and then actual medical doctors assessed the dummies to see what impact the violence had on the ‘people’ inside. Apparently after all the processes were completed, the S680 got the maximum score; the humans would have walked away - albeit with a likely case of tinnitus and light PTSD. It is rumoured that someone may have spilled their champagne from the rear fridge. The car looked ragged by the end of the test procedures, but the safety cell kept everyone alive.

It’s worth pointing out here that you can’t just buy one of these things from a dealer; there are background checks to see if you really need one, plus a price that no one is willing to talk about - it’s POA, with extra levels on the ‘A’. But it comes with a Mercedes warranty and a ‘flying doctor’ service if you need an actual oil change or squeaky bushing taken care of.

The best bit about the Guard is probably that it’s not aggressive at all to look at. Slip it out of a motorcade (and probably remove the front wing-mounted flag carriers, if you’re committing to stealth), and it just looks like a new S-Class. There are all the new improvements to the interior, all the multimedia functions, all the usual lovely wood and leather. It might be a bit of a shame that we need these things at all, but if you’re going to go for full security, you might as well do it in style.

Price: On Application/Subject to approval
Engine: 6.0-litre V12 biturbo
Power: 612hp (604bhp), 612lb ft
Performance: 0-62mph in 8.3 seconds, 130mph
Transmission: 9-speed auto, 4Matic AWD 31/69 torque split F/R
Weight: circa 4,400kg