For those planning for the end of the world — or plotting it — it’s important to have a getaway car when everything goes to shit. Though in the case of the Ripsaw Extreme Vehicle 2, it’s a getaway tank.
Image via Howe and Howe Technologies Inc.
Marketed to a specific clientele, probably a Bond villain, the Ripsaw from Howe and Howe Technologies Inc. is closer to a lamborghini on treads than it is to a tank. While it has no armor to speak of, just an aerospace-aluminum frame, it’s powered by a 600-horsepower diesel engine, and can hit speeds over 60 miles per hour.
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Image via Howe and Howe Technologies Inc.
There’s a reason it’s marketed as a $295,000 luxury tank — and it’s not just the price tag — it has heat and air conditioning, leather seats, a sound system, and an LCD screen and back-up camera display, so you can parallel park without crushing the car behind you. It also comes with gullwing doors, like some kind of doomsday DeLorean. You can’t put too high of a price on class, or functionality. Just one of its rubber tracks costs as much as a base-model Jeep Wrangler, according to Four Wheeler Network.
Image via Howe and Howe Technologies Inc.
It’s not just the super rich who have taken an interest in this “luxury super tank,” as the company describes it, the Army has an interest in this bad boy, too. According to Military.com, the Army is testing the Ripsaw to see how it fairs as a reconnaissance vehicle. Though it’s being called a super tank, it won’t be able to sport the same firepower as an actual one. No way you’re getting a cannon on this thing; it only weighs 9,000 pounds, compared to a Abram’s 60-plus tons.
However, it can be outfitted with a Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station, which would let a passenger deal out death and destruction with a range of weapons, from a .50 cal-machine gun, to a Mk19 40mm grenade launcher, all while sitting on soft leather, enjoying the AC.
Oh, and the Ripsaw aluminum hull can be modified to float, so that’s one more thing this insane treaded death machine can do.
Tell me that’s not something a Bond villain would own?