About 20 years ago a friend of mine in South Africa asked me to look into buying a car to protect him. In short, what I found after to speaking to a few companies that do this was...

You cannot protect against everything unless you want a giant car. The car the US President has now did not exist then, but that's what they were talking about. Is your threat land mines or .223? It was considered impractical to armor against both.

Cars were not really used anymore; vans were the current fave since you could armor a one-ton van and it would still look, and somewhat ride, like a normal one. Most of the customers then (remember, this was 20 years ago) were in Russia and there was a back log of about seven months.

The glass was 60 mm thick. You could get thicker glass but it became optically distorted the thicker you went. This could make you sea sick from driving the car while looking through the wavy glass, so 60 mm was the maximum suggested thickness.

0 to 60 times were not considered since it would be like driving a 240 D. You were expected to have a car in front and one in back as decoys to make up for a lack of speed. Top speed was about 90 mph on a good road and you were expected to run flat out at all times to make your car harder to hit.

So... The next time you are in the market for an armored car keep these tips in mind!