SVI Engineering is a local company that armours vehicles to various levels of protection, depending on budget.
B6 offers the highest level of protection and SVI put a Hilux equipped with the SVI B6 Stopgun V2.0 armouring package to the ultimate torture test.
It included a ballistic assault by rifles, a riot-style attack and dropping it onto its roof.
“The vehicle handled everything we could throw at it. In the end, it passed all three of our gruelling tests with flying colours,” said Nicol Louw, SVI business development director.
“Over eight generations and more than half a century, the Hilux has built up a legendary reputation as one of the toughest bakkies out there. Fitting our B6 Stopgun V2.0 armouring kit, however, pushes its toughness into a whole new realm, which is demonstrated in a series of videos.”
In one test the converted bakkie survived multiple rounds from a 9mm pistol and two assault rifles, with no penetration into the cabin.
The Hilux was dropped onto its roof from a height of 2m and the roof suffered little deformation, courtesy of the armoured steel structure that surrounds the cabin.
The most dramatic test, shown here, had the SVI team attacking the vehicle with a range of weapons typically encountered during violent civil disorder including rocks, a sledgehammer and a pickaxe. Despite the Hilux showing battle scars in its armoured body and 38mm armoured windows, the team could not gain entry to the cabin.
SVI’s B6 Stopgun V2.0 package for the Toyota Hilux is aimed at the security industry and provides protection against assault rifles (including AK47, R1 and R5) to combat general crime, escort valuables in transit or use for mining patrols.
The Stopgun V2.0 kit is priced at R434,322 for the Hilux double cab and takes three weeks to install. Kits are also available for single cab and Xtra cab versions of the Hilux.
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