Demand for Personal Armored Vehicle in Continuous Increase

Development of advanced armor technologies has been boosted by increased demand for armored vehicles.

The International Armoring Corporation (IAC) was founded by Mark Burton in Ogden, Utah, in 1993. He initially planned to manufacture 24 vehicles, but ended up with more than 225 in the first year in business. Since then more than 8,000 vehicles have rolled out of the IAC facilities. Although at the beginning the company provided heavy-duty armored vehicles only for security companies and military contractors, the emergence of the civilian armored-vehicle market made IAC focus on conventional vehicles too.

IAC offers a lightweight, flexible, bullet-resistant material, which is a blend of synthetic fiber laminates called Armormax, which weighs only 3.9 pounds per square foot. For $65,000 to $85,000 IAC can transform any car into an armor-plated automotive fantasy. The most popular choices are large luxury sedans and suburban-type SUVs, but IAC has also transformed smaller cars such as Toyota Camrys, Maybachs and Aston Martins.

Burton estimates that around 20% of his customers seek protected transportation to mitigate a known threat or have been targeted for attack in the past, and around 50% just seek an insurance against random acts of violence, such as carjackings.