Armormax, a South African manufacturer of armored vehicles, has worked its magic on an eighth-gen Volkswagen Golf GTI, making it resistant to gun and rifle fire.
You may be thinking now: why the Golf? Most conversions of this kind are performed on luxury vehicles. Armormax is straightforward in its explanation: South Africa as a whole, and SAR in particular, is ripe with crime, to the point when you can get attacked in broad daylight by gun-toting robbers. The situation forces people to armor up the most mundane cars, too, for purely practical reasons.
The conversion left the car 180 kilos (around 400 pounds) heavier, but reliably protected from .357 and .44 caliber bullets. It is unknown how much performance was lost due to the added weight. The stock hot hatch packs a turbocharged engine with 245 PS (242 hp / 180 kW) and reaches 100 km/h (62 mph) in 6.4 seconds. The top speed lies at 250 km/h (155 mph).
The armor class here is B4, which includes bulletproof glass all around, synthetic armor in the doors and the bench seat back, and other light shielding. The standard audio system got a push-to-talk upgrade to let the driver talk to the people outside of the car without opening any windows.
