Updated October 18, 2018 13.0K votes 2.9K voters 159.2K views
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Vote up the coolest vehicles you'd love to drive around
If you've dreamed of having real army vehicles in your garage, there's good news. Forget all those auto shopping sites online; they might offer a pretty good selection of Chevrolets and Kias, but do any of them sell an up-armored version of anything? Does Nissan offer an "air superiority" package on the Versa? Did Tesla suddenly start offering depleted uranium armor piercing cannons for the Model S?
When you're in a hurry, what you really need is a used military vehicle that can surface just off the coast and launch a couple tactical nukes at all the speed cameras in your way. True, you might get pulled over at some point anyway, but odds are good you'll walk away with a warning when The Man realizes how close he is to watching a JDAM land on his Taurus. That's what we call "diplomatic immunity."
So, which of the following are right for you? Vote up your favorite used army vehicle you can actually buy... because at the end of the day, it's all about spreading democracy.
British military surplus retailer Tank Limo offers an assortment of Chieftain tanks, including this beautiful Mk10 from the early 1970s. The Chieftain line remains in combat use today, and fully functional models with working main guns go for around $80,000. A runner in need of restoration can go for around $50K, and DIY tanks in need of complete restoration can be bought for as little as $20K. Not a bad deal, minus the extra $10,000 or so you'll pay to have a freakin' tank shipped from England.
Planning an expedition to the North Pole to scout for nuclear missile site locations? Then this Cold War era Tucker Snocat may be for you. Tucker has long been the brand name for go-anywhere tracked vehicles, and its Snocat is the go-to ride for Antarctic explorers. Capable of traversing eight-foot-wide crevasses that would send most other vehicles plummeting, this beast is available for a stunningly reasonable $15,000.
Forget SUVs - when you simply must get the kids to soccer practice in absolute safety, go with the armored personnel carrier version of Alvis-Vickers' 1967 tank-killing Scimitar light battle tank. Seats 12 inside and two on top to man the optional 7.62 mm machine guns. Tailgaters, beware. And at about $30,000, the Stormer is pretty price competitive with most three-row minivans.
Introduced in 1952 as a replacement for the M46, this 50-ton medium battle tank only remained in service for about ten years before it was replaced by the M48 Patton. Objectively, the M48 was a better tank, as its 37-year service life shows. But come on, everybody's got an M48 these days. They're like the Toyota Corolla of battle armor. You could practically lose one in a parking lot. This rare classic (a rust-free California collector vehicle) will cost you $135,000, and needs some work to get running. But that's the price of exclusivity, right?
Forget that sad impostor known as the "H2." Old Hummer H1s are all over the place now. The government has so many, they're literally giving them away to anti-terrorism police forces with nothing but pumpkin festivals to protect. For those of us without badges, surplus Hummers are available for between $8,000 and $40,000 depending on year, engine, armor, and presence of bullet holes.
And you though military vehicles couldn't get manlier than the original Humvee. The Humvee's replacement from Wisconsin-based Oshkosh Defense takes the best parts of the H1 and combines it with lessons learned from the last generation MRAP (Mine-Resistant AmbushProtected vehicle). It's also about halfway in size between the two, and that's no accident. The MRAP was hefty for taking the kids to soccer practice.
As of right now, Oshkosh hasn't introduced a civilian version; but it's definitely coming, and will probably cost around $250,000. Don't count on getting the first one, though; you know the Governator's already got dibs.
