00:00You take it to a prom and all these lads have saved up their pennies to hire a Bentley or a Hummer or something like that, thinking,
00:08I've got this show stolen. Then you roll up and drop this lad off at his prom and everybody's like, why do we even bother?
00:17I've done christenings, kids' parties, stag parties, we've done hen parties, we've done proms, we've done everything.
00:36And then right at the end we can even do your funeral. We do everything from birth to death.
00:47My name's Nick Meade and I am the owner of Tank Limo, probably the only tank limo in the world.
01:02I got into tanks about 30 years ago and I ended up with these two very nice tanks and the idea was to keep one and sell one.
01:20But before I'd even took delivery of them a company had asked if they could hire one.
01:24And I charged them more than half of the value of the tank for one day.
01:29I could see it being a business opportunity right from the beginning.
01:36I'm Todd Chamberlain, I act as tank commander on Tank Limo.
01:41Tanks turn from the middle, people don't understand that.
01:44They're going to get squashed, I've got to be the eyes and the ears of Nick and warn them of any potential dangers.
01:50Something like a stretch Hummer, it turns from the front.
01:53So where a Hummer can't get, we can get.
01:56We've been around Soho and some really, really tight places.
02:00I think the only thing we ever did was rip a wing mirror off a transit van in London once.
02:05And the guy was so pleased that his transit van had been hit by a tank.
02:11He couldn't wait to tell all of his friends.
02:17On the upper part you can't see the join.
02:19Obviously we have cunningly, cunningly made it all smooth and you'd never know.
02:23But down here you can see a piece of strapping going over the top just to make it a bit stronger.
02:28It's ended up with three top rollers.
02:30They normally only have two.
02:32Obviously bulletproof glass so we can still do security stuff.
02:35Sometimes in London we're asked to do it and we wonder if it's a social thing
02:38or whether it's because they're a bit worried about who's taking a shot at them.
02:46The tank limo is about 22 foot long.
02:49I think it's about eight foot, seven and a half, eight foot wide, something like that.
02:53We weighed it once and it was only 17 and a half tonne and I was surprised.
02:58The speed, I'm not really sure what it does top speed.
03:02On British roads you're only allowed to do 20 mile an hour with a rubber padded track.
03:07I have been faster on kind of private roads and I've had it up to 35.
03:12I think it will probably go a bit faster but the acceleration is quite slow when you get up to the top end.
03:17But it's very controllable.
03:19Every turn you do is a skid.
03:21So if you're keeping the power on you can drift it.
03:24If you let the power off then it just goes back into your normal turn.
03:39Wow, that's stuck.
03:42Maintenance on tank limo is akin to maintenance on any bit of heavy armour.
03:47Constant, constant battle.
03:49Every time you think, ooh, I've sorted that out, something else crops up.
03:53If it was Russian it would be easier, wouldn't you agree?
03:55Possibly, yes.
03:56Possibly.
03:57See, NATO tanks...
03:58Wouldn't be as nice to drive though.
03:59No, wouldn't be as nice to drive.
04:01NATO tanks, all the tools in the world, still going to be hard to fix.
04:04With Russian vehicles, if you've got a hammer you're going to fix it.
04:09To describe tank limo in three words you would have to say big, impressive, noisy.
04:18I can describe it in two words.
04:22Rolling thunder.
04:27Shock, amazement.
04:29Yeah, when they're on the phone and they sort of go...
04:31And that look of shock and then a smile comes on their face, I love all that.
04:35Perhaps you could get her to complain about the noise and the pollution.
04:39Part of the amazement is people just cannot believe it's road legal.
04:42But it is.
04:45It's popular, extremely popular.
04:47We get ten enquiries every couple of days about hiring a tank limo.
04:53I don't think there's another vehicle like that in the world.
04:55When I do all these proms I see the occasional skip lorry come, which is a bit unusual.
04:59But when it comes to an unusual prom I'd say the tank limo's right up there.
05:03I'd say the tank limo's right up there.
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