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, I've got this show stolen.
00:10Then you roll up and drop this lad off at his prom and everybody's like, why do we even bother?
00:16I've done christenings, kids parties, stag parties, we've done hen parties, we've done proms, we've done everything.
00:35And then right at the end we can even do your funeral. We do everything from birth to death.
00:46My name's Nick Mead and I am the owner of Tank Limo.
00:59Probably 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.
01:55And we've been around Soho and in some really, really tight places.
01:59I 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.
02:13On 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 as 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.
02:45Tank limo is about 22 foot long.
02:49I think it's about 7.5, 8 foot wide, something like that.
02:53We weighed it once and it was only 17.5 tonne and I was surprised.
02:58Speed, I'm not really sure what it does, top speed.
03:01On British roads, you're only allowed to do 20 mile an hour with a rubber padded track.
03:06I have been faster on kind of private roads and I've had it up to 35.
03:11And I think it would probably go a bit faster.
03:13But the acceleration is quite slow when you get up to the top end.
03:16But it's very controllable.
03:18Every 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.
03:31Wow, that's stuck.
03:42Maintenance on tank limo is akin to maintenance on any bit of heavy armor.
03:47Constant, constant battle.
03:49Every time you think, oh, I've sorted that out, something else crops up.
03:53If it was Russian, it'd be easier, wouldn't you agree?
03:55Possibly, yeah.
03:56Possibly.
03:56See, NATO tanks...
03:58Wouldn't be as nice to drive, though.
03:59No, wouldn't be as nice to drive.
04:00NATO 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.
04:10To describe tank limo in three words, you would have to say big, impressive, noisy.
04:19I can describe it in two words.
04:23Rolling thunder.
04:24Shock, amazement.
04:29Yeah, when they're on the phone and they sort of go, and that look of shock, and then a smile comes on the face.
04:34I love all that.
04:36How do you get her to complain about the noise and the pollution and all that?
04:39Part of the amazement is people just cannot believe it's road legal.
04:44But it is.
04:46It's popular, extremely popular.
04:48We get ten inquiries every couple of days about hiring a tank limo.
04:54I don't think there's another vehicle like that in the world.
04:56When I do all these proms, I see the occasional skip lorry come, which is a bit unusual.
05:01But when it comes to an unusual prom, I'd say the tank limo's right up there.
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