Across the desert in the Plasan SandCat

Let me explain a little. The man is Nir Kahn, design director of a company called Plasan, and the vehicle is called a SandCat, a small tactical armoured car deployed by various military and civilian operations in over 15 countries on five continents. Small being a relative term, seeing as the Cat still towers above most things, short of commercial lorries, at 7ft 7in tall, but generally considered to be on the lighter side of military motivation. The reason I’m here is because Nir is an inveterate innovator, and the SandCat represents the grandparent of theories and practices that might affect everything we do in the car industry. 

That sounds like a big claim, but seriously, people in the bombproofing industry are obsessed with weight – the less of it you have, the more manoeuvrable you are, or the better protected you can be – and cost, because government agencies are basically naturally stingy. This makes them very keen on cutting-edge materials science, endlessly innovative, rabid consumers of new technology and incredibly aware of cost implications – all analogous to modern car manufacturing. Indeed, Plasan’s US arm already supplies carbon-fibre composite components for major American manufacturers – it makes the carbon aero kits for the Viper ACR and the carbon add-ons for the Corvette Z06. The automotive world is already aware. 

But while the company is making slightly sci-fi-looking armoured cars and lorries, it also has to make sure that they are actually effective. And that means testing. Reams and reams of real and immensely complicated simulations of blast and ballistics testing to make sure that the theories are metaphorically and literally bulletproof. And what does an explosion look like on a computer? A sudden, intense, impact. A crash, essentially. Which means that you have a company with a deep knowledge of new materials tech, a library of extreme crash data and an ability to make lots of things to a very specific cost margin. 

You can see where this might be leading. How about a specifically engineered carbon-composite monocoque for a mass-produced car that’s just as cheap, a magnitude stronger and several times lighter than anything currently produced? How about a sports car that can have all the advantages of a McLaren/Porsche 918/Lamborghini carbon tub without the associated cost? Cut the cloth towards efficiency or performance, but lighter, stronger and cheaper is always going to be to our – the consumer’s – advantage and benefit. And the trickle down comes directly from vehicles like the SandCat. 

OK, so underneath, the SandCat emerges from relatively prosaic underpinnings for various reasons, including cost, reliability and parts-sourcing. The base vehicle is a Ford F550 Dually, although realistically the only bits used in the Plasan metamorphosis are the dash and associated wiring, chassis rails, suspension, V8 diesel and 6spd auto gearbox. The six wheels are replaced with four massive 19.5-inch off-road beadlocks with run-flat inserts within the tyres, and the body is replaced by an innovative  – and relatively stylish – composite armour that comes in flat-pack format. Yep, you read that right: flat-pack. Like an Ikea wardrobe. Plasan calls it a “kitted hull”, and it works pretty much like you might expect: take a Ford F550, then replace the bodywork with pretty much whatever configuration you require, be that troop transport, utility truck, comms relay or command centre. Because the panels are relatively independent, you can upgrade modules according to need, or have bespoke parts shipped in. Need a SandCat that looks less aggressive for police work? Plasan will supply more rounded wheelarches. Need a roof-mounted machine gun, or heavier armour? Plasan will supply those too. 

The one I’m driving features STANAG II composite armour (military armour comes in various grades, and undergoes testing not unlike Euro NCAP, except more… explosive) – layers of various materials like Kevlar, aramid, ballistic ceramic and steel, bonded and bolted together to form protective sandwiches that are lighter but stronger than basic steel plate – and it makes it relatively light for the level of protection it offers, some 30 to 40 per cent lighter than anything that went before with the same level of safety. And old-school armoured cars are basically massive reinforced steel boxes welded together on massive jigs – if you damage part of the box, the vehicle is essentially written off – but the SandCat is modular: break one part, and you can essentially unbolt it and remake it quickly with simple tools and replacement panels. All very useful.

Of course, it’s still getting on for 9,000kg, so driving it along an off-road cliff edge in the middle of nowhere is still a little bit sweaty, and charging around a desert still means you have to concentrate, but with standard fit four-wheel drive and a bit of momentum, this is still an immensely capable and comparatively nippy truck. Vision is surprisingly good, even with the strangely shaped windows, necessary because armoured glass is actually heavier than opaque armour, so the less of it you use, the better. Thus, the SandCat actually only uses glass in the places you actually look through, rather than, say, down by your elbows, where you hardly ever peer. Clever stuff. 

And it’s a proper place to find out if it works. If Israel is a spear that drives between Egypt and Jordan to a point at Eilat on the Gulf of Aqaba, then I am currently somewhere in the middle of the broad flat of the blade, west of a place called Idan, where I spent last night. A place that is pretty much a prehistoric layer cake of geology. Hot, sandy, and apparently barren, rolling hills that descend into blind canyons and dry river beds, eased from the landscape by the twins of time and gentle erosion. The SandCat hauls itself over big rocks, clambers up and across dry river beds, chugs through soft sand. There’s always enough power and plenty of torque, and the fact that the vehicle is actually ridiculously easy to drive, comfortable on a normal road and generally very agreeable bodes well if you might have to spend many hours out on patrol locked in the damn thing. No, it’s not exactly an off-road racer, not exactly a vision of a dynamic future, but it does much more than you think it might, and seems to revel in being thrown about. And you’ve not lived until you’ve experienced mild oversteer in an armoured car. It’s a massive surprise. As is the desert. You think there’s nothing here, but it is literally teeming. Round one corner and a hare bolts from the undergrowth like a furry bullet, seeking better cover. Birds seem to be everywhere. Charge toward the base of a sheer cliff and see a herd of goats flee towards, and up, a vertical rock face, making use of secret steps only specialised cloven feet can see. Nothing – the vehicle or the desert – is quite as it might first appear. 

But while the SandCat is clever and appropriate for its application, it’s Nir who is the key to unlocking the military tech for future civilian applications. Because Nir Kahn isn’t really very military at all. He’s a human catalyst. A graduate of the Coventry University’s School of Automotive & Transport in the UK, Nir wanted to be a car designer, but he also wanted to live in his native Israel, a country not famed for its automotive industry. Thus he ended up designing armoured cars for Plasan, but not carrying the baggage of a military mind his designs were a bit… cooler… than usual. Now, armies are not famed for caring what things look like as long as they work, so he decided that as long as everything performed as it should, then there was no reason for a Plasan product to look like it was styled by an unpleasant combination of committee and simple expediency. Thus the SandCat looks like a cross between an armoured car and Judge Dredd’s weekend wheels. 

Inspired by Seventies wedge era supercars like Bertone’s Stratos Zero, Nir started making armoured cars look like they were actually designed, rather than simply bolted together. Better than that, the company he worked for, Plasan, started taking the idea of ground-up builds completely seriously. Instead of just welding more and more armour onto a pre-existing design, Plasan developed lightweight, integrated solutions: floating floors that absorb impacts, seats developed from helicopter pilot specifications, armour that was protected in the specific places needed to insulate the occupants from the most likely attacks. Exotic and expensive materials get used, but always with an eye on cost – because there’s no point in making a vehicle that’s too expensive to sell. And it’s all essentially about absorbing and redirecting energy, about making a strong, safe, effective vehicle. It’s an extreme version of what every car manufacturer on the planet is trying to do. Which means that when you combine it with Plasan’s ideas for the use of materials, new, super-fast carbon-fibre cold-curing and general production ethos, it will be vehicles like the Plasan SandCat that really revolutionise the car industry. A huge, hulking armoured car based on a Ford F550, made in a country that has no automotive industry to speak of, will be the car that changes the world. And none of us were expecting that.