(first posted 9/26/2012) When I first encountered the Battle Cruiser in a lot in Eugene containing some other odd cars, I thought it might have been a prop for a dystopian sci-fi movie. But thanks to commenter zykotec, we now know the truth, and it’s stranger than science fiction.
The story was written up in the Prescott AZ Daily Courier: In 2001, Bobby Lichter, a young man from Lake Havasu City, AZ, wanted to study music at the Musicians Institute in downtown Hollywood. When the parents saw the neighborhood, they were worried for his safety. According to his Dad, Bob Lichter: “It’s a rough area; street violence, gang wars, random shootings; not good”. Bob was not going to let Bobby attend, without certain precautions; like a bullet-proof armored vehicle.
The price for an armored vehicle being out of reach of the family budget, Bob, the owner of German Wrought Iron, decided to build one himself. He bought a 1979 Cadillac for $500, cut off the body, and fabricated a new bullet-proof body from scratch. The exterior is made of quarter-inch steel plate, and the windows are one-inch thick plexiglass. And there are deadbolts embedded in the doors “nobody is going to break into this thing”, according to Bob.
But a few problems arose: the Battle Cruiser now weighed some 6000 lbs, and a new front suspension had to be installed, and dual coils in the back. According to Bob: “It’s not very fast, you can get it up to 80 or 90, but in town, it’s pretty sluggish”.
So what was Bobby’s reaction to his new going-to school car? “He thought it was pretty cool” And it seems he survived.
I have no idea of this car’s provenance, but the hood scoops and general front end styling remind me of a third-gen Camaro!
Yes, my first impression too. As if Chevy had built a hummer in 1990.
Not only the Caddy steering column, but the sweep speedometer and floor hinged gas pedal (broken, on seat) also look like Cadillac sourced parts. Oddly, it’s not 4 wheel drive. If this is an old junkyard recreation based on a Caddy, I’m curious what lurks under that hood. 425? 472? maybe even a 500…. i’m liking this bizarre machine more n more.
*evil laugh*
Well, it’s not one of these, at any rate… Oshkosh had a display at Oshkosh this year, with some impressive hardware.
This item does look “purpose built,” but the five-lug wheels suggest its only purpose was to perplex CC-spotters like us. More likely, someone had a running chassis, scrap metal, decent welding skills and a bit too much spare time on their hands.
+1 for effort, tho!
Hummer kits are available to fit Nissan Patrol chassis.
Every year in Houston we have an art car parade. This just needs some strangely dressed characters to operate it and maybe sit on top. It’s not quite weird enough to fit in yet but it’s getting there.
My guess is it was a good running old caddie that turned into a rust bucket. A welder and grinder is about all you probably need to do this.
As soon as I clicked I saw Ed’s comment. Guess all I needed to say was +1.
I dunno. Projects like that usually retain the original greenhouse. This thing is 100% hand-built sheetmetal, and all flat glass. It could plausibly have been built on just about anything that has a frame. Wheelbase and the 5-lug wheels are the only really reliable hints.
I’m betting is an ex-movie prop, something you’d see in the mass scenes where the hero (Schwartzenegger, Willis, Stallone) is cutting thru the bad guy private army/local militia/government forces. It looks real good outside (from 10′ away where you don’t notice the Silverado/F150 wheels) and the interior is the absolute minimum to hold a driver and an extra who was probably expected to pop out the passenger door and immediately get blown away.
Yeah, and I’m not buying the whole kid-needed-an-armored-personnel-carrier thing, either. Oh, it was probably procured from some Hollywood B-movie car lot with the buyer thinking he could make some kind of big score by playing up a story to either sell or rent the thing to some schmoe.
But building it for his kid because the area was too dangerous for a normal ride? Nah…
Did you guys not click on the link in the post, from the Arizona newspaper that wrote it up? Doubting Thomases….
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=894&dat=20010809&id=VqkKAAAAIBAJ&sjid=GE0DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6815,1091715
Punching ‘cadillac battle cruiser’ into google got me this result 😛 Bad picture but seems to be the right car. And indeed a Cadillac(1979) based bullet-proof (according to the builder) one-off car.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=894&dat=20010809&id=VqkKAAAAIBAJ&sjid=GE0DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6815,1091715
The wheelbase looks too long for a Cadillac, with the exception of a limo. Its a 5 bolt lug pattern so that means it’s a half ton 2 wheel drive GM truck chassis. My guess it’s a long wheelbase Chevy/GMC truck or van.
If you read the newspaper article from 2001, it says that it is was made from a 1979 Cadillac. My quick search shows that this probably has a 121.5″ wheelbase, while a longbox pickup or Suburban of the same era had a 131.5″ WB.
The first thing that came to mind looking at the side view was……….mid-year Corvette Sting Ray! Most likely the side crease with the tumblehome and the squared off wheel wells stirred the gray matter into this bizarre and sacriligous thought. Is that a duck tail rear end, too????????
Could be too that the builder had a mid-year Sting Ray on his mind? Most likely more I need a little rest…….
quarter inch thick steel panels make it pretty tough to bend complex shapes. flat panel at the bottom, flat panel at the top, they bow out in the middle to give it a little shape and more space in the middle.
I think that’s the first
caruhm, machine(?) posted here that’s had Moss on the inside and none on the body!That’s a pretty cool creation. Add some 500 Caddy power, some more lighting and a couple of M134 “Miniguns” and you’re set for the Zombie Apocalypse, Switching of the Poles or maybe even more!
Quarter-inch thick bodywork… the surface rust next the door won’t be problem for a looong time!
Bob Lichter sr. must have had the A-Team theme blaring on a loop when he was building this thing!
This is the vehicle Charlton Heston WISH he could’ve commandeered in “Earthquake!” instead of the cool-looking altered-roof Blazer. “Ahh…a vehicle that can go anywhere!”
Hey, what’s up with the watermarks? I can’t use your images as wallpapers without that glaring at me…
Just for this one….I have my reasons. If you really want this one unblemished, let me know.
OK with that. I’ll pass on this one.
Just thinking about this – with so few full-framed vehicles left today, what are the chances of seeing something like this in the future made from one of today’s cars?
You forget that small scale complex forging and pressing tech is around the corner, with 3D printers and computer-controlled English wheels. Making a body panel for today’s cars will be easy within twenty years. Just as auto-manufacturer’s tech improves, so does backwoods mechanics’. We are already seeing it in engine tuning products, where piggy-back ECUs have taken the place of carb jet kits.
There’s an awful lot of pickups out there, which would have probably made more sense in the first place, given how heavy this got.
Judging from the seats this must have been an Eldorado originally; they look like the same style as the ’83 from last week. I like the stock one better myself.
This reminds me of the new marauder from the Paramount group. Loved the idea 🙂
Regards
.A-
Hey…at least we know where dad is working as lead designer….Toyota!
Wasn’t this thing just off the I-5 ? .
I was up there over Thanksgiving and I vaguely remember slowing down to look at something like this .
-Nate
Yup.
Wow. I find it sad that this father fought this vehicle was really necessary for his son to get an education. Impressive work nonetheless.
It’s delightfully menacing in appearance, which can be fun. I once had a Chevy pickup with a gnarled front end. People tended to yield the passing lane to me when they saw me in the rear view.
He’s proof to the drive-by pistol wielders but most center fire rifle rounds will sail through 1/4″ steel, so he would do well to avoid fights with SWAT teams and bubbas with deer rifles.
Bullet proof, only from air rifles that thing has very thin glass and the belief that hiding behind or in a car will save you from gunfire is pure hollywood rubbish.
It says the windows are 25mm plexiglass, not plate glass.
America being what it is, if you can name it, there’s probably an online video of someone shooting it. I just found one where someone tries shooting at a piece of 1-inch acrylic plexiglass with various pistols. The .22 didn’t penetrate at all at 15 feet or more and the acrylic did stop 9x19mm once, although the plexiglass shattered in the process. (They picked up the pieces and found that the bullet had mashed itself flat across the plexiglass. The kinetic energy broke the sheet, but the round didn’t penetrate it.)
I suppose that’s better than nothing, although a tank it is clearly not.
The VBL from Panhard could be a better choice , fancy design by the fashion designer CoCo Chanel!
The brits do armoured cars so much better. Possibly because they’ve pissed off so many people around the world.
An abandoned british army vehicle in HK, sold off before they left the colony. Now here’s an suv to go shopping in.
This leaves me scratching my head. With ’73-’91 or so K series 4wd Chevy pickups/Blazers in abundance with solid mechanicals yet bodies rotting off…why not start there?
I don’t know what’s under it, but I guess you’d call the body style a Shooting Brake.
So, some vintage Cadillac lost it’s life to become this freak ?
Yeah, the guy say’s “No one ever broke into this thing.”
Of course, no one ever did … They were too SCARED to sit in those NASTY seats, pal.
Look at that passenger seat, it looks like some kind of algae, mold or pondscum growing on that thing… Who sat in that thing, the Creature from the Black Lagoon??
The guy spent countless hours on the bodywork… But throws worse than junkyard seats in there? Really? Fail.
Well, it was “built” in 2001, almost 14 years ago. I suspect it’s been sitting for a while.
It’s still there, too. Not sure about the Coronoroc, though.
If he spent $500 for the Caddy, it doesn’t sound like he was cutting up a pristine classic.
Not all pristine classics START as pristine…I’ve seen some crusty barn finds become Concourse winners. Lol
I’d like to borrow it for a demo derby….
I remember reading about it and seeing the pictures back about 10 years ago on some other auto website. No matter what you think of the result, I admire what this father did to help ensure the safety of his son. Lest anyone forget, Bill Cosby and his wife had 5 children; their only son, Ennis was murdered in January of 1997, while changing a flat tire on the side of the 405 in Los Angeles. It’s possible that incident was what inspired the creator of this vehicle to build a heavy-duty custom vehicle for his son.
Nice bullet proof armored car.
Father cares his son too much. So he made for his son.
Buy new car for your son it is looking old now.
As someone once wrote in a song (I think it was Mike Cooley of the Drive-By Truckers)
“Dead is dead and it ain’t no different than walking around if you ain’t living
Living in fear’s just another way of dying before your time.
When it comes your time to go, ain’t no good way to go about it
Ain’t no use in thinking bout it
You’ll just drive yourself insane.”
I don’t know about everyone else, but the non-matching driver’s and passenger’s seats ruin it for me!
Uh, the moss is supposed to be on the OUTSIDE of the car!
My uncle was a concrete form contractor. Back around 1975 he was hired by an 80 year old man to build a bomb shelter. The guys money was green. My uncle took the job. There’s no doubt that the bomb shelter is probably still there but the man who paid for it isn’t. Some people worry way too much.
I would think such an attention-grabbing vehicle would be counter productive.
But it’s sure an impressive piece of DIY.
I think I would have enrolled him in a different school. Much easier.