By Andy Goldberg/DPA

Los Angeles

 

Sell your Hummer for whatever you can get, and take your Rolls-Royce back to the dealer as soon as you can.

Hollywood celebrities have a new car of choice, making the fleets of luxury vehicles owned until now look decidedly pedestrian.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the new must-have mobile status symbol for film celebrities and executives is an armoured car capable of stopping large-calibre bullets and of electrocuting would-be carjackers.

Rapper Kanye West for example has ordered two Iron Diamonds, made by Latvia’s Dartz Motorz, at a cost of $1.2mn each.

Alternatively a company called Texas Armoring will strip any luxury car to its chassis and rebuild it using armoured plating, bullet-proof glass, and electrified door handles to discourage carjackers and over-zealous paparazzi.

The updates cost $100,000 and up, and take two to three months to complete.

Company executive Jason Forston says that Texas Armoring has seen demand in the US soar over the past five years.

 “A large part of it is celebrities, pro athletes and rock stars,” Forston said.

“You even have a lot of Hollywood executives, studio heads, people not in the spotlight.” Forston credited the “climate of fear right now - the growing gap between the haves and the have-nots” - for the surge in sales.

Other companies also supply fortresses on wheels to Hollywood’s elite. According to the report, Mercedes, BMW and Bentley quietly manufacture armoured versions of their cars, which are popular with movie and TV stars, as well as rappers and sports stars.

The BMW 7 Series High Security can withstand armour-piercing bullets and is outfitted with run-flat tires and a sealed ventilation system in case of attack by chemical weapons.

Security experts are divided over whether the massive vehicles are strictly needed or just for show.

“Statistically, with the exception of a few cases, I don’t think there’s a need for it,” said Aaron Cohen, director of Hollywood’s IMS Security, which secures the homes of many high-profile celebrities.

But Robert Siciliano, a New York-based security consultant, disagreed, pointing out that a 25-cent bullet will penetrate a non-armoured vehicle “pretty efficiently.”

For stars earning many millions of dollars a year like Kanye West, “to spend three quarters of a million dollars on an armoured vehicle isn’t that outrageous,” said Siciliano. “I bet Biggie Smalls’ mom wishes he had,” he added, referring to a rapper killed in a drive-by shooting in 1997.