5 Awesome Vehicles for the Extremely Wealthy

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#5.

The 550-Foot Laser Yacht

Russians are well-known for producing huge things, mainly drinks, bombs and Ivan Drago. But one Russian in particular is known for his huge-ass boats. His name is Roman Abramovich, and he owns "Eclipse," the largest private yacht in the world, which, oh by the way, is something a James Bond villain would consider "too over-the-top."

It's the building in the middle.

It's almost as long as two football fields (557 feet) and has a German-built missile defense system. It also has radar and armored windows and -- this our favorite part -- camera-destroying lasers.
The lasers are a new innovation in the field of high-end craziness. According to The Times, the system works by automatically detecting the electronic light sensor inside any nearby camera and firing a high-intensity beam of light at it, destroying its ability to take pictures.

This image exists only because he hasn't built any lasers into his own body ... yet.

OK, but what if somehow (possibly through decades of ninja training), camera-toting, missile-holding paparazzi pirates managed to get inside the yacht?
Well, in that case, Abramoavich can simply walk into the goddamned built-in mini-submarine he keeps just for these occasions. It'll drop 160 feet into the water, protecting him and his 29-year-old wife from any harm.

Whatever you're thinking, he's like "I know!"

Exactly what kind of disaster could you not survive in this thing? Alien invasion? Meteor? Nuclear war? This guy would be sitting on the deck of his floating palace, watching it and munching caviar. Forget about a zombie apocalypse -- he wouldn't even notice it until somebody told him.
True, it's probably not much use in a world where none of that really happens, but you can't have it all. Plus, the whole thing only cost him $1.2 billion (with a B).

Whoever said "money can't buy happiness" is a fucking liar.

#4.

Luxury Tanks

Lots of companies pimp out SUVs and turn them into armored cars ... but if your needs are less "stay protected" and more "destroy the Autobots" (and you're willing to spend over $150,000 on a vehicle), there are other options available for you.
For example, the custom-built Armor Horse Vault XXL is literally an armored limousine. While the inside does look like a limo (complete with leather seats, LCD screens and a bar) ...

This is only the lobby.

... its exterior is closer to a tank:

The Armor Horse is capable of comfortably seating 25 people ... and if they ever get bored, they can simply pull out the emergency gun ports and start shooting pedestrians. This is a real thing, by the way. The Armor Horse isn't just defensive (it's covered in bulletproof panels); it's also an offensive weapon that can be used to wreak havoc and destruction across its path. It comes with two escape hatches that double as skylights, in case you want to mount a death ray on top of it or something.
So it can stop bullets, but we know what you're thinking: What if my enemies are equipped with rocket launchers? A sensible question, and one we ask ourselves every morning. Fortunately, there are other vehicles on the market to cater to our needs:

Even the name of that beast inspires fear: The Dartz Kombat T98 SUV has steel-plated doors and three-inch-thick windows, making it essentially indestructible. At $200,000, it's very practical for all those millionaires who like spending time in war zones.

This is what happens when a tank and a Hummer make love under the moonlight.

#3.

The Speedboat Batman Wishes He Had

Sure, if you want to host parties while you're conquering the world, the floating luxury yacht back at #5 is probably your best bet. But maybe you want the yacht equivalent of a sports car instead -- something that can go speeding off into the horizon when a secret agent comes after you on his Jet Ski.
That's where the MY Ady Gil comes in. This is, in scientific terms, the awesomest fucking speedboat ever made. Seriously, look at it:

That is not a model. It exists.

Wikipedia tells us that it is fully submersible; it can travel up to 57 mph using two 540-horsepower engines, plus it has a large enough fuel tank to cover three-and-a-half thousand miles in a single go. And it can do all that with eight guys sleeping on the bunk beds inside.
Fortunately, the craft hasn't fallen into the hands of the Lex Luthors of the world. Its last owners were part of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, also known as the Whale Wars people -- the guys who go around fighting Japanese whalers. Yes, this was used by actual, real-life vigilantes.

And yes, they built speakers into the boat, which they used to blast music at the whalers. We're talking in past tense because, unfortunately, the boat sank in January 2010 after being rammed by a Japanese whaling boat. You can take solace in the fact that it died a hero's death. Or at least it died while annoying whalers while filming a reality show.

Never forget.

It will be back: A donor has already offered $1 million for the construction of the Ady Gil 2, so they need only $1.5 million more to afford a new one.

#2.

The Bullet 580 Airship

Ah, the zeppelin. The vehicle of the supervillain. We've seen at least one Bond villain tooling around in one...

Christopher Walken, no less.

... as well as the villain in Pixar's Up ...

... and The Rocketeer. Damn, how did zeppelins get such a bad reputation?

Ah, right.

This brings us to the Bullet 580. It's a 23-story-high airship and, while you might think that in real life it'd be hard to get much supervillaining done in a vehicle that can be brought down by a bird with a particularly sharp beak, that's just because you don't know the details.

The Bullet 580 is made of a new type of Kevlar, which is 10 times stronger than steel when it comes to impact resistance. You can shoot a cannonball at the thing and it wouldn't leave a dent. But that's just the beginning.
The designer of the airship states that, "The craft can fulfill ... battlefield surveillance, missile defense warning, electronic countermeasures, weapons platforms," plus it can carry up to 2,000 pounds of equipment (or 12 armed henchmen). More than enough time to scare the shit out of your enemies and possibly conquer a small country.

Or one of the weaker states.

Also, it's shaped like an actual bullet.
So what we have here, basically, is a giant bullet speeding through the air at 80 mph, covered in an oversized bulletproof vest -- the perfect headquarters for a bullet-themed Batman villain.

"Behold my new invention! A bullet-shooting lasergun!"

The makers claim it's made for tasks like homeland security and disaster relief -- but they're also renting them out to anybody with enough cash who likes to spend that cash on crazy things (it's $300,000 a month, but we'd like to see them try to catch you to collect the second month).

#1.

Full-Sized Luxury Submarines

Imagine you could live in the middle of the sea. No, we're not talking about a floating house -- that would be silly. We're talking about a giant underwater mansion that is capable of crossing the Atlantic, the Phoenix 1000.
This is actually a submarine, but it's considerably bigger than most of its kind: 213 feet long, with a total interior living area of 5,000 square feet. That's like twice the size of the average American house.

Plus they have twice as many books.

The Phoenix has four decks, including ample saloons and observation spots, but what takes it into paranoid supervillain territory is its freakish endurance. It can sink 2,000 feet below the water and has an oxygen supply to last for up to 40 days. You can literally survive another Great Flood in this thing.
And if you get bored being inside all day or you need to go dump some bodies where no one could ever possibly find them, you can go for a ride in the smaller submarine that's attached to this thing. And by smaller submarine we mean a regular freakin' submarine.

The only downside to the Phoenix 1000 is that if the builders (U.S. Submarines) have built one, they aren't letting anyone take pictures of it. Whether it's because the only buyers so far are the types who value their privacy (say, flamboyant arms dealers with an eye on world domination via flooding the world's major cities) or because nobody has forked over the $78 million price tag is anybody's guess. All we know is that if we bought one of these things, you can bet we'd freakin' let you know about it.


Read more: http://www.cracked.com/article_18818_5-awesome-vehicles-extremely-wealthy-and-insane_p2.html#ixzz14Sidu0Hw