Nick: You take it to a prom and all these lads have saved up their pennies to hire a Bentley or a Hammer
or something like that thinking I've got this show stolen,
then you roll up and drop this lad off at his prom.
Everybody’s like, why do we even bother?
I've done christenings, kids parties, stag parties. We've done hen parties. We've done proms.
We've done everything and then right at the end, we can even do your funeral.
We do everything from birth to death.
My name is Nick Mead and I am the owner of tank limo.
Probably the only tank limo in the world.
I got into tanks about 30 years ago, and I then ended up with these two
very nice tanks and the idea was to keep one sell one.
But before I even took delivery of them a company and asked
if they could hire one, and I charged him more than half of the value of the tank for one day.
I could see it being a business opportunity, right from beginning.
Tod: I am Tod Chamberlain I act as tank commander on tank limo.
Tanks turn from the middle. People don't understand that.
They're going to get squashed. I got to be the eyes and the ears of Nick and warn him of any potential dangers.
Nick: Something like a stretch Hummer, it turns from the front. So where a hammer can’t get we can get.
We've been around Soho and some really, really tight places.
Tod: I think the only hard thing we ever did was rip a wing mirror off a transit van
in London once and the guy was so pleased that his transit van had been hit by a tank.
He couldn't wait to tell all of his friends.
Nick: On the upper part, you can't see the join.
Obviously, we have cunningly, cunningly made it all smooth and you'd never know.
But down here, you can see a piece of strapping going over the top just to make it a bit stronger.
It ended up with three top rollers, they normally only have two.
Obviously bulletproof glass says we can still do security stuff.
Sometimes in London, we're asked to do it and we wonder if it's a social thing
or whether it's because they're a bit worried about who's taking a shot at them.
Tank Limo is about 22 foot long.
I think it's about eight foot seven or eight foot wide, something like that.
We weighed it once and it was only 17.5 tonnes. And I was surprised.
The speed I'm not really sure what it does top speed on British roads, you're only allowed to do 20 mile an hour
with a rubber Patty track.
I have been faster on kind of private roads.
I've added up to 35 and I think you'd probably get a bit faster
but the acceleration is quite slow when you get to the top end, but so it's very controllable.
Every turn you do is a skid. So if you keeping the power on you can drift it
if you let the power off then it just goes back into your normal turn.
Wow, that's stuck.
Tod: Maintenance on tank limo is akin to maintenance on any bit of heavy armor, constant constant battle.
every time you think I've sorted that out something else crops up.
If it was Russian it'd be easier wouldn’t you agree?
Nick: Possibly yeah.
Tod: Possibly see NATO tanks …
Nick: Wouldn’t be as nice to drive though. Tod: No wouldn’t be as nice to drive
NATO tanks all the tools in the world still going to be hard to fix .
with Russian vehicles. If you got a hammer you're going to fix it.
Nick: To describe tank limo in three words you would have to say big, impressive, noisy.
Tod: I can describe it in two words
Rolling Thunder.
shock, amazement. Nick: Yeah when they on the phone
and they sort of go, and that look of shock and then the smile comes on the face I love all that.
Think if you could get to complain about the noise and the pollution.
Part of the amazement is people just cannot believe is road legal.
But it is.
Tod: It’s popular. Extremely popular we get we get 10 inquiries every couple of days about hiring tank limo.
Nick: I don’t think that there is another vehicle like that in the world.
When I do all these proms I see the occasional skip glory come which is a bit unusual.
But when it comes to unusual prom once I get tank the most right up there