Cheong Wa Dae to Buy BMW Fleet
Cheong Wa Dae plans to buy five bullet-proof BMWs for use by the president this year since the existing vehicles need replacing, the presidential office said. President Roh Moo-hyun and first lady Kwon Yang-sook have been using mostly Mercedes Benz S600s.
Cheong Wa Dae plans to buy the top-of-the-range BMW 760Li from the company’s luxury 7 series sedans, equipped with special security equipment like 5mm bullet-proof glass and an extra-strength frame. The ordinary version of the car sells for W240 million (US$239,000), but the modified vehicles are tipped to cost several times that.
The cars are to be used by President Roh and visiting heads of state. For security reasons, all cars national leaders use are bulletproof. How many such vehicles are in Korea is apparently also a security matter. “Cheong Wa Dae doesn’t have only five,” an official said, while a car import industry source said, “Including the existing Benz S600s, there are more than 10 in Korea.”
Bulletproof vehicles look no different from ordinary ones from the outside, but they have special tires that can take a bullet and still travel at least 40 kmph and weigh two or three times more than normal cars.
The price is also a secret, reportedly since experts could guess what features a car has if they know how much it costs. There are rumors that a bulletproof BMW 760Li would cost about W630 million. Within the industry, however, the prices are said to differ greatly depending on the level of bulletproofing, with some estimates putting the cost at 10 times that of the normal version.
Korean automakers can make bulletproof vehicles, but as their safety is untested and there are few places that would sell them, they do not produce them.
How often Cheong Wa Dae replaces the vehicles is also a secret. The bulletproof Cadillac the Foreign Ministry provides to foreign leaders when they come to Korea is a 1996 model. “I understand that in other countries, they change them every five or six years,” a Foreign Ministry official said.
Mercedes Benz, BMW’s main competitor, insisted Cheong Wa Dae was not switching presidential vehicles from Mercedes to BMW but merely adding an additional make.
(englishnews@chosun.com)