Brazil becomes bulletproofing hub for Volvo cars
About two years ago, Volvo Cars, the Swedish luxury car brand, began prospecting the best place in the world to armoring its vehicles. Logic drove it to Brazil. Here are the largest car-armoring companies on the planet. As a result of sad and alarming violence statistics, the Brazilian market has been for about a decade, by far, the leader in armoring civilian vehicles, well ahead of second-place Mexico.
With the help of its unit in Brazil, the carmaker got to Carbon, a company based in Barueri, São Paulo, founded five years ago. The agreement was signed in March. Since then, Carbon has been armoring cars that Volvo imports to sell in Brazil. In the coming days, it will begin making the first units to be exported.
The logistics is complex. To offer customers anywhere in the world a "factory" armored car - in this case, with its approval - Volvo ships the car from Europe to Brazil. After the armoring is finished in Barueri, a process that takes 30 days, the vehicle returns to Europe and then goes to the client, who may be in some country nearby or on any other continent.João Oliveira, director-general of Volvo Cars in Brazil, followed the work that involved more than 9,000 hours of engineering and tests throughout a year and a half. He says the first orders for exporting armored cars come from police forces of European countries whose names he can't reveal for confidentiality reasons.
While in Brazil most of the demand is for the protection of individuals from criminality in urban centers, in Europe and the US armoring is a service more directed to heads of state. Yet Mr. Oliveira says the company is beginning to notice some interest from individuals also in Europe.
Carbon now has an exclusive assembly line at its Barueri factory for Volvo. Commercial chief Daniel Deleu, a partner of the company, says Volvo demanded high testing levels. In one practice, six vehicles were each shot 400 times. "I believe we beat the competition for having a format similar to that of a carmaker," he says. The company also has a line dedicated to armoring Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles, certified by the two British brands. Carbon doesn't disclose contract values or its revenue.
The deal for Brazil to become the global supplier of armored Volvo cars helps in a way compensate the fact that the car brand has not joined the wave that made three large luxury car makers - BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Jaguar Land Rover - build factories in Brazil between 2014 and 2016...
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