Rezvani Tank: It's like a Hot Wheels car brought to life

6 years, 5 months ago - 4 October 2017, Autoblog
Rezvani Tank: It's like a Hot Wheels car brought to life
The car company Rezvani made a name for itself with some pretty radical sports cars with aggressive names such as Beast.

But as far back as February of last year, the company has been considering adding an SUV to the lineup. Now it finally has, and it's called Tank.

The Rezvani Tank certainly bears styling that fits in with the company's supercars. It's covered in bulges, vents, scallops and angles. It looks like a cross between a Hot Wheels car and an armored military vehicle. We at the office are a bit split on the looks, but this editor finds its absurdity fun and appealing.

The wild body hides some capable, if conventional, hardware. Though hard to tell at a glance, it's clear the Tank is based on the current generation of the Jeep Wrangler Unlimited. The interior is the real giveaway, since the openings for the doors are the same shape as the Wrangler's, and the dash and door panels are carryover. On the outside, you can even see the Easter Egg silhouette of the Wrangler's fascia at the top of the windshield. But this base means that there's a capable chassis with off-road-friendly solid axles front and rear, and selectable four-wheel drive. The Tank's Wrangler chassis isn't propelled by the Wrangler's V6, though - it uses a 500-horsepower 6.4-liter V8 from FCA.

There are some less conventional and rather interesting features under the Tank's skin, too. Instead of four normal doors, the Tank has rear suicide doors. They're powered, too. The driver gets a head-up display for items such as speed, and there's even a thermal night-vision camera. Rezvani doesn't really elaborate on what this would be used for. The company also says it can add ballistic-resistant armor to the Tank to make it, well, more tank-like.

Rezvani's big SUV also carries a big price tag. The Tank starts at $178,000. That's a lot of money for something that, at its core, is a Jeep Wrangler, which starts at less than $30,000. But, you also have to consider that this is a Wrangler that had a lot of work put into it. For instance, if you wanted a Wrangler with the roughly the same 6.4-liter V8 as the Tank, American Expedition Vehicles (AEV) would charge you over $30,000 for the engine and installation alone. That doesn't include the Jeep or any of the other custom upgrades. That's not to say the Tank is cheap, but it's not impossible to see where the cost comes in.