What you could call the “modern armored car industry” really started in the mid–1970s with curved ballistic OEM replacement glass. This made armored vehicles look like a standard vehicle as opposed to flat glass windshields found in money carriers (like a Brink’s truck) that were an instant tip-off. Protection could be accomplished without letting everyone know about it, and orders started coming from corporate America. Most of these vehicles were for use by executives and their families in overseas markets like Bogotá, Tel Aviv, Mexico City and Cairo, where the threat of kidnapping and random violence was high.
And then came September 11th.
Security directors of large enterprises no longer had to beg for protection budgets for people and facilities.
This was good news and bad news. Security directors found that their preaching had finally been recognized as warranted. The bad news: Even though they advocated armor, many security executives were ill prepared to implement an armoring program.