The Armored Group and McSweeney Designs last week said they have formed a strategic alliance that will enable them to provide world class up-armored executive luxury coaches and dignitary transportation vehicles to a wide array of clients all over the world.
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| The Armored Group Suburban |
This strategic alliance enables both companies to harness the collective intelligence of both engineering groups to bring added value to their clients and pursue new avenues of business that were remote to both organizations before the agreement.
“We look forward to a long partnership with McSweeney Designs. Together we will be able to extend our reach far beyond what we could reasonably achieve acting independently and do so in a much more efficient and rapid way,” said Bob Pazderka, president of The Armored Group. “We look forward to collaborating on new innovations that will allow both our companies to collectively and simultaneously, deliver on the promise of optimal threat-level protection and an unparalleled level of comfort and amenities.”
At the same time, The Armored Group is able to leverage its expertise into other markets,
Robert Pazderka, the president of The Armored Group, told Defense Daily via e-mail: “Yes it is one of the synergies we gain.”
The Armored Group and McSweeney teams have worked on several projects together over the last couple years, the most significant being the collaboration of the MD XUV Presidential Motorcade. The technology required for that particular class of vehicle was highly sophisticated and required a significant amount of collaboration between both companies’ engineering and manufacturing teams, the companies said in a statement.
That success has led them to undertake the challenge of adapting and redeploying their proprietary MD XUV Motorcade technologies for similar projects on new vehicle platforms that have been commissioned for the protection of another foreign head of state.
The combined team has several additional projects in the pipeline for up-armored executive mobile offices and luxury passenger vehicles for an influential roster of dignitary clients in various regions around the globe.
Because of the level of security required by their high-profile clients, certain information on personal identity as well as specific types of vehicles built and technologies employed are proprietary and are closely guarded by the discretion of both The Armored Group and McSweeney Designs.
Jeffrey Hunter, executive officer of McSweeney Designs, stated: “The MD XUV Presidential Motorcade was the first project to offer a glimpse into the full potential of the strategic alliance between The Armored Group and McSweeney Designs, while we both feel that this project delivered exceptionally well on the promise of our collaboration, we still feel that we are only now scratching the surface of what will be possible now that our alliance is more fully geared toward this type of deeper cooperation on an ongoing basis.”
Both The Armored Group and McSweeney Designs plan to expand their co-developed vehicle portfolio to fill the unique demands and requests of their clients. In addition to ongoing executive luxury coaches and dignitary transportation opportunities, other projects currently under consideration and co-development include several highly sophisticated tactical projects such as a unique modular, platform neutral, rapid deployment weapons system for a client with an innovative and patented artillery solution.
The Armored Group clients include KBR [KBR], Lockheed Martin [LMT], DynCorp., U.S. Army and Air Force, U.S. Defense Department, Department of State and foreign governments and the United Nations.