BMW 750iL High Security — Military Armor, Weapons Cases & Everything Inside

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:01]Bulletproof windows, a blue police light, a police radio, and some mysterious switches, a trunk full of secret electronics, tires with weird inserts, and all this in a BMW 7 Series from 1996 with a [music] V12 engine. In front, obviously, this is not a normal BMW.

[00:00:23]This, my dear fellows, is a high-security version, BMW 750iLS high-security.

[00:00:31]Not a protection one, high-security.

[00:00:33]Protection was protection level B4. This is protection level B7. So, protected against NATO ammunition, rifles, bombs, and a lot of other threats. I own this car since a couple of weeks trying to restore it, trying to get it on the road here in Germany, get it registered. In August, I'm planning a road trip, and I'll keep you informed on this channel with these videos. And first of all, thank you very much for all those comments on the last three videos. I got a lot of comments from Brazil, from South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, worldwide. So, thank you very much for joining this channel. If you like, subscribe to it, and keep informed on new videos. Today, I will show you around around the technical stuff. A lot of your a lot of you ask, "Can you show this?

[00:01:28]Can you show that?" I don't go too much into details many technical things on this car are still in use today in modern bulletproof cars. So, I won't reveal any too much secrets here to keep I would like to keep people safe driving those cars today, but I show you around in this car. I show you the details which I have found on the internet. So, I think they are publicly known. So, I will show you around all the switches, all the functions, and the concept of this car.

[00:02:02]In the next video, we go around the tire situation, which is really a pain on the ass to find tires for this car, but I'll show you this in the next video. So, now I have a little handheld camera.

[00:02:15]Maybe a bit shaky, but I go around and show you everything on this car. Follow me along.

[00:02:22]And with that said, a warm welcome and hello. My name is Oliver. I'm located in Hamburg, and this is my new project car, a BMW bulletproof, factory bulletproof from 1996.

[00:02:34]I bought this car on a car show here in Bremen, which is 100 km from Hamburg away. Very nice event every year. They they make a car show at the end of January, starting on February.

[00:02:50]A very nice place to go, and I went there to meet a friend, to drink a beer, have some fun, and I walked past by this car, which was on display. Someone wanted to sell it, and I bought it. I phoned home to my wife, "Hey, darling, I just bought a bulletproof BMW." And said, "What?" You can't imagine, but everything okay.

[00:03:11]We're still married.

[00:03:13]Yeah, so I'll show you around this car.

[00:03:16]My I would like to get this car registered in August. Then it's 30 years old. It's an historic car. I did a video on that topic. You will find on that channel.

[00:03:27]With this registration, I would like to drive this car. By now, I know that there are a couple of private collectors having those cars here in Germany in their collection. Most of them drive them with temporary plates to car show or so, or just keep them in their collection. That's not what I would like to do. I would like to to drive it.

[00:03:48]Yeah, not every day, of course, but to make a road trip with it, and so on. I tell you later on. So, here's my handheld little tiny camera. I will go around. Okay. So, this is a 1996 BMW E38.

[00:04:03]This is the first model, not the newer model. The newer models have these um these other front line. This has a straight front line, so this is the the original model.

[00:04:15]Um from the front, from the side, from the outside, there's nothing very special indicating that this is a bulletproof car, except of for example this here.

[00:04:25]These are um mounting plates for flags. You can have a little flag pole here. We call that Standarte. And you have a flag pole if you're driving an official person in that car. If you drive, for example, the the ambassador of whatever country, you can have the flag of this country here in front of the car. The car has it on both sides, by the way. Usually in Germany, we only have standards on the right side.

[00:04:51]But, obviously, the car has it on both sides. So, from the outside, the measurements are all the same like a normal BMW. The car isn't wider, isn't longer, isn't higher. It's just like a normal BMW. All the armament goes to the inside. So, this car is oriental blue metallic and black from the inside. The second indication that there's something different is the blue siren here, the the blue light on the roof. It is detachable. You can screw this and detach it and put it in the frunk. In the trunk, sorry. So, these are bulletproof glass, multi-layer glass, 6 cm thick.

[00:05:35]Um and as you see, it all goes on the inside. So, the outside is the same and the bulletproof the thickness is in the inside. Here, the door is thicker than any other door. But, let's just stick to the outside. We go round. Um 16-in rims with very very special tires.

[00:05:57]I'll make an extra video on that.

[00:06:00]Here on the trunk, um let me just open it. Do you have the key? Yeah, it's the new key, electric opening, and you see that here in the trunk is something different. Um there's a steel plate in the trunk, so you have less cargo space. Behind the steel plate is a lot of technical uh stuff. I will go uh in a minute. Here on this side, you can leave the the blue siren light.

[00:06:35]Close it again.

[00:06:36]So, to start with the more interesting technical insights, we start at the front with the engine. This is a 12-cylinder engine, and as I uh learned to know, this is a very normal 12-cylinder engine. This is uh a police is not a very special police version or so. This is a normal M73 uh 12-cylinder engine. A lot of things done. The car is maintained very well, so this runs very very really smoothly, really smooth. Um the only special thing you will find here is uh two things. First of all, the VIN number, which is a very special uh number, nothing not identical with usual BMW VIN numbers, and you find this here. This is a connector for a charging device. So, these cars had a connection for a charging device to keep the electronic because the the trunk is full of electronic devices. If the car is um I don't know standing uh couple of days or so, uh when you're on holiday, you can put a charging device that is uh so it keeps the car alive. Um, other BMWs don't have this. Um, I usually have a battery switch, so if I park when I park the car, I switch the battery switch off. I don't need to recharge the car. So, let's dive in the inside.

[00:08:02]So, when you open the door, you recognize the weight of the door. That's really an an exercise to open it. It's really really heavy. And uh uh I don't know how many kilos it is, but it's a real real heavy door, especially if you want to close it, you really have to push.

[00:08:20]Um, there's nothing that is a pushable or closable like this. It's it's really really heavy stuff.

[00:08:28]Inside, we have a black leather all around, really comfortable interior. All the way there's these comfortable seats.

[00:08:35]They're all electrically adjustable. You can have adjustable uh switches here. You can switch the the part the top part of the seat you can move. So, I don't [snorts] know how many ways 18 ways, 12 ways, whatever ways. Um, they're really fantastic. It's a really fantastic sitting here, very very comfortable.

[00:08:58]It's like on a sofa. So, I have to switch this off. Make them lights on so that we have something to see here. So, really really comfortable sitting position here. Um, the seat is a bit worn out. The car has over 300,000 km, but it's okay.

[00:09:16]So, I go around here. Uh, what you recognize, if you know BMW, is that everything is a bit smaller because of the armament in the inside, the dashboard, for example, is a bit is a bit shorter. Everything is specially from the outside, the car doesn't look very special. From the inside, it doesn't look very special, but it is special. If you need any spare parts, they're different from the normal BMW.

[00:09:41]Here, normal BMW steering wheel.

[00:09:44]Nothing really special here on it. Normal BMW gorgeous.

[00:09:49]Here you see 300 and 45,000 km, but everything is working.

[00:09:56]All the digits are on. What you recognize in the inside is the car has two mirrors from the inside, so that the co-driver is able to look from the back.

[00:10:07]This is my mirror. This is the mirror for the passenger. And um this is the middle console. You have a cassette radio here.

[00:10:18]Nice.

[00:10:20]Yeah, German cassette radio. Here there are some digits missing here. Okay.

[00:10:25]Uh >> [snorts] >> cassette radio, there it is.

[00:10:27]You have here a little section for the blue light and a siren. This is an alarm button. The car goes totally crazy for I don't know, half a minute if you push this alarm button.

[00:10:40]Um this is the normal radio. This is the uh climate control. You have the seat seat heating and so on. This is normal as well. Here are little special switches. This is the possibility to speak with the outside. You can push this button and then you're able to talk to someone who is outside the car because these you're not able to communicate. The the windows are so thick, you're not able to communicate. So So this is the possibility. There's a little microphone. You have a speaker outside and you can talk to someone. Hello.

[00:11:17]Yeah, probably you heard that. Here is the the loud how loud you communicate.

[00:11:22]Hello.

[00:11:24]So you can talk about that. This is the um the heated front front shield, so the the front window is heated. And this is um um some switches for the police radio. With this switch, you uh switch the police radio on, and I don't know how these volume regulators are. This is the police radio is here in the console where usually the ashtray, I think, or some uh compartment is. You have a an extra receiver here. This is the uh police radio uh talking stuff. You have a normal phone, which is in here, and so on. So, this is the front.

[00:12:05]Nothing really special.

[00:12:08]Uh nothing but uh the little details.

[00:12:11]And uh >> [clears throat] >> here is something I I found in the car.

[00:12:15]I show it to you. Some um some oil change uh receipts where the car had so-and-so kilometers. This is from 2001. This is from 2000.

[00:12:30]And I found a parking ticket here.

[00:12:33]This is from 2005 where the park car was parked in Berlin.

[00:12:38]I don't know if it was the parking ticket for this car because I don't think that the police um takes parking tickets for their own cars, but someone has written a message here that he he or she has lost a pen and should phone a number. Uh but I didn't know the number the if the number is real. So, really nothing really special, very comfortable situation here in the front.

[00:13:05]Um to and very fun to drive. If you see the driving video uh on this channel, then um you can imagine how fun it is to drive it. And here is a compartment for fire extinguisher.

[00:13:19]Uh I have to buy this to make this complete. So, now we go on the back seat. Yes, and this is obviously the position where everyone wants to be seated and wants to be sitting. This is long wheelbase. Just see the legroom I have here, which is very, very comfortable. This seat is electrical adjustable as well. You can adjust the the how how straight you're sitting if you're a bit lounging or if you're sitting a bit straighter.

[00:13:52]Um and it has uh heating. seat here is heated. The car is a four-seater. That's very important because of um because of weight uh reasons. I'll tell you later the technical detail. Uh so, this is just for four person.

[00:14:09]And uh here is a little reading lamp, which is out of function. I have to repair that. Uh don't know what is missing, the lamp, whatever it is.

[00:14:19]Um yeah, try to find that out. So, maybe that if I am a politician, whatever here reading my papers, whatever sitting here, uh doing my job, this is a very comfortable place. Um The car has a phone here in in the back um to make some phone calls here.

[00:14:41]And I'm really I I I try to imagine who is sitting there, what was done here in this car, what was people talk what were people talking about in this car. A bit of German history was done in that car. I Yeah, I I I really try to imagine that.

[00:14:58]That's this uh but first of all, it's a really, really fantastic sitting position here in that car and chilling chilling around.

[00:15:08]Everything is um original in that car except of the headliner. This was changed. Um but the rest is totally original. Most of the stuff is working fine. Couple of things like the reading lamp, the phone in front are not working. I have to fix that, but just imagine that you're sitting here having this look and being driven through Germany reading paper or whatever. So, yeah, road trip. Um it'll be fine.

[00:15:41]So, here I have a list with all the technical stuff, all the technical features. I will go through it to answer all the questions you posted in the other videos. But first of all, a great shout-out to this to the viewer of my channel who discovered that I'm sitting in a Volkswagen Phaeton chair.

[00:16:01]This is a Volkswagen Phaeton co-driver passenger seat. I still have the driver seat and the bench. This is marine blue navy blue leather. Um thumbs up for you discovering that this is a Phaeton seat.

[00:16:16]Back to [snorts] the BMW. BMW produced two types of protection vehicles at that time. One was called protection and one was called high security. This is high security. The protection one was a car for CEOs who needed light protection level. It was protected with B4, had little thicker glass, and Kevlar armament in the car. It was protected against handguns, but not against rifles, bombs, or whatever.

[00:16:48]Therefore, it was cheaper.

[00:16:50]It was um maybe easier to maintain, I don't know. And it's was normally available. This car wasn't sold at a normal BMW and a dealership, and it wasn't serviced at a normal BMW dealership. This is a very special series of car. Around 500 of those cars from this model were produced. This is a pre-facelift model.

[00:17:19]I took the number out of the E38 registry. Many thanks for your service.

[00:17:25]I noticed that you even commented in the video here. And [snorts] I from the E 38 registry, I looked up that from this type of car, there were 232 cars made.

[00:17:39]Which means pre-facelift left-hand drive and 750iL.

[00:17:45]So, just the technical stuff. This is a 750iL. A normal car would weigh a bit more than 2 tons. This car is 1 ton heavier. The empty weight is more than 3 tons. More important of this is the weight fully loaded, which is 3.5 tons, 3.48 to be exactly.

[00:18:07]This is a very lucky number because here in Germany, we are allowed with newer driving license to drive those cars below 3.5 tons. My driving license is a bit older. I can drive heavier cars, but young people are only allowed to drive 3.5 tons or less. So, this is quite nice, but you see it's not very much payload. So, four people, bit of luggage, then the car is fully loaded. There's no possibility to bring a trailer or a roof something on the roof or so. This car was not made for that. Yeah? The engine is a V 12, 5.4 L, 306 326 horsepower, 490 Newton meters of torque.

[00:18:54]It accelerates from 0 to 100 in 8.6 seconds. A normal one would do this 2 seconds faster in 6.6. So, this is due to the weight.

[00:19:08]BMW recommends that you check the brake distance. If you brake, this takes a while longer because the car is heavier.

[00:19:19]The normal equipment the car comes with if you would order a high security version, which was not available at the normal dealership, obviously. But if you order one, you get the armored glazing with plastic splinter coat on the inside so that you are not hurt by any splinters if the car is being shot.

[00:19:42]You have the emergency exit. So if if something is wrong with the car, you have an accident, you were able to exit through the front windscreen, which has an explosive cord. You can ignite that and then you will be able to get out of the car at that time.

[00:19:59]The car has gas sensors, which shut down the AC and the all the vents if the car is attacked with some some gas stuff. It has a dual battery system, one battery for starting, one battery for the exteriors. It has a remote start function.

[00:20:19]Therefore, you need a remote device, which I don't have. It got lost somewhere, but with [snorts] this device you can remotely start up this car from 100 m or so.

[00:20:32]It has a central locking feature. The car locks immediately if you drive it.

[00:20:37]This is normal with modern cars at that time, 1996 it wasn't. And it has an intercom system.

[00:20:43]As I showed you in the car, you can push the button and talk to someone outside.

[00:20:48]Therefore, it has microphones in the mirrors and speaker behind the bumper.

[00:20:55]Um optional, if you would like to order some extras, of course there's something on the BMW menu for that. You can order your you were able to order radio systems, so 2-meter and a 4-meter band. This car has a 4-meter band inside. Um, you can order a 2-meter band additionally. Therefore, it has two inserts for uh radio systems.

[00:21:20]The 2-meter band you can order optionally um a speech scrambler. If you have all this equipment, you have a couple of switches more in the car. There is a switch between to there's a button you can push to switch between 2 and 4-meter band. And next to this would be the switch for the scrambler.

[00:21:39]There is a rotating signal light on the roof, which my car has as well, and a high-low warning signal.

[00:21:45]German police on signal which the car has as well. There a pennant holder for diplomatic ID. This is in the front fender. These mounting devices, which I showed [snorts] you as well.

[00:21:58]Optionally, you could have two a weapon compartment for for three machine guns from Heckler & Koch. Um, this is mostly when the car was used for security personnel, not for VIP person. Yeah, because the VIP person is useless with a Heckler & Koch.

[00:22:17]The the machine guns have to be where the security personnel is. If you order security If you order this weapon compartment which is on the on the roof of the car on the inside, you will have um gun ports in the doors as well to shoot from the inside to the outside. The car has no roof, uh no weapon compartment, and no gun um gun ports.

[00:22:42]And that's because I think uh this is a car where the VIP person was transported, not the car where the security person was transported. You optionally can have an attack alarm. Um, you can have a fire extinguishing system, which the car does not have. In that case, you have a fire extinguisher in the trunk who [snorts] is able to thin lines to extinguish English fires in the engine bay, and it comes with a fresh air cylinder as well for breathing if the car is attacked on fire.

[00:23:13]Um you can have a blast-protected fuel tank, which my car has as well. And um every car is indeed totally different. I think you won't find two identical cars.

[00:23:25]What concerns me at the moment most are the tires. The tires are too old. The tires 20 years old. Um I would like to have new tires so I can move the car on the streets. Luckily, I have two sets of rims. I'll show you in another video later. So, I keep one set of rims with the original tires and one set of rims with some tires to go normal speeds.

[00:23:50]Service.

[00:23:51]Uh the service intervals are bit special if you keep the standard of the car. As I am not a vulnerable person, I'm I don't think that I would be shot. Um for me it doesn't matter um that much. Uh we make the normal maintenance with the engine and the suspension and all that stuff.

[00:24:12]Uh oil changes and so on.

[00:24:14]Um in a normal car shop, usually have to go for a specialized BMW dealership, which were only in Berlin and uh in Bonn at that time. With this all said, all the technical specifications uh I hope you're curious. The tire situation took me some sleepless nights.

[00:24:34]I think I have a solution. I will start this in the next day. So, stay on this channel.

[00:24:40]We'll try to get this car on the road legally registered in August. I would like to make uh road trips. I have a shorter road trip, which I will try it first to a very special location here in northern Germany, and I have a planned a bigger road trip through the places where this car has originally been and born in Berlin. We see if this all works out. This is my idea.

[00:25:03]Life [music] tells you that you have an idea, but life usually tells you that things go a bit different. We see. Okay. So, I would be very very pleased if you comment on this video. Thumbs up for this video. If you like, subscribe to the channel. We have 60,000 views [music] now for the videos.

[00:25:22]So, I'm really proud proud of you community watching this content. So, greetings to all over the world, to Brazil, to New Zealand, to Australia, to South Africa, where I already received your comments. Feel free to comment on the this video and see you in the next video with the tire situation.