Top 10 cars you've probably never heard of

These 10 cars are so rare you won't see them on any lot. Click through for a list of 10 cars you've probably never heard of.

6. Dartz / Prombron

Dartz Armored Cars
The Dartz Pombron, seen here, is the only bulletproof vehicle on the civilian market. The hulking SUV is featured in the recent film "The Dictator."

Do you live in fear of being riddled with gunfire every time you leave your driveway? OK, maybe you’re just sick of shopping carts putting dents in your doors at the mall.

Well, forget about armoring your Range Rover, Suburban, or even Hummer … the Dartz Prombron is the only vehicle sold to civilians designed to be bulletproof straight out of the box.

Built to withstand small explosions and ballistic fire from bullets up to 12.7 millimeters (the kind shot out of helicopter gunships), this level of protection is not available to any other passenger vehicle, unless that vehicle is a tank.

As for luxury, look no further then the gold-plated “Aladeen Edition” featured in the upcoming Sacha Baron Cohen movie. Dartz completely embraces the ostentatious nature of its vehicles by selling 10 examples complete with three-inch-thick glass, massaging seats, and beverage chillers inside.

But to take one home, you’ve either got to have a desperately flamboyant style or a very strong sense of irony as the price starts at half a million dollars. If fuel economy has even crossed your mind at this point, it’s safe to say you’re not in Prombron’s target demographic.

Many components and running gear come from GM (recognize those door handles from your Suburban?) including the Vortec V8 powerplant.

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

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