An increasing number of high-profile musicians and athletes, Fortune 500 executives, and successful entrepreneurs are snatching up armored vehicles for personal transport. There seem to be two schools of thought from the leading manufacturers in this growing industry: some prefer to be discreet, while others, like Conquest Vehicles, are offering some of the flashiest, most daring rides on the road.

The Knight XV by Conquest Vehicles is unlike any automobile you’ve ever seen. Bigger and bolder than the miniaturized Hummer H2, the Knight XV—all six tons and 400 hp of it—is the new superheavyweight of armored vehicles. "It’s got the cool factor and it’s very sexy," says William Maizlin, president of Conquest. "But when you are actually standing beside it, it has a presence."

The armored behemoth is built atop a Ford F-550 chassis and requires 1,500 hours of labor to complete. The first production run is just 100 vehicles. With a price that starts at $359,000 and can run to more than half a million, the Knight XV comes equipped with 40-inch Baja run-flat tires and 20-inch rims, conference and cabin seating, and three exterior night-vision cameras. Available upgrades include a driver partition, a large flat-panel TV, a cigar humidor, and—for extra security—an oxygen survival kit, fish-eye security cameras that survey the environment around a parked car, and an under-vehicle magnetic-attachment detector that notifies the driver of any attachments such as audio bugs, explosives, and tracking devices.

"Our typical clients are high-profile individuals, celebrities, rappers, professional athletes—people who want the biggest, the baddest, and the newest, and also people who are concerned about security and demand luxury," Maizlin says. "Not only can an armored vehicle offer them what they want, but it makes quite a statement. It allows them to make an entrance, and it’s something no one else has."

Armored-vehicle companies like Inkas, based in Toronto, and Manhattan Armor offer more understated products than the Knight XV. "Our idea is to keep the vehicles as low-profile as possible," says Inkas’ Philip Daskal. "We know that the owners don’t want to reveal that they are in a vehicle that is armor-protected; they don’t want to showcase it. A Toyota that has been armored by Inkas and a vehicle that just came out of a Toyota plant look identical." Daskal adds that SUVs are the industry-standard base vehicles, because their chassis can support heavier armoring than sedans, so most manufacturers augment Chevy Yukons and Suburbans, Cadillac Escalades, Lincoln Navigators, Range Rovers, Hummer H2s, Mercedes-Benz GL550s, and Porsche Cayennes.

Armored vehicles are marked up dramatically over their factory former selves. At Manhattan Armor, the 2008 Range Rover Supercharged runs about $195,000—double the standard price—for B4 armoring, which is the lowest level of protection, with 21 mm glass. With B6 armoring, the cost increases to between $225,000 and $239,000. And for B6+, which provides protection against M-16s and hand grenades, the vehicles start at $249,000 and go as high as $275,000. But Jeff Jankelovits, president of Manhattan Armor, warns, "The prices most people see on the Internet are for the cubic zirconia of armored vehicles—but you want the diamonds."