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Cadillac it was, then. A chassis was ordered and all the protective paraphernalia. Coachcraft, the auto bodybuilder over on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood, were engaged to make it bulletproof. One of the Coachcraft partners, Burt Chalmers, set up a private area to keep the engineering work under wraps. ‘It was the goddamnedest thing you’d ever seen,’ reported Cohen. ‘The bottom of the car was flat – bombproof. It felt like a tank. The glass was made so you could shoot out, but killers could be standing by the windscreen blasting you and nothing would come in.’ Coachcraft ran endless tests on the car’s protective shield, including having it fired on by California Highway Patrol high-powered rifles. They didn’t penetrate. The Cadillac went on to be ‘test driven’ by everything but a bazooka and survived intact. Cohen spent the equivalent of $250,000 on his personal tank.
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