The Rezvani Vengeance is Out for Blood … And That’s Not a Good ThingRezvani has taken their penchant for the tactical and militant and turned it up to 11. But is that really what we need?

Words Iron & Air Staff
Images Rezvani Motors

Rezvani Motors has never claimed to be in the business of building modest or practical consumer vehicles. And its latest offering, the Rezvani Vengeance — a $250,000 Cadillac armored SUV built to shrug off rain, snow, and stray bunker busters — serves as another reminder of that.

The company was founded in 2013 by Ferris Rezvani. Initially, Rezvani wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps in becoming a fighter pilot. Instead, he used that inspiration to design and manufacture adrenaline-pumping vehicles via the moniker Rezvani Motors.

The Rezvani Lineup

The Rezvani Beast, a supercharged, 500-horsepower sports car built around the Ariel Atom platform, was released in 2015. The Beast was a promising sign of However, subsequent builds from Rezvani have progressed — or regressed, depending on your viewpoint — into the much more brooding and brutish builds we’ve seen over the past few years.

In 2017, we got the Rezvani Tank — a military-inspired “EMP-proof, off-road tactical vehicle” that was featured in 2019’s Men in Black International as well as Amazon Prime Video’s recent Chris Pratt-helmed clunker The Terminal List. Then, in 2020, came the 6×6, 1,000-hp Hercules, built off the Jeep Gladiator platform. But, like a super-villain scorned, it seems Rezvani is out for blood — quite literally – with their latest offering: The Rezvani Vengeance. And we’re not sure that’s a good thing.

(2) The 2015 Rezvani Beast

(3) The 2017 Rezvani Tank, Military Package

(4) The 2020 Rezvani Hercules 6x6

The Rezvani Vengeance

Of course, like any overpriced luxury SUV, the Rezvani Vengeance does include a handful of features that few would complain about: a live HD rearview camera, a powerful solar battery for extended off-grid adventures, a 19-speaker audio system, and OLED infotainment display, to name a few. And it’s all jammed into a package that looks like a balloon animal wearing a bulletproof vest. Looks are forgivable…but then things get, well…darker.

For an extra $95,000, you can outfit the Vengeance with the “Military Package” turning the luxury SUV into a rolling assault weapon — one that veers into the territory of pandering to Spam-hoarding doomsday preppers.

Now, if it was marketed to those trapped in a dystopian hellscape like the alternate 1985 timeline from Back to the Future II or actual soldiers who insist on heading into combat in a fancy SUV to make the enemy jealous, then owning a Vengeance make sense.

But odds are you do not need bulletproof glass, electrified door handles, body armor, military runflat tires, electromagnetic pulse protection, underside explosive protection, ram bumpers, blinding lights, and a pepper spray dispenser (all of which are real features) to teach that tree-hugging nerd in the Prius a lesson for forgetting to flick off the high beams.

During times of extreme civil unrest or during The Purge, spotting one of these jacked-up SUVs wouldn’t feel too out of place. But much like when you spot Rambo casually lugging a loaded AR-15 at the farmer’s market, encountering a military-grade vehicle among the minivans, crotch rockets, and e-bikes just arms you with a sinking feeling you’re trapped on a spinning rock with a bunch of impractical maniacs.

(5) Like something straight out of RoboCop, the Rezvani Vengeance Military Package

So it’s clear, the Rezvani Vengeance isn’t for everyone. However, if you watch Star Wars and find yourself rooting for the Empire, then maybe this is the SUV for you. There are plenty of First Order sympathizers on Reddit, so maybe the market is bigger than we’d like to believe. But there still might be hope for Rezvani to turn away from the dark side as they plan to release a new version of their sports car in 2023. Here’s to hoping there’s a bit more optimism present in their future vehicles. For all of our sakes.

Tagged in