DARTZ on Screen: The Cars Behind The Dictator, Die Hard and More

A car that turns up in a film has to be believable and unforgettable in the same second. DARTZ has been building cars like that for more than a decade.

The Dictator (2012)

Paramount Pictures, acting on behalf of Sacha Baron Cohen, needed a symbol of unlimited resources for a fictional dictator, in a film that also starred Sir Ben Kingsley. DARTZ supplied a fleet of gold-plated Prombron’ armoured cars, with RPG-proof armouring and a leather interior to match, and an on-set support team for the whole shoot. The team came to the London premiere in 2012 too.

According to DARTZ’s production records, three golden Prombron’ Aladeen Edition cars arrived on 10 August 2011 at the “Presidential Palace of Wadiya”, which in the real world is Plaza de España in Seville. They became the dictator’s golden motorcade.

The gold Prombron’ became so much the look of the film that DARTZ marked its tenth anniversary with the Aladeen Edition MMXXII, a run of ten cars in gold.

A Good Day to Die Hard (2013)

For the fifth Die Hard, DARTZ helped develop the MRAP stunt truck that Bruce Willis drives, and two Prombron’ cars appear in the chase scenes. The collaboration went on afterwards. A private client ordered the MRAP-themed Mercedes G63 AMG 6x6 after the premiere, and Digital Trends covered it.

The November Man (2014)

Director Roger Donaldson asked for a true Russian-villain car for a spy film starring Pierce Brosnan and Olga Kurylenko. It had to be armoured enough to make its own way through traffic, and fast and agile for the tight corners of a Bond-style chase. DARTZ ran on-set driving training and brought a stunt actor from its own team.

The Interview, House of Cards, Chernobyl

In The Interview (2014), a DARTZ is a gift from Stalin to the dictator, in a joke about how the model’s name is pronounced. In Netflix’s House of Cards, a gold-encased bottle of vodka that mirrors the Russo-Baltique brand has a part of its own. And Chernobyl: Zone of Exclusion, the series of 2014 to 2017, was the first production to film partly in Pripyat, with a DARTZ among its cast of vehicles.

From cinema to games, and back to steel

Six officially licensed DARTZ Prombron’ vehicles appear in Racing Xtreme: Fast Rally Driver 3D on Nintendo Switch. The HVY Nightshark of GTA Online borrows DARTZ faces, and in 2026 that story came full circle when a client commissioned the real thing.

Your production needs a DARTZ

The Movie Vehicle Department builds screen cars, supplies support teams and stays on set. Briefs go to the Department directly.