War machine becomes plaything

The BBC has an article by David K. Gibson about a serious vehicle:

You can now buy a high-performance personal tank. Not you, necessarily, unless you happen to have a spare quarter-million under the mattress, a whole lot of open space to traverse, and, possibly, a very indulgent spouse. But it is now possible to buy a high-performance personal tank.
Meet the Ripsaw EV2 (photo), the product of Howe and Howe Technologies, a family-owned business founded by twin brothers Geoff and Mike Howe. In 2000, stuck in boring jobs, the brothers decided that they should create the world’s fastest tracked vehicle. They became R&D contractors for the US military in 2001 and achieved their speed-record goal with a 65-mph light tank, called Ripsaw, for the Army. Soon the brothers were starring in two seasons of a Discovery Network television show called Howe & Howe Tech and requests were pouring in for a consumer version of the Ripsaw.
“At first we just said, ‘No, they are for the military,’ and laughed it off,” recalls Geoff Howe. “But two years ago, that changed to ‘why not?’” They leveraged their non-classified, non-restricted technology around a civilian-friendly cockpit and put one of the world’s most unusual vehicles up for sale.
“Two hundred ninety-five thousand dollars will get you in the basic package,” says Howe. “Each one is hand-built, and we have only one in production at a time. But we have orders coming in, and we’ll build ten this year.” The basic package is a four-ton, eighteen-foot long two-seater with a cabin suspended in an exoskeleton of aerospace aluminum and high-grade steel. A Duramax turbodiesel V8 from General Motors pumps out six hundred horsepower (tunable for significantly more, says Geoff), enabling a top speed of about sixty mph, which, says Howe, “feels like flying at about two hundred”.
The first completed EV2 (that's Extreme Vehicle 2) is ready to ship to an unidentified customer, and other prospective buyers are planning test-drive trips to Howe and Howe's headquarters in Maine. A movie-production studio has ordered a Ripsaw with an on-board camera system. Another client has asked for a keyless entry system and auto-open/close gullwing doors. Of course, a night-vision package is available (though only to customers in the US).
The Ripsaw EV2 is easy to drive, since it has a steering wheel rather than traditional tank stick controls, though navigating the 75-degree slopes it can handle takes a bit of confidence. The ride, says Howe, is “boatlike” and surprisingly gentle thanks to the vehicle's ride- and height-adjustable nitrogen-damper suspension. The interior is industrial, with a racecar instrument cluster, some specialized gauges, a bit of bed-liner polymer and a lot of powder-coated metal. This is a get-dirty vehicle, so the one true luxury detail is the leather upholstery on the eight-way power-adjustable bucket seats, though the brothers will add handsome burlwood dash trim for the client who requests it.
And who are those people placing orders? “It’s high-rollers, people who have ranches in the desert or the mountains, and want to have something no one else has,” says Howe. But if they have dreams of pulling up to the valet at the golf club in one of these, they’ll have to think again. “It is definitely not street legal,” Howe laughs, “and it won’t ever be.”

Rico says ah, some rubberized treads, and you could drive it in Texas...