Spain’s EM&E Group, which until now has largely focused on manufacturing weapon systems, presented a ‘new’ armoured vehicle on its stand at FEINDEF 2025, held in Madrid from 12-14 May, in the form of a 6×6 platform it is calling the Ferox.
The vehicle is in fact the 6×6 variant of the Jais mine-resistant, ambush-protected armoured personnel carrier developed by Emirati Edge Group entity NIMR Automotive, which at the IDEX exhibition in Abu Dhabi in March 2025 signed a technology transfer agreement with EM&E under which the latter has the design authority to produce the vehicle in Spain.
EM&E, however, is adding its own weapon systems onto the vehicle in the form of the Guardian Secutor remote weapon station, which can be armed with machine guns ranging in calibre from 5.56 mm to 12.7 mm or with a Bushmaster M230LF 30 mm chain gun, or the Guardian 2.0 Pro remotely controlled turret, which is also armed with an 30 mm M230LF but additionally features a four-tube anti-tank missile launcher.
EM&E, in fact, conducted dynamics trials with both weapon systems mounted on a Ferox just one week prior to FEINDEF 2025 and brought a Ferox sporting a Guardian 2.0 Pro turret to the show itself.
EM&E is looking to interest the Spanish Ministry of Defence (MoD) in acquiring a family of vehicles based around the Ferox, at a time when Spain’s Dragón 8×8 armoured vehicle programme, based on the GDELS-Mowag Piranha V platform, is running into trouble. Although production of VCR (Vehículo de Combate sobre Ruedas) Dragón variants began in 2021, only a small number of Dragóns have been delivered and the Tess Defence consortium responsible for building them continues to come up short. However, the Spanish MoD has a parallel requirement for a 6×6 infantry fighting vehicle platform armed with a turreted 30 mm weapon.
If the Spanish MoD were to procure the Ferox for the 6×6 requirement, this would put EM&E into the AFV platform-building business for the first time. The company proposes to produce the Ferox at a new factory facility in Linares, southern Spain, and, while the technology transfer agreement with NIMR is currently focused on the Spanish market, it could ultimately go further than that. A senior EM&E executive who spoke to ESD at FEINDEF 2025 said that NIMR’s leadership “have shown they are open” to the Spanish company building the Ferox for other countries and “are thinking we will be the European leg of their company”.
