HAVING the chance to get up close and personal with cutting edge defence technologies and fire guns is the dream of pretty much every adrenaline junkie, so when I was invited to Saab's first ever UK open day, I leapt at the chance.

I arrived at Heywood House, one of the Swedish giant's three UK bases, along with a gaggle of fellow journalists from across the UK on Wednesday to find 10 demonstration areas spread out across the site, each one featuring a different, exciting invention.

After lunch and a talk from Magnus Lewis-Olsson, the company’s President of the Europe, Middle East & Africa Market Area, we split up into groups and began our whirlwind tour.

With a name like ‘Ground Combat with Live Training’, this station was always going to be good, and so it proved as I fired various weapons at a vast screen replicating a real-life combat situation. Thanks to the use of advanced analytics, I was also told how bad I am at aiming a gun. Thanks, Saab.

Following that we had a go at using the intimidating RBS 70 NG, which, in layman’s terms, is a massive missile launcher. It can take down ‘pretty much anything that flies in the sky’ according to the instructor and was used as a precautionary measure at the Olympics in Rio.

Saab’s anti-terrorism ‘Bullet Katcher’ which, as the name suggests, catches bullets, was also brought to our attention. It is essentially a wall of ceramic balls installed in shops and other buildings to prevent bullets penetrating in the event of a terror attack, and could soon feature widely across the UK.

The 'Seawasp', we were told, takes care of underwater explosives. It’s currently being used by the FBI and looked a bit like WALL-E’s gangster cousin.

There was also time to hear about the ‘Remote Tower’ which is a surveillance system in use at one airport in Sweden. When I asked how many airports it will be used at in the future, the emphatic response was ‘how many airports are there in the world?’

Speaking after the event, Mr Lewis-Olsson said: “The purpose of this day was to show the bandwidth of our portfolio, and that we are a provider to the UK army.

“We are doing very well as a company right now and want to keep on selling more of our big products, as well as continue to support the UK.”

Long gone are the days when Saab was simply known as a Swedish car manufacturer with a somewhat dodgy reputation.