Welp, right here we’re once more. Each 4 years the anxiousness, horror and glory of our electoral system performs out, and yearly I feel the identical factor: I ponder what sort of automobile the brand new (or previous) president will use? There are such a lot of totally different automobiles which have transported the Commander-In-Chief round this nice nation of ours, however the first one which springs to my thoughts within the 1961 Lincoln Continental Presidential Limo.
This automobile has at all times loomed massive in my childhood because it is without doubt one of the first displays you see if you enter the Henry Ford Museum. Whereas there are a number of presidential automobiles lined up within the very entrance, this car has a particular pull, as it might be essentially the most consequential automobile in the entire assortment. This Lincoln was carrying President John F Kennedy the day he was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.
This automobile is superb to me for a lot of causes. First off, it was a low slung convertible with suicide doorways which, hell yeah, are at all times cool. I’ve at all times cherished late ’50s, early ’60s American land yachts, and Kennedy’s limo was a yacht for the ages. Usually, such a automobile would value a civilian the princely sum of $7,347, however the Ford Motor Firm leased the Lincoln to the White Home for the nominal charge of $500 a month earlier than sending it off for $200,000 in retrofits to make it prepared for President Kennedy.
However it’s not simply the basic automobile bona fides that I like about this Lincoln. I’ve at all times been a morbid little shit and this automobile was the scene of probably the most well-known murders in American historical past; a world-changing assassination that may have lasting repercussions for generations. After which, whereas on what should have been my 1,000,000th go to to the Henry Ford Museum, a docent instructed me the limo was haunted, and that sealed the deal for me.
Such limos take years to construct from scratch — years that Kennedy’s successor, Vice President Lyndon Johnson, didn’t have. The Lincoln was cleaned up and retrofitted with extra bullet-proofing, a strong roof, black paint (the navy blue reminded People an excessive amount of of their fallen president) and “the most important in-vehicle air conditioner ever constructed,” based on the Dallas Morning Information, all to the tune of $500,000. Johnson continued to journey round within the limo and it stayed in service by means of President Richard Nixon’s administration and into Jimmy Carter’s first 12 months as prez. All instructed, the limo stayed within the presidential fleet for 13 years following Kennedy’s assassination.
Simply the truth that it carried 4 presidents throughout probably the most vital and tumultuous occasions in our nation’s historical past is motive sufficient to provide it the crown of most presidential car, nevertheless it’s definitely not alone. There’s the Cadillac DTS Presidential State Automobile utilized by Bush and Obama, or the present Beast loved by Trump and Biden. You would even go the opposite means, with automobiles merely owned by presidents. Lyndon Johnson preferred to scare of us utilizing his Amphicar Mannequin 770, and who might overlook Biden’s basic 1967 Corvette Stingray?
Ought to the longer term president decide a wholly new sort of automobile? Ought to they stick with the Caddys which have been utilized in the previous few many years? Tell us within the feedback under.
