Pat Nixon's White House Limo

[David Smith]

I was searching the web trying to find a picture of Carters 1979 Limo, haven't found 1 yet but I did find a web site of Presidential limo's.

http://my.net-link.net/~dcline/limopres.htm

President Carter came to my town for a town hall meeting back in March 77, my mother was 1 of the raffle winners to attend the town hall meeting, Carter stayed at a house a few blocks from me because the owner had connections, in the morning he was about a block from my bus stop, my friend ran up and shook his hand, by the time I found out about it I didn't have a chance to or I would missed the bus, my friend told me about it when he came back, he ran to catch the bus himself, their was news vans and crowds all around.

Here is a picture of the Carter Limo in the book: Presidential Cars and Transportation. ( ISBN# 0-87341-341-5 )



It is actually a 1978 Cadillac Fleetwood Formal Limousine.   It looks totally stock except you can clearly see the side windows have extra thick frames which is a give away that they are bullet-proof.   That plus the Presidential seal on the rear doors and the fender mounted flags.    I really don't consider this a true "Presidential Limo" as it was just a temporary stand in for the 72 Lincoln.   I was thinking that the Lincoln might have been out getting its remodel, but that didn't happen for a few more years. 

[David Smith]

it is believed a new 2009 Cadillac which has been described as more truck than car.

Well, at least they didn't make it look like the Escalade!

It is bad enough our ambulances are now based on trucks, I don't want to see all our Limos go that way too!

They did a good job of hiding the fact the last few Limos were trucks with passenger car sheet metal hung on them.

[Barry]

I think I told the story already about my getting a personal tour of JFK's '61 x100 when I was in the second grade in 1962. If not, It is a fun story and I will be happy to repost it !

[Johnny]

It is bad enough our ambulances are now based on trucks, I don't want to see all our Limos go that way too!

Bad?  I think not.  Sure I can be just as nostalgic as the next person for seeing Cadillac ambulances, but the fact of the matter, with all the new modern medical equipment available, a converted van, is the way to go.  The job of ambulances of the past was to get the victim to the hospital as fast as possible, today the job is to get them there alive.

[veesixteen]

In 2004 that car was in the collection of French enthusiast, Olivier Delafon, at the Chateau de Monjalin, near Avallon, in Burgundy, some 155 mi. SE of Paris.   Olivier collects cars having belonged to or been used by heads of state. I met Olivier in 1992 at the inauguration of the Robert Keyaerts Cadillac Museum in Langeais, Touraine, France;  he flew in with his own helicopter !

[veesixteen]

I have a [poor] color shot of Ike in a '55 Eldorado: www.car-nection.com/yann/Dbas_ima/str55ike.jpg

[Otto Skorzeny]

That's funny! Where is he? The store in the background is called the Margaret Truman Laundrette!

[Charles D. Barnette]

First of all Barry please repost your X100 story. This is probably the most famous car in all the world. The proper way to display the American Flag on a Presidential Limo is on the right hand front fender(right hand side is the right side as you face the steering wheel-the passenger side). At the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, you will find the 1939 Lincoln "Sunshine Special", the 1950 Lincoln "Bubble Top", the 1961/64 Kennedy Lincoln Limo., and the 1972 Ford/Reagan Lincoln Limo. on permanent display. A walk up and down the aisles of these cars is a pure instant history lesson of our great country unequaled. Cadillac lovers let me remind you that Henry Leland founded Cadillac as well as Lincoln named after the first President Leland was old enough to vote for-Abraham Lincoln! Charles D. Barnette

[Barry]

My love of Lincolns and Continentals goes back as far as I can remember. I was a real disappointment to my dad because he was strictly a Cadillac Man as shown by the pics of his 53,55,and 57 converts when they were new. It was 1962, and I was in the 2nd grade. Dad was good friends with the owner of the Lincoln dealer , who also knew of my fondness for their cars. In '62, JFK came to Raleigh, NC (about 25 miles from where I live) to make a speech. The X100 was unloaded at RDU Airport and had developed a dead short in the starting circuitry . Raleigh, at the time had no Lincoln dealer. The X100 was trucked to Weeks motors in Durham for repairs. Mr Weeks called my dad and told him about the car being there, and advised him to get me out of school to come and see it. So he did. When we pulled up to the service bays, there it was ! It seemed like 20 feet was sticking out of the bay! I was speechless. I was really suprised to see that it was dark blue , and not black ! A very kind Secret Service agent took charge of me , showing me all the features of the cat--the raising back seat, the radio equipment ,the extra batteries in the trunk, how the tops could be removed in sections (it had all the black formal tops on it ). I got to sit in the back seat ,being very impressed with the rear controls. A/C, jumpseats, and lighting. What really impressed me were the 2 wool lap robes with the Presidential Seal embroidered on them ! No pictures were allowed to be taken of the car (guess the agent could have gotten in trouble for allowing a 2nd grader rifle through the President's Car ) I can remember the car smelled more like the inside of an airplane, than the new 61-62 Continentals I had admired ! The electrical problem was repaired and the car was hastily driven back to the airport to pick up Jfk and I think, Governor Terry Sanford. This is a memory that will stay with me forever( I'm 53 now ). I finally won my dad over to a Continental Convertible in '67--biggest lemon we ever owned ! I still have a couple of Continentals along with my '76 Bicentennial ! Hope this wasn't too long or boring ! Barry

[Otto Skorzeny]

Man, that is cool as $h!t! I've never been wowed by the presence of celebrities or movie stars or anything like that but cars are a whole different story! That's an awsome story. You are probably the last civilian to have an experience like that. After the assassination, nobody can get anywhere near anything remotely connected to the president.

I saw a show on PBS once about the White House. They relayed a story about a motorist in the 1950s who pulled up to the White House portico off PA Ave. in a convertible. It had started to rain and he just wanted to put his top up under the overhang in front of the building. He did so as the Marine guards watched and then drove away.

The times they have a changed!

[harry s]

Barry, That is really a neat story. It reminds me of when I was in the 7th grade in 1956, my friend's father was an active duty Army sgt and assigned as  Mamie Eisenhower's driver. One day he took several of us neighborhood kids to the White House Garage for a tour. The first car we saw was Mamie Eisenhower's limo, a '55 Imperial with the gunsight taillights. There were several Cadillac limos ('55 or '56 I think) which had running boards and platforms on the rear. They were outfitted with brackets that held machine guns. The cars that impressed me most were the two '38 90 series conv sedans, which at that time had been outfitted with OHV engines.  At least one, maybe both of the original V-16 engines was sitting in the corner of the garage. The "rest of the story" as pertains those '38s is well documented.

[Barry]

A few years later, LBJ came to RDU airport and the 56 Queen Mary or Elizabeth was in a hanger while the secret service were lowering the top. Seemed to be quite an ordeal for them ! Got to line up at the fence and shake his hand--what a huge man he was !

[Charles D. Barnette]

Barry your X100 story is riveting to me and brought tears to my eyes. You at a very tender age were able to view and sit in an arena in which one of the defining moments of  world history would take place the very next year after your brush with the X100! Following the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 (they can argue about where the bullets came from but there is no doubt that the President was in the X100 when they struck), the 1961 Presidential Limo. was sent back to Hess & Eisenhardt in Ohio to be installed with armor and a permanent hardtop leaving a vacancy at the White House for Presidential automotive travel. Meanwhile President Johnson (LBJ) scheduled a campaign trip in 1964 to Texarkana, Texas/Arkansas (my hometown), to also dedicate a monument to President Kennedy on the steps of our Post Office building where Kennedy had spoken in 1960 while campaigning for President. I was 15 years old and a high school band student at Texas High School of Texarkana, Texas. Our band was selected to play at the local airport to welcome President Johnson on his arrival. Being in the band with our band seated next to the airport runway fence, I had a bird's eye view of everything. We had been instructed to play for LBJ the tune "Hello, Dolly" which LBJ had changed the words to "Hello, Lyndon" for his official campaign song for the 1964 Presidential election. I could see the large cargo airplane land opening its large back ramp type door. To my amazement two large beautiful Cadillacs backed out of that plane. At that age I had already been smitten by the Cadillac "bug", since my parents owned a beautiful maroon 1955 Cadillac Series 62 Sedan which I still have. The first Cadillac backed out was a 1961 Cadillac Limousine. I later learned that this car was the bullet proof limo. of none other that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover lent to LBJ while the Kennedy Lincoln was being worked on in Ohio. The second car was (what I identified with the most) one of the two 1956 Cadillac convertibles used by the Secret Service. The two 56 convertibles were known respectively by the Secret Service as the "Queen Mary II" and the "Queen Elizabeth II" (the names of "Queen Mary I " and "Queen Elizabeth I "had been assigned to the predecessors of the 56 vehicles-a pair of 1938 Cadillac convertibles). It was the "Queen Mary II" that was following behind the Kennedy Lincoln in Dallas during the assassination. President Johnson came to the fence where our band was playing and nodded his head in line with the rhythm of "Hello, Lyndon".  My love for Presidential vehicles was thereafter forever cast in concrete! Charles D. Barnette

[Barry]

I really appreciate your kind comments regarding the X100 encounter. I feel certain that 1 of the '56 4 door convertibles was at the airport, though I did not see one until '64 when I was able to shake hands with LBJ .

[Charles D. Barnette]

Fast forward my life to April 6, 2004. This story is not about Eldorado the car but rather Eldorado the city-Eldorado, Arkansas, that is. I as an attorney was scheduled to be in Eldorado, Arkansas, on that date for a Social Security disability case to represent my client. Also as luck would have it, President Bush was scheduled to be in that same city at the same time. I desparately wanted a picture-my own picture- of the 2001 Cadillac DeVille Presidential Limousine. Eldorado is 80 miles from Texarkana on Highway 82 East. I put my camera on the backseat of my car headed for Eldorado. Just as I got close to the city limits of Eldorado what should pass me headed in the opposite direction but the Presidential Limousine headed to the Eldorado local airport to pick up President Bush. I believe the car had been unloaded at Barksdale Air Force base in Shreveport, Louisiana, and driven to Eldorado. At any rate I could not get to my camera in time and had to keep going to where my case would be tried. I kept thinking I will get through in time to see the President and get a picture of the car. It turned out that the place where the President would be speaking was very close to the place where I needed to be. In fact I could look out the window of the building I was in and see a sharpshooter (I assumed Secret Service) in place on top of a nearby building. Alas the attorney before me was long winded and before I could conclude my case the President had finished and was gone. My heart sank and there was nothing to do but go eat lunch and head back to Texarkana. I ate slowly and got in my car to go back to Texarkana. I stopped at the first stop sign to wait for traffic to clear. All of a sudden there was the President's car again without the President passing directly in front of my hood ornament. I reached for my camera-too late it was still in the backseat and the Presidential car was gone in a flash. It was like the Lord asking me-"How many times do I have to bring that car by you to get the picture?"  Charles D. Barnette

[veesixteen]

Here's a '42 Cadillac ambulance by S&S that survived, in the Netherlands, after WW2; it features the typical hood markings of that coach builder.
www.car-nection.com/yann/Dbas_prf/42ambACCFnl2.jpg

[Otto Skorzeny]

Why did Hess and Eisenhardt put those ugly things on all their cars? They really detract from the rest of the car. I once saw a pink '56 Coupe de Ville that someone had installed those things on. Made me wanna barf!

[Carla Tynes]

From the walls of Daniel Jobe's office at Capitol Cadillac in Greenbelt, Maryland, comes this copy of a color photo of Eisenhower at his 1953 inauguration while riding in the #2 1953 Eldorado convertible.  Note one of the 1938 Cadillac convertible Secret Service cars behind Ike's car.

[Charles D. Barnette]

Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas Governor, 2008 Presidential campaigner, and now political news host on the Fox TV network, was my pastor of Beech Street First Baptist Church of Texarkana, Arkansas, from 1986 to 1992. In the summer of 2002, President George W. Bush visited then Gov. Huckabee at the airport in Little Rock, Arkansas. Gov. Huckabee knowing of my love of Presidential vehicles sent me an original picture of him greeting President Bush while the President is seated in the 2001 Presidential Cadillac DeVille Limo. The President is not visible, but Gov. Huckabee is standing outside the vehicle with his hand outstretched toward the President. Along with the vehicle, note Air Force One in the background. I gladly share this photo with CLC! My legal assistant Carla Tynes will do the honor of posting this picture shortly. Charles D. Barnette

[Carla Tynes]

President Lyndon Baines Johnson at the Texarkana Airport in late 1964.  Photo is from the 1965 Tiger, the annual year book of Texas Senior High School of Texarkana, Texas, vol. 47.