Welp, here we are again. Every four years the anxiety, horror and glory of our electoral system plays out, and every year I think the same thing: I wonder what kind of car the new (or old) president will use? There are so many different vehicles that have transported the Commander-In-Chief around this great nation of ours, but the first one that springs to my mind in the 1961 Lincoln Continental Presidential Limo.
This car has always loomed large in my childhood as it is one of the first exhibits you see when you enter the Henry Ford Museum. While there are several presidential vehicles lined up in the very front, this vehicle has a special pull, as it may be the most consequential car in the whole collection. This Lincoln was carrying President John F Kennedy the day he was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.
This car is amazing to me for many reasons. First off, it was a low slung convertible with suicide doors which, hell yeah, are always cool. I’ve always loved late ’50s, early ’60s American land yachts, and Kennedy’s limo was a yacht for the ages. Normally, such a car would cost a civilian the princely sum of $7,347, but the Ford Motor Company leased the Lincoln to the White House for the nominal fee of $500 a month before sending it off for $200,000 in retrofits to make it ready for President Kennedy.
But it’s not just the classic car bona fides that I love about this Lincoln. I’ve always been a morbid little shit and this car was the scene of one of the most famous murders in American history; a world-changing assassination that would have lasting repercussions for generations. And then, while on what must have been my 1,000,000th visit to the Henry Ford Museum, a docent told me the limo was haunted, and that sealed the deal for me.
Such limos take years to build from scratch — years that Kennedy’s successor, Vice President Lyndon Johnson, didn’t have. The Lincoln was cleaned up and retrofitted with more bullet-proofing, a solid roof, black paint (the navy blue reminded Americans too much of their fallen president) and “the largest in-vehicle air conditioner ever built,” according to the Dallas Morning News, all to the tune of $500,000. Johnson continued to ride around in the limo and it stayed in service through President Richard Nixon’s administration and into Jimmy Carter’s first year as prez. All told, the limo stayed in the presidential fleet for 13 years following Kennedy’s assassination.
Just the fact that it carried four presidents during one of the most important and tumultuous times in our nation’s history is reason enough to give it the crown of most presidential vehicle, but it’s certainly not alone. There’s the Cadillac DTS Presidential State Car used by Bush and Obama, or the current Beast enjoyed by Trump and Biden. You could even go the other way, with vehicles simply owned by presidents. Lyndon Johnson liked to scare folks using his Amphicar Model 770, and who could forget Biden’s classic 1967 Corvette Stingray?
Should the future president pick an entirely new kind of car? Should they keep on with the Caddys that have been used in the last few decades? Let us know in the comments below.
