The Beast and Before: A History of the US Presidential Limousine

The first presidential cars were ordinary cars. Over a century, the car that carries the President of the United States became something else: a vehicle built from the ground up to survive.

1909: the White House gets a garage

In 1909 William Howard Taft turned the White House stables into a garage and bought four cars: two Pierce-Arrows, a Baker electric and a White steam car. For three decades after that, presidents rode in stock cars, open or closed, with agents on the running boards.

1939: the Sunshine Special

The first car built to Secret Service standards was a 1939 Lincoln V12 convertible with a 160-inch wheelbase and room for ten, known as the Sunshine Special. It was not armored when it was delivered. After Pearl Harbor, in 1942, it was fitted with armor plate, one-inch bulletproof glass, flat-proof tubes, a radio, a siren and warning lights, and its weight rose to about 9,300 pounds.

1950 to 1961: the Lincoln years

In 1950 Lincoln built ten Cosmopolitans for the White House, one of them an armored convertible. In 1954 it gained a Plexiglas roof and became the famous Bubble-top. In 1961 Hess and Eisenhardt stretched a Lincoln Continental by three and a half feet for the next president. The car, code-named SS-100-X, had removable roofs and standing platforms for agents, built for a president who wanted to be seen.

After November 1963 the same car was rebuilt. It gained titanium armor, a fixed roof of thirteen pieces of bulletproof glass, protection for its fuel tank and a hand-built engine, and it stayed in occasional use until 1977. It is now at The Henry Ford museum. Open-top parades were over.

1983: Cadillac takes over

A 1983 Cadillac Fleetwood, delivered in January 1984, brought Cadillac into the role, with armor, glass more than two inches thick, oversized wheels, heavy-duty brakes and self-leveling suspension to carry the weight.

2001: The Beast

By 2001 there was no production Cadillac big enough to convert. General Motors designed one from the ground up to Secret Service specifications, with five-inch armored doors and glass so thick, it was said, that it blocked parts of the light spectrum. The press named it The Beast. A new car followed in January 2009, with five-inch glass, run-flat tires and a cabin sealed against chemical attack.

Today’s car

The current car entered service in September 2018. It is built on a heavy-truck platform, with walls about eight inches thick, windows about five inches thick and doors as heavy as those of a Boeing 757. Its armor combines aluminum, ceramic and steel. It runs on truck tires built to keep going when damaged, and it is sealed against chemical attack. General Motors builds it, the Secret Service maintains it, and its program is code-named Stagecoach. (Presidential state car on Wikipedia)

What the story shows

Each generation of the presidential car answered the threat of its day, and each one added weight. That is the same trade every armored car makes, and the reason builders start with the chassis, not the glass. Read how an armoured car is built, what an official state car is and whether armored cars are legal in the US.