While we wait, with bated breath and badly-combed-over ginger hair, to see the results of the upcoming US presidential election, it's worth remembering the iconic structure that protects the president's life and which is part bomb shelter, part hospital and all badass.
No, not the White House, but the official presidential limousine; the vast, armour-plated Cadillac that is officially known as the Presidential State Car, but insiders know best as "The Beast. In fact, calling it a Cadillac is something of a misnomer. It's actually built on the chassis of a Chevrolet Kodiak, which is what the Americans call a 'medium duty vehicle' - or what you or I would call a 'pretty hefty lorry'. On top of that chassis is basically a giant, heavily armoured survival cell that is designed to protect the president's life in the event of an attack, as much as it is to whisk him in traditional Cadillac comfort from engagement to engagement.
Mind you, if you think The Beast is impressive, you should check out the Chevrolet Suburban escort car that follows along behind it. Nothing much to be impressed by if it were a regular Suburban, but this one has a six-barrel 20mm rotary Gatling gun that pops up from the rear roof section, which can instantly convert most exterior threats to little more than vapour Of course, we all laughed, and pretty heartily too, a few years ago when The Beast became beached on a particularly unhelpful speed ramp in the grounds of the US embassy in Dublin during President Obama's state visit, but while the US Presidential limo has, of course, a long and distinguished history, it's surprising how equally chequered that history is.
President William McKinley was the first US president to so much as ride in a car, but he was assassinated in Perhaps future presidents should have taken note of this unfortunate confluence of presidential motoring and presidential death.
There is also of course the conspiracy theorists' favourite footnote that while Kennedy was assassinated in a Lincoln Continental, a car made by the Ford Motor Company, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in Ford's Theatre We'll come back to Kennedy in a moment, but seeing as Honest Abe died 20 years before Karl Benz invented the car, we should probably just leave that particular slice of history well enough alone for now. It was Theodore Roosevelt's administration that began the tradition of using an official state car a Stanley Steamer, bringing alternative fuels to the White House about a century ahead of anyone else and it was Roosevelt's successor, William Howard Taft, who converted the White House stables into a garage, and ordered a brace of gorgeous Pierce-Arrows to be used for state occasions.
