Who Was First President In A Car?

Twenty years ago, presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama was tooling around Chicago in a beat-up Honda Civic working as a community organizer.

If Obama is able to make the leap into the White House, the upgrade in style will land him in the backseat of what the Secret Service informally calls "Cadillac One," the presidential limo. Perhaps nothing can more symbolize Obama's possible rise to power and prestige.

Through government bids, Cadillac has landed the rights to build and service the fleet of presidential limos since 1993, and since the 1930s most presidential limos have either been Cadillacs or a Lincolns.

The current model of Cadillac One, based on the 2006 Cadillac DTS, debuted on Jan. 20, 2005, during President George W. Bush's second inaugural parade. Cadillac also used the event to premier the new DTS model to the world.

Most of the details about the limo, including its weight and other features, are classified. Many past presidential limos are in museums, but since Bush's first term, the Secret Service has destroyed the presidential limos after taking them out of service for security purposes.

According to Motor Trend and Popular Mechanics magazines, the current Cadillac One features six-passenger seating with a foldaway desktop, adjustable reclining and an adaptive seat system that senses the position of the occupant and automatically adjusts for added comfort. There is also a 10-disc CD changer and state-of-the-art communications system.

The entire outside is covered in military-grade armor at least five inches thick. The interior is also environmentally sealed to protect the occupants from a chemical attack. Motor Trend guessed that its axels and frame were based on an Escalade's.

When Obama or Sen. John McCain has the keys to Cadillac One -- and the country -- tossed to him on Jan. 20, 2009, he will be continue a long tradition of presidents riding in supreme style.

First President In A Car

Theodore Roosevelt had an aversion to technology and preferred to get around in a horse-drawn carriage for state purposes. But he did take the occasional ride and was the first president to take a public auto ride and the first to ride in an official U.S. government auto.

In 1912, after having previously served as president from 1901 to 1909, Roosevelt was running for another term on the Progressive Party ticket, commonly known as the Bull Moose party.

In Milwaukee, while waving to a crowd and standing in his touring car, he was shot by John Shrank, a saloonkeeper. Although bleeding from the chest, Roosevelt delivered a 90-minute scheduled speech, opening with the line, "Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a bull moose."

William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson also rode in their inaugural parades in horse-drawn carriages, but became auto lovers while in office. Taft cleared out the federal stables to make room for a garage and was the first president to ride in an official White House car. In fact, Taft had four official White House autos bought with funds approved by Congress -- a White Steamer, a Baker Electric and two Pierce-Arrows.

Wilson's successor, Warren G. Harding, became the first president to ride in an automobile during the inaugural parade when a Packard Twin-Six delivered him down Pennsylvania Avenue in 1921. Harding was also the first president who knew how to drive.

Like his distant cousin, Teddy, Franklin Delano Roosevelt also suffered an assassination attempt while in his automobile.

Crippled by polio, FDR delivered many of his speeches and met voters while standing in his touring car. In Miami in 1933, about a month before taking office, the president-elect was standing in his touring car just after delivering a speech. FDR was not hit with one of the six bullets fired by Giuseppe Zangara, but Chicago Mayor Anton J. Cermak was and later died from the injury.

30 years later, John F. Kennedy rode through downtown Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, in a 1961 Lincoln Continental convertible limo. In that time, it was common for presidents to ride in parades in open-top cars so the public could get a closer look at them. He would be the last president to do so.

Kennedy was assassinated in Dealey Plaza when he was shot with at least two bullets. The circumstances surrounding his death remain controversial.

Apparently presidents are not superstitious, because the limo Kennedy was assassinated in remained in use by Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter after it was re-equipped with armored plating, bulletproof glass and a permanent roof. It is currently is on display at the Henry Ford Museum.

Gerald Ford was the victim of an assassination attempt by Sara Jane Moore on Sept. 22, 1975, in San Francisco as he was getting into his Lincoln Continental limousine. The single shot missed Ford.

Five-and-a-half years later, Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinkley on March 30, 1981, as he was leaving the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C. and just about to get into the exact same Lincoln Continental limousine that Ford was near when he was shot at.

Reagan and three others were struck with bullets, including Press Secretary James Brady, who was hit in the head and permanently disabled. The president's limo, which had been in use since 1974, was equipped with bulletproof glass. The sixth and last bullet Hinkley fired ricocheted off the glass and struck Reagan in the ribs, lodging in his lung just a few inches from his heart.

Bill Clinton spent most of his presidency riding around in a Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham limo. Five days before George W. Bush's first inauguration, Clinton got to break in a new 2001 Cadillac Deville limo, which Bush used through his first term.

Since Bush received a new limo at the beginning of both of his terms, it seems probable that Obama or McCain will as well. So at least there are a few nice perks to inheriting a job saddled with an unpopular war and the worst economic crisis in 70 years.