“THE PRESIDENT’S LIMOUSINE” – By Des Kelly
This is, as the title says, an interesting story, not just for owners of expensive quality cars, but for everyone who has ever owned a motor vehicle with four wheels.
While this story is one about President Franklin D R’s Limo,
I feel certain that every owner of his or her new car, thought of it as a Limousine. Mine was slightly smaller than that of the Pres., it was a second-hand Austin A40, with 4 cylinders, believe it or not. I loved that car. It ran beautifully on the flat streets of Melbourne, but when I once packed my young family in the rear seat, even on 2nd gear, it couldn’t make it up a slight grade on Heatherton Road, and started rolling backwards. Being the superb driver that I was, I managed to control the car in reverse, brought it to a stop, well, it stopped anyway!!, at the bottom of the grade, and I saved my family. The one good thing to come out of that, was that none of my family ever wanted to have a ride in my Austin Limo, anymore. I was still very proud of that car, until a couple of years later, I tried to drive it to Melbourne, from Dandenong (roughly 26 kilometres), on 2 Cylinders, the other pair having given up the ghost en route, it conked out completely in Richmond, I think it was, and I left it in a garage over there, never to see it again.
I’ve had many other cars, since then, and far too many stories to narrate about all of them, so let us get back now to F.D,R’s Limo, which I am sure that all if my readers will be happy about.
Desmond Kelly.
(Editor-in- Chief) eLanka.
An interesting story
The story of FDR’S Limo!
Hours after Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941, the Secret Service found themselves in a bind.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt was to give his ‘Day of Infamy’ speech to Congress on Monday, and although the trip from the White House to Capitol Hill was short, agents weren’t sure how to transport him safely..
At the time, Federal Law prohibited buying any cars that cost more than $750, so they would have to get clearance from Congress to do that, and nobody had time for that.
One of the Secret Service members, however, discovered that the US Treasury had seized the bulletproof car that mobster Al Capone owned when he was sent to jail in 1931.
They cleaned it, made sure it was running perfectly and had it ready for the President the next day.
Al Capone’s 1928 Cadillac V-8 “Al Capone” Town Sedan Became the President’s Limo in December 1941.
Mechanics are said to have cleaned and checked each feature of the Caddy well into the night of December 7th to make sure that it would run properly the next day for the Commander in Chief.
And run properly it did. It had been painted black and green to look identical to Chicago’s police cars at the time.
To top it off, the gangster’s 1928 Cadillac Town Sedan had 3,000 pounds of armor and inch-thick bulletproof windows.
It also had a specially installed siren and flashing lights hidden behind the grille, along with a police scanner radio.
“Previous Owner.”
Footnote: The car sold at auction in 2012 for $341,000.
