Executive Priviledge: Cars for the President

[Bruce Nunnally]

Interesting article that spans from the first cars bought for President William H. Taft's use to modern armored vehicles:

Back then, presidents could even buy their official cars after leaving office. Woodrow Wilson paid $3,000 for his presidential 1919 Pierce-Arrow when he returned to private life in 1921, and Herbert Hoover bought the 1930 Cadillac V-16 he had used in office. Those days are over, of course, and presidents no longer receive off-the-shelf cars.

That innocent time ended in February 1933, after Giuseppe Zangara’s assassination attempt on Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was in an open Buick in Miami. (The attack killed Mayor Anton Cermak of Chicago.)

In response, the Secret Service put an armored automobile at the president’s disposal — a Cadillac that the Treasury Department had seized from Al Capone.

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