DEARBORN, MICH. — The largest collection of retired presidential limousines is ensconced here at the Henry Ford Museum in a frozen-moment procession that begins with Ronald Reagan's 1972 Lincoln Continental and ends with Theodore Roosevelt's 1902 horse-drawn brougham carriage. And already, a shameful secret is revealed: Teddy's two-seater was probably an import.
Barack Obama's new limo -- a massive, mobile redoubt, a cross between a Cadillac and a hardened missile silo, code-named "Stagecoach" -- will never join this parade.
Some time after Sept. 11, 2001, the Secret Service adopted a policy to destroy presidential limos after they are taken out of service in order to protect their secrets. It's become routine to replace the presidential limo every four years at the beginning of a new term.
The presidential limo is a vessel of secrets, but here's what's thought to be known: Obama's car is actually one of a fleet of identical and interchangeable vehicles built by General Motors. Judging by its approximate weight (14,000 to 16,000 pounds) and wheelbase, it rides on a modified medium-truck GM chassis.
It's heavily protected, encased in several inches of military-grade armor, probably composite and possibly what's called "reactive" armor, to repulse armor-piercing ordnance.
Like armored cars on the civilian market, it almost certainly has a thick woven under-floor blanket made of Kevlar and shock-absorbent materials to ward off grenades that could be rolled under the car. It has ballistic-resistant windows and tires, and a sealed air-circulation system to thwart gas attacks.
And we know that, in comparison with previous generations of presidential limos, "Stagecoach" is seriously ugly, a brute, charmless rectangle of steel and glass that less conveys the grandeur of the office than the withering paranoia of the age. If the sleek, knife-sided elegance of Richard Nixon's Lehmann-Peterson Lincoln Continental can be compared with the Greek-inspired columns of the Capitol, the new limo is a Bethesda parking garage.
For most of the 20th century, presidential automobiles had to reconcile competing imperatives, the first for safety and the second for symbolism. It's a testament to a free and stable democracy that its leader can move with relative ease and visibility among its people.
