Tested: President Ronald Reagan’s Cadillac Limousine Goes Big

From Car and Driver

From the December 1987 issue of Car and Driver.

"Hon', ever since that Cessna cut us off at the ranch, you know I don't like riding in the chopper—and, well, you know how crowded these airways are and how those controllers can be so...uncontrollable. Let's just go in the new limo."

"That's what I just suggested, dear..."
"Oh. Well, uh...I, uh...You did?"

So for the prez and the first missuz, it's off to Camp David for a respite from politics and peccadilloes. Cruising in the most famous limo in the land should be a great way to wind down. We at C/D, however, feel compelled to investigate, probe, document, and lay buck-naked-to-the-bone the latest generation of the Presidential Limousine, as promoted by Cadillac.

Based on the virulently opulent Brougham d'Elegance, Cadillac's limousine de presidente detours through the O'Gara Hess & Eisenhardt Armoring Company for a heavy haute couture treatment of its coachwork on its way to the White House motor pool. Jack Kennedy's bachelor party was about the last time anybody revealed a body and a frame that weren't unitized, but the big Brougham survives in this era of unibody building as an example of old-school car construction. Messrs. O'Gara, Hess, and Eisenhardt cut clean through the Caddy's torso, exposing the frame rails underneath. Since the body shares none of the primary load-bearing duties, the welding of 46.3-inch boxed-steel inserts into the frame is a relatively simple job, complicated only by the need for a few braces at critical points. The workers who knock together the floor, the walls, the doors, and the roof are left to butt up everything as necessary. By the time they finish, they've jacked up the roof three inches, providing added headroom atop the limo's head-turning 267.3-inch overall length. And they've created a car that has not only A-, B-, and C-pillars, but D- and E-pillars as well.

If six pillars are good, ten must be better, especially for framing optional armoring and bulletproof glass and for propping up a roof whose surface area can be accurately measured only by satellite photo or registered surveyor. The roof is padded in vinyl, and probably priced by the acre. A check of the limo de prez's weight demands more than the scales down at your neighborhood Weight Watchers chapter. We're talking an undiplomatic 5963 pounds. And the limo in which we've been at large doesn't even have the no-no­Khomeini, keep-back-Kaddafi, anti-­Hormuzian-mine armor option. Adding such amenities must shift the weight into the earthmover class.

Making the earth move is something that the 5.0-liter Oldsmobile V-8 under the hood simply can't do, no matter how hard it's throttled. With three tons of road-mugging weight virtually denying the presence of an engine, the small V-8's 140 humble horses can't begin to cut the mustard; in fact, they can't even unscrew the lid. With our foot stuck to the floor in self-defense—other drivers apparently want to see fenders crowded with flags and Secret Servicemen before they will render respect—the best we could average was 11 mpg. A four-speed automatic transmission and a lockup torque converter are caught between the monster's mass and its munchkin motor.

At the test track, the Presidential Limo moves like a true ship of state. It produces a zero-to-60 time of 23.5 seconds—which happens to match its quarter-mile result, plus a headlong top speed of 93 mph. It teeters around the skidpad at 0.60 g, only slightly stickier than a unicycle on an oil slick. Stops from 70 mph take a sobering 254 feet, and brake fade falls into the same class as the curb weight: heavy. The worri­some message that seeps up through your foot every time you toe the brakes is that you should distance yourself from the vehicle ahead by triple the normal car­length-per-10-mph gap, which works out in this case to about the length of the main runway at Andrews AFB.

The limo's builders have at least done a few things to upgrade the Brougham's chassis. On our test car, the most obvious additions are 6.5-by-16-inch wheels and 225/75R-16 Firestones. An electronic level control keeps our presidential yacht on a relatively even fore-and-aft keel but doesn't cope with its dramatic list angles in the unfriendly seas of hard cornering. The shocks and the coil springs have been upgraded to carry their weighty load in comfort, and a 24mm rear anti-roll bar joins the standard 30mm front bar.