The presidential convertible remains pristine. Used for the White House motor pool, the black Lincoln Continental Mark V Executive Limousine is a massive armored thing and, while largely restored, retains its original interior. The last phone call made by the President was from a pair of cream-colored rotary telephones placed in the Presidential Suite of the Hotel Texas, which had been temporarily decorated with paintings by Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet, and others.
The story, told by author William Manchester in Death of a President: November , , pages , offers a touching glimpse of the first couple:. The car retains its original red leather interior. The first was Mrs. Lee Johnson III. Photo by Picasa, courtesy of Bonhams. Plus, get digital edition access and a free tote bag. Travel Destinations Hotels Resorts Spas. RR One. The midday sun illuminated the limousine - a calculated effect, thanks to the silver metal flakes mixed into the car's Presidential Blue Metallic paint, designed to gleam under bright lights.
That shade was specified instead of traditional black because it looked crisper and more defined in black-and-white photographs and on television. When three shots rang out at Dealey Plaza, Kennedy and all of the passengers in the limousine were completely exposed. The decision had been made that morning to not put on the car's plastic bubble top. What the public did not know was that the top was neither bulletproof nor even bullet-resistant.
A Secret Service agent on detail that day reportedly described the top as bulletproof in a Nov. Gary Mack, curator of Dallas' Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, says, "I can only guess that Secret Service personnel may not have wanted another agency to know about the characteristics of the top.
I cannot imagine he didn't know it was not bulletproof. There was no protective armor cladding anywhere on the vehicle. Mack says that for all of the car's upgraded features, it served mostly as an "expensive, fancy limousine. John F. Jacqueline Kennedy leans over the president as Secret Service agent Clinton Hill rides on the back of the car. James W. Kennedy's Lincoln, sensationally dubbed the "Death Car" in a Associated Press story, was hastily rebuilt after the assassination.
Project name? The Quick Fix. The logic was straightforward, according to Henry Ford curator Anderson. They simply didn't have the time to build a new car.
The president [Lyndon B. Johnson] needed a limousine; this was the simplest, most effective way to do it. Of course, the rushed makeover would fuel later conspiracy chatter.
According to Mack: "The crime scene was the car — and the car left. Discarded pieces of the original car were destroyed to prevent them from falling into the hands of ghoulish collectors. The most important change: The car's body was armored with titanium, where there had been no armoring before, and the new roof was nonremovable. All of the windows were now bullet-resistant and composed of five layers of plate glass with polycarbonate vinyl sandwiched between each one.
Even the wheels were lined with aluminum rims, an early version of today's run-flat tires. Hess detailed the revamp in glowing terms. The high-tech - for the time - features included two radio phones, a dial telephone, an AM-FM radio, a public-address system, an electronic siren and remote-control door locks.
The car gained 17 percent more power with a new hand-built, high-compression V-8 engine. And with all of the added weight - the car now tipped the scale at 9, pounds, up from 7, - the team installed "the largest passenger-car air-conditioning unit ever built," the memo said. The ventilation system filled the trunk and was capable of producing three cubic tons of conditioned air, which was "sufficient for an average house.
It is a picture of one of the darkest moments in American history. Kennedy lies fatally wounded. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy is attempting to clamber from the vehicle. Moments before, as Kennedy was waving at crowds in Dallas, Texas, the fatal shots were fired from a nearby multi-storey book depository. The assassination on November 22, , shocked the world — and also led to a total rethink of how the presidential cars are designed.
The open-roofed Lincoln Continental left the president uniquely exposed, and future models enclosed the president in ever-thicker layers of armor and protection. Below, Business Insider looks over the evolution of the presidential limo in the last four decades.
The vehicle that President Kennedy was riding in on the day of his assassination was a Lincoln Continental. Its low-slung elegance was perfectly suited to the forward-looking image Kennedy sought to project.
After leasing the vehicle from Ford, the Secret Service made some adjustments, including a special phone system and a mechanism to elevate Kennedy's seat to give crowds a better view.
But the car had no armor or other protective features. Even had its bubble roof been in place that day in Dallas it would have provided no shield against the assassin's bullets. After Kennedy's assassination, the Lincoln Continental Presidential Limousine model in which he travelled was given a substantial redesign. According to the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation , the vehicle was given a permanent roof, titanium armor plating, an explosion-proof fuel tank, and run-flat tyres.
At the request of Kennedy's White House successor, Lyndon Baines Johnson, the color of the car was changed from midnight blue to a more sombre black. The next major redesign took place during the presidency of Richard Nixon, with the new model of Lincoln Continental unveiled in Though it wasn't a convertible, the vehicle had opening roof panels if the president wanted to stand and wave to crowds from the vehicle while electioneering or on official visits.
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