Thanks for those links and interior picture, MikeJ. From the interior picture, the car is almost certainly armoured. The windowsill looks to be reinforced and there is a piece of grey velour that is probably overlapping armour for the door. I may be wrong about that, haven't seen too many interior pics of older Cadillacs.

Hey Mirage. The HK government ordered, I believe, 36 Phaetons to replace the aging BMW 7-series in the government fleet. These are the cars with the "AM" license plates. However, I have yet to see any pictures of the Phaetons. Recently, the commissioner of police retired and he left the ceremony in the old 7-series.

This a cool picture page for anyone interested: - ONLY REGISTERED AND ACTIVATED USERS CAN SEE ALL LINKS - CLICK HERE TO REGISTER The VIPPU guys often drive with their doors partially open.

The VIPPU car is still the 750il High Security. I wonder if they will replace it with an armoured Phaeton or the 760Li High Security. Most of the rich businesspeople have the 760Li HS.

France! One of the coolest presidential or royal vehicle in my opinion. The custom Peugeot 604 LWB Presidentielle. It's not as long as the 604 Heuliez limousine, but the presidential car is longer than the standard 604.

Lancia limousines fit for The Queen

How many Lancia Flaminia limousines were built for Her Majesty’s visit to Italy in 1961? Martin Buckley takes up the story

Forty-five years after they made their state debut, the Lancia Flaminia limousines that Pininfarina built for the Queen's 1961 visit to Italy live in quiet, pampered semi-retirement in the Roman parliament building, or Quirinale.


Stately elegance: Her Majesty’s Lancia limousine wafted her entourage through Rome with whispering efficiency

With barely 70,000 miles between them, their dark blue paintwork remains deep and rich, their chrome gleams brightly and everything still works - even minor fittings such as the microphones that allow communication with the chauffeur. Every so often they are taken out for exercise and even pressed into service as limousines of state on special occasions such as the election of a new president.

These Flaminias were born into a colourful era of truly memorable official cars. JFK's vast, ill-fated Lincoln X100 would, curiously, be used by subsequent presidents once extra bulletproofing had been added. When Charles de Gaulle commissioned his magnificent Chapron-bodied Citroën DS, his only stipulation was that it should be longer than Lyndon Johnson's Lincoln. Meanwhile the Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullman was infamous for being owned by an inglorious series of African dictators, as well as David Bowie's alleged Nazi salutes from the Landaulet version. The Russian Zil and China's Hongqi encapsulated the chill of the Cold War, while the Nissan Prince Royal was a reminder that the Japanese still had an imperial family; only six of these 4.0-litre V8-powered cars were built and, to this day, you still need special permission even to publish a picture.

The presidential Flaminias replaced stretched Aurelias (Ghia built a particularly awkward one in 1953) and Alfa Romeo 1900s, and outlived bulletproof Fiat 130s and Lancias Kappas. Even in the 1980s, when an armoured Maserati Quattroporte was donated, the Flaminias remained in the background; they were forced out of retirement when the Maserati failed to start for its maiden trip. Today, they are as well known in Italy as the royal Rolls-Royce Phantom VI is in Britain; indeed they are so warmly remembered that there is a society dedicated to their preservation.

As the flagship of Italy's most aristocratic marque, the Flaminia was the obvious choice as Italy's top car of state. The president was already chauffeured in a standard Flaminia saloon and other famous owners such as Juan Manuel Fangio, Audrey Hepburn and Brigitte Bardot added to its image as a glamorous, sophisticated car.

In March 1960, president Giovanni Gronchi awarded the task of building the state cars to Pininfarina, which had built a number of government limousines on the Astura chassis in the 1930s. The Flaminias were built to Gronchi's personal brief and completed in six months. General Motors helped with some of the electrical equipment, particularly the hood.

Pininfarina schemed a design based on the standard saloon, with its chassis stretched by 0.61 metres and widened to 3.35 metres and wearing a fuller body with an elegant hip that curved over the rear wheelarch. It would have been all too easy to produce something absurdly pompous and overblown, yet these limousines, officially known as Flaminia 335 Specials, were every bit as svelte and graceful as they were substantial and imposing. Each one could seat seven people and everything was trimmed in black Connolly leather. The two-way communication system was devised by Urmet (maker of Italian public telephones) and the cars were fitted with Voxon push-button radios front and rear. If rain threatened to spoil a parade, special transparent roof canopies could be fitted; a plethora of electric windows made the lack of a pressurised ventilation system irrelevant.

Outwardly, very little was shared with the standard saloon. The limousines were not even built with door locks, although there is a key for them. In case of malfunction, there were back-up fuel pumps and twin distributors; one just pressed a switch in the glove box and swapped the king leads. Although the cars ran standard 2.5-litre V6 engines, they were fitted with low-ratio differentials so that when on parade they could potter along in top gear without the need to change down.

Come the day of the Queen's visit, they wafted Her Majesty and her entourage through Rome's ancient squares and thoroughfares with whispering efficiency, flanked by police outriders. They were said to be capable of a stately 75mph flat-out, but even in their younger days rarely saw the open road. Pininfarina did, however, deliver the cars to the Quirinale from Turin by road. Apart from one trip to Naples, they have never since been driven beyond the outskirts of Rome. These days, if long distances are involved, they are transported to their destination by a specially modified railcar.

From the beginning, the cars were given classical equestrian names, such as Belsito, Belfiore, Belstio and Belvedere. Although they have number plates, they are exempt from having to display their licence and insurance documents. In Italy these are supposed to be placed in the windscreen, but in the presidential Lancias they are kept in the glovebox and have only ever been requested when passing through the Vatican state.

The Flaminias were paid for by the Italian state treasury and were only later acquired by the Quirinale, which today owns two of them, Belfiore and Belsito. Another was given to the Turin Automobile Museum and a Roman lawyer acquired two more, for what was believed to be a modest sum, in 1983. However, there might originally have been as many as six cars; in his memoirs, Battista Pininfarina recalled delivering a Flaminia 335 to Pope John XXIII.

Even more intriguing is the widely rumoured story that the Queen was given one as a gift during her 1961 visit, but polite enquiries at the Royal Mews have yet to throw any light on the story. Might a presidential Flaminia be rotting away, forgotten, in a royal lock-up? Do let us know.

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Hmmm...Kinda look like this other car I know of.

M

I was bored ...and so I decided to create a new Presidential limousine for Obama or Clinton.



Pretty cool huh.

Most definitely!