The (Nearly) Definitive List Of Cars For Every Prime Minister, President, President-For-Life, Dear Leader And Assorted Heads Of State

Derek Kreindler
by Derek Kreindler

Hooniverse contributor and Phaeton owner Jim Yu operates one of the web’s best independent automotive blogs. Over at Tamerlane’s Thoughts, Jim offers up an eclectic mix of oddball enthusiast cars, vintage motorsports nostalgia and the occasional mix of travel, food and geopolitics. Sometime around 2009, I stumbled across Jim’s list of Official State Cars, which sought to catalog the ride of choice for every Head of State, from democratically elected leaders to military dictators to hereditary monarchs and all points in between.

By the time the project wrapped in 2012, Yu had catalog all 192 UN member states, plus a few others, with a recap posted on Hooniverse. If you’re looking for a quick hit, check it out. If you want the full-fat version with pictures of each car and Yu’s sharp commentary, you can work your way backwards at this link.

While the Skodas, Phaetons, and front-drive Lincoln Continentals provide a nice break from the monotony of the Land Cruisers and S-Classes used by so many heads of state, the winner, in my eyes, is Australia. Two V8 Holdens and two turbocharged Ford Territorys? Aussie Rules, indeed.

Derek Kreindler
Derek Kreindler

More by Derek Kreindler

Comments
Join the conversation
4 of 26 comments
  • FreedMike FreedMike on Feb 18, 2014

    Ah, then we have Peru...gotta love a country that stayed with Big Nasty Mopar Iron all these years. http://bp1.blogger.com/_leoGYAeiH44/SJYOq0vuRHI/AAAAAAAACbk/7Y0uE2X4LHU/s1600-h/peru.jpg

  • Corey Lewis Corey Lewis on Feb 18, 2014

    The Territory looks like a Taurus X mated with a second generation Sorento.

  • Lorenzo Lorenzo on Feb 18, 2014

    It used to be so much easier before the JFK assassination. In 1949, Harry Truman tried to get a Cadillac for his inauguration, but all the dealers were Republican apparently, and refused to supply a complimentary convertible, so he rode a Lincoln Cosmopolitan convertible to his inauguration - and then had all the Caddies in the White House motor pool replaced with Lincolns. By 1952, Eisenhower almost exclusively used the Cosmo replacement model, the Lincoln Capri, in his campaigns. Nixon was not happy when his Cadillac was nearly broken into by a mob on a trip to Venezuela, and refused to ride in a Cadillac after that, specifying Lincolns only. Even JFK himself didn't have the bullet proof vehicles now standard. I was on vacation on Cape Cod in 1963, riding a bicycle around Hyannis, when there was a big crowd at the airport. JFK arrived with Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, and gave a speech to about 5,000 people, and then they both waded through the crowd to the Kennedy family Oldsmobile. You could reach out and touch either one of them back then.

  • Davew833 Davew833 on Feb 18, 2014

    I think it was Modern Marvels that did an episode on the POTUS "Cadillac" limo a few years ago, and the only factory Cadillac part it had was the hood ornament. IIRC, it's built on a truck chassis for starters.

Next