It shouldn’t come as too much of a shock that the first car for the office of America’s top politician ran on hot air.

Steam to be exact.

It was just over 100 years ago that Sportsman President Theodore Roosevelt was ferried about Washington D.C. (quite reluctantly one imagines), in a shining white Stanley Steamer. In 1904 the choice for automobiles was limited, and no one could anticipate that the steam-powered automobile would soon go the way of buggy whips and BetaMax videotape (least of all the Stanley Brothers, who had founded their steam car company with money they made selling their photographic dry-plate business to a little known company called Eastman-Kodak.) Even Roosevelt’s successor, the portly William Howard Taft used a steam powered automobile as his main car. Taft even establish the White House’s first parking garage, installing steam engineers and automotive specialists in the now obsolete presidential stables.

It wasn’t until the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt that the Presidential Limousine became a custom-built project. Cadillac designed and delivered two convertibles, dubbed "Queen Mary" and "Queen Elizabeth" to the White House. Equipped to carry ammunition and radio equipment, these were the first presidential limousines built with the needs of America’s Chief Executive in mind.

While he strove to hide his partial paralyzation due to polio, FDR still wanted to be a man of the people and it is for this reason the Secret Service commissioned the "Sunshine Special", a V-12 Lincoln convertible that allowed the president to lean out and shake the hands of his fellow Americans, while at the same time providing a foot-rail and handholds for agents riding on the outside of the car. The "Sunshine Special" is perhaps one of the more recognizable presidential limousines, as it is seen in multitudes of FDR photos, but it’s time as a means to getting the president closer to the people was cut short.

Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor the "Sunshine Special" was deemed to be not secure enough for a president at war. Though the Secret Service had no appropriately armored vehicle in their stable a solution was found in the impound lot of the Treasury Department. From the time of the president’s stirring ‘day of infamy’ speech until the Sunshine Special could be adequately updated FDR travelled in a heavily armored 1928 Cadillac Town Sedan which had been seized among the assets of notorious gangster Al Capone.

From that day forward the presidential limousine ceased to be a mere means of elegant transport, and was instead redesigned into what the Secret Service would refer to as a ‘command car’ - a vehicle with the most advanced offensive and defensive automotive innovations of it’s time.

The only time a presidential limousine has failed to keep a president safe was the SS-100-X, a heavily modified Lincoln Continental Limousine, which would forever be remembered in history as the JFK Limousine. While controversy may forever surround the fateful events of November 22nd, 1963 certain facts remain undisputed, specifically the acknowledgment that the air-conditioning unit in the SS-100-X was not sufficient for cooling the limousine when the passenger compartment was covered by a specially-designed, Plexiglas bubble-top. No one knows if president John F. Kennedy would have been safer under a Plexiglas bubble, but the Secret Service would never again use a convertible as the primary presidential Limousine. Only Richard Nixon - who insisted on having a sunroof, so he could stand up and greet crowds - would bare his presidential head to the open air.

The JFK Limousine, along with many other historical vehicles is now housed at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. Many other presidential limos are available for your inspection at various museums around the US, but the practice of returning the cars to the manufacturer ended with the presidency of Ronald Reagan. The Secret Service now destroys all retired presidential limousines in order to keep their defensive capabilities under wraps.

This means one can only speculate at the advanced features of the most recent models, though it is assumed the current model, (referred to jokingly as ‘The Beast’ by the Secret Service agents responsible for it’s transport around the world,) has all the basic ‘safety features’ common to most armored limousines. Most command cars around the world are expected to have bullet-proof glass, armor-plating, run-flat tires and even a hermetically sealed interior to defend against chemical attacks. In the case of the US presidential limousine one can only imagine the advanced additional safety features the Secret Service has instituted.