United States
The President of the United States travels in a heavily armored, custom-built limousine, which is often referred to as Cadillac One, or its less formal nickname of “The Beast.” The vehicle is based on a GMC Topkick platform, and has the outward appearance of an enlarged Cadillac DTS limousine, with styling elements from other vehicles in the Cadillac lineup.
The vehicle features bulletproof windows, state-of-the-art communication and protection systems, a stowable desk, and a gas-proof chamber for defense against gas attacks.
On 24 May 2011, an earlier “Beast” failed to clear the driveway of the U.S. Embassy compound in Dublin, Ireland. Though President Barack Obama was the escorted official, he was in the second limo as the first noisily struck the pavement hump under the Embassy gate.
Unlike most other heads of state, with the occasional exception of the British Monarch and the President of Russia, the U.S. President is accompanied on all foreign and domestic trips by a full motorcade of U.S. government vehicles, including several presidential limousines, escort vehicles and a military ambulance, all of which are transported by the United States Air Force using C-17 Globemaster III aircraft. The U.S. vehicles are typically complemented with coaches, police vehicles, ambulances and limousines provided by local authorities.
U.S. State Governors and Cabinet officials are often driven in either a Ford Crown Victoria or Cadillac DTS. The preferred car of Congressmen is the Lincoln Town Car. Almost all senior officials use the Chevrolet Suburban as an alternative form of transportation.
Read more about this topic: Official State Car
Famous quotes related to united states:
“In the United States the whites speak well of the Blacks but think bad about them, whereas the Blacks talk bad and think bad about the whites. Whites fear Blacks, because they have a bad conscience, and Blacks hate whites because they need not have a bad conscience.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“America—rather, the United States—seems to me to be the Jew among the nations. It is resourceful, adaptable, maligned, envied, feared, imposed upon. It is warm-hearted, overfriendly; quick-witted, lavish, colorful; given to extravagant speech and gestures; its people are travelers and wanderers by nature, moving, shifting, restless; swarming in Fords, in ocean liners; craving entertainment; volatile. The schnuckle among the nations of the world.”
—Edna Ferber (1887–1968)
“The United States is not a nation to which peace is a necessity.”
—Grover Cleveland (1837–1908)
“It is said that the British Empire is very large and respectable, and that the United States are a first-rate power. We do not believe that a tide rises and falls behind every man which can float the British Empire like a chip, if he should ever harbor it in his mind.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The United States is the only great nation whose government is operated without a budget. The fact is to be the more striking when it is considered that budgets and budget procedures are the outgrowth of democratic doctrines and have an important part in developing the modern constitutional rights.... The constitutional purpose of a budget is to make government responsive to public opinion and responsible for its acts.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)