Obama to get GMC Topkick Cadillac

**Steve** · 11-30-2008, 10:34 AM

Saw this story, looks interesting. No more burbans I guess.

There's no doubt that the President of the United States needs a safe vehicle to be transported in. Various assassination attempts prove that case rather easily. President-in-waiting Barack Obama will be getting a brand-new armored "car" that will look like a Cadillac, but will really be based on the positively gigantic medium-duty GMC Topkick chassis. Nobody is quite sure what kind of armament the First Car will be equipped with, but let's just assume that there is plenty, including up to five inches of glass and ceramic ballistics materials. That should make this one heavy vehicle. In fact, a couple of heavy vehicles, as General Motors is likely building multiples so that decoys can be used. With all that weight to move around, we'd expect GM to use a version of its diesel engine (running perhaps on biodiesel? No?) and Allison transmission from its line of heavy-duty trucks. Alternatively, Obama could make a green splash by using GM's 2-Mode hybrid system. Just a thought.

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/11...kick-cadillac/

**retired** · 11-30-2008, 11:55 AM

I once saw a show on the company that makes armored cars. They buy shells from caddy for the body then modify the hell out of them. They do the same for the drive train, buying rolling chassis.

**sdavis2702** · 11-30-2008, 12:59 PM

Yea I saw that on another website but it was a much newer Cadillac model I thought.

**tbplus10** · 11-30-2008, 02:30 PM

For the most part the president is usually in a Limo while the protection team rides in Suburbans. The decoy teams (up to five depending on threat assesment) are exact duplicate motorcades. A standard motorcade consists of 2 Limosines, and 5 Suburbans. The chase cars, block cars, and auxillary vehicles (normally about 30 vehicles) needed to support movement are not considered part of the motorcade.
GM has been using truck chassis for the Presidential Cadillacs since the 60's. The only new thing is the possible addition of Diesel and they're using Top Kick chassis instead of 1 ton truck chassis.

**Steve** · 05-18-2010, 05:50 PM

There have been a lot more stories about this and it's VERY impressive to say the least. The doors are massively thick, it can run over a bomb and no worries.