Jay Leno Explores The Beast: Inside the Presidential Limousine with Secret Service Agents

let us no one we're [Applause] clear welcome to a very special edition of jeno's garage I'm dressed this way because today we're featuring the most important probably the most valuable car we have ever done in the whole 14 years of doing this program I think you'll recognize it I'm here with two members of the Secret Service uh let's bring them in here Jay nasworthy Steve Abel come on in gentlemen these guys are dead serious okay you can't even joke around here gentlemen thank you nice to see you have you here thanks sir as you may have guessed their job is to protect the president of the United States this is not about politics it's not about Trump or Biden or Democrats or Republicans it's about the president of the United States and it is an amazing honor to have this vehicle here at the garage it's built by a General Motors I guess for lack of a better word we call it a Cadillac a very special addition of a Cadillac built to resemble a Cadillac built to resemble the Cadillac okay and obviously there's a lot of things we can't tell you about it but what they can tell you you will find out here today uh as you see it's enormous it's basically a tank isn't it it's it's probably one of the safest vehicles in the world isn't it I doesn't to say it's probably the safest vehicle the safest vehicle in the world okay all right well where do you want to start Gentlemen let's see Massive Tires the tire is just a uh like a bus Tire or a big truck tire oh it is it is it's it's not a is I'm sure it has some run flat capabilities yeah there's a run flat device right okay all right and this vehicle's been all over the world it goes with the president wherever he go is that correct yes that's correct we take them with us we bring two of them with us wherever we go at least two uh we transport them on the Air Force c17 or C5 depending on how many cars we have to bring and usually for foreign trips it's multiple c17s uh for us to travel overseas now each time there's a new president is a new vehicle or the vehicle sometimes overlap with the next president it varies uh we've tried to do it every inauguration every eight years they have probably at 8-year shelf life uh the 2001 variety with uh President Bush when he was inaugurated we had that one uh roll out uh President Obama got the Gen 2 version of this and then president Trump got gen 3 a little bit later it was September of 2018 when it was unveiled in New York for the UN and when these are taken out of service are they broken up and disassembled they're not they can't be sold nobody can buy no they are destroyed they are destroyed so they're not donated to museum or anything of that nature okay so they destroy it and okay that's interesting and obviously there's a lot of top secret stuff we can't talk about there is uh you know it's it's a car it drives like a car GM will put a lot of their components into it so it's uh the dash is much like a Cadillac Escalade couple years ago the flags at night we have LED lights uh that will illuminate the lights or the flags as we go uh as we're driving overnight um and then there's you know they try to incorporate some stock pieces as well so it's not so expensive if there's a need to replace them now when they design a new one are you guys involved or is it just the the GM designers they come up with their idea I mean there are certain things you have to have cor you tell the designers that yes so we've got uh set of criteria that we try to meet and then we push that over to GM and we let them do their thing now whatever they do do you go I don't like that or or is it is it a matter of there's definitely a possibility to to tweak things along the way and you know depending on things that need to be added or or cut we can uh adjust accordingly and I imagine everybody who's involved in building this has to have top secret clearance that's correct does anybody even know who they are they not we don't know who those people are uh I'm sure I mean you know who they are but I mean the general public general public will not know who they are okay and and they don't speak about oh I'm the one that designed the and I imagine that's for their own safety as well I would imagine so yeah yeah okay okay and how long does it take to develop one of these from when you decide you need a new one is it years is it a matter of months yeah it's several years yeah know and and imagine each year the tech gets stronger the protection gets better technology is always advancing uh you know we try to incorporate the latest and greatest and everything but by the time we get it into production there's better things so we will just push that off into the Next Generation Now for people don't know one of the very first uh cars the Secret Service borrowed or they when Al Capone went to jail Al Capone had this uh bulletproof I think it was a Lincoln I believe it was yeah and so hey let's get that for president Rosell I mean that just I don't know why that makes me laugh to get Al Capon but that's what they use as protection it was not like today it's you know no yeah that was the first armored limousine we used was after Pearl Harbor was bombed uh when Roosevelt went to the capital to ask for the declaration of war against Japan uh they used the acquired Al Capone hey at Al Capone's card Bob you know Al give him a call yeah I mean so so it's come a long way it has I imagine I get and obviously that had bulletproof glass and everything else but I know for you know it's interesting I I went down when I met President Reagan his Air Force One was just like a regular plane a small what 737 737 I believe and it was like oh is just like trolas plane I was and then then you course you go to the 747 and the Flying Fortress and it get stay up for weeks or whatever it is pretty amazing I imagine the same thing with this this this has every type of possible protection it is it has robust capabilities robust capabilities there you go so I always remember uh because I joked about it tonight remember a Gerald Ford he was in a president of pro deade and a 16-year-old kid ran into the limo do you guys remember remember that I wasn't around little bit before our time and I just made me imagine you're that father I had an accent dad who'd you hit president what president United States what I I I I we got jokes for weeks out of that because it was just a kid Lally kid who ran the red light and hit the presidential limo so that's probably the last time anything like that ever happened is yeah so when when we take these places we have agents that go out the week before to do Advanced work to ensure that the motorcade routes are safe for us to you know take the president from the airport to wherever we're going around the town uh we rely heavily on the local law enforcement we've got a great relationship uh we try to Foster those wherever we go uh to ensure that nothing happens in their cities because we don't want to create an issue for them but also to allow us to impact the citizens of the city to the least amount as possible even though we know we're going to disrupt traffic and everything else uh so we send them out a week in advance they work very very close uh to develop primary routes alternate routes Hospital routes you know trying to go everywhere we can uh and then inevitably something happens and the sequence of events will change and so all of the routes you had going from 1 to 2 to three now becomes 1 to 3 to four to two so you have to go out and run all the routes again so our transportation section agents that that are doing these advances are constantly challenged uh they do great work uh we we try to ensure that there's no issue that is not covered and I mean it's amazing when you think back the 50s and 60s trumman Eisenhower Kennedy they rode around in open cars M just waving at people because didn't seem like anything like that was even possible you know it's it's just it's just amazing it's just amazing the idea of riding an open car now you know not happeny not Happ now in the Press they refer to this car as the Beast is that a term you use internally is that something the Press came up with or is that I'm not sure who coined that to start uh we call it a parade limousine right uh it's considered a parade because the windows are extended so that people that are out on the street can see the president clearly okay all right and any significance to the flags the flags are basically this is our standard way that we present them every time we go out uh when we go overseas we replace the presidential flag with the host country flag that we're visiting okay and different flags mean different things or is that pretty much the standard that is the standard uh run that we will do with all of our flags right okay very good see a lot of this looks like standard GM stuff like the mirror and a few other things but yeah most of it is most headlights mirrors you can't get anything out of these guys I tell you I mean it's just massively overbuilt if every if every car GM made was built like this You' never need a new car because it it doesn't break or break down I know it's a presidential seal here I thought it'd be a little bit bigger it's it's low pro low low low low profile and believe when you think low profile this is the car now something I've heard and and I did see it for myself but we can't show it to you on camera the presidential seal inside the car has some wood around it and there's some significance to that there is the wood that surrounds that seal is from a tree that George Washington actually planted in Fredericksburg Virginia uh he planted 13 trees between his mother's house and his sister's house so that they would have uh some shade to walk under while they went between each other's homes he planted one for each of the colonies uh in 2004 the last tree uh succumbed to old age it was uh planted for the state of Georgia so it was uh harvested and then that wood was used to as the inset for all of these doors uh so it's a it's a horse chestnut tree and so there's three seals in the back of the car two on or one on each door and then one in between the the seats in the back now the seal itself there was a bit of lore behind this we've been told that it was a single woman that hand stitched all of the presidential seals that went inside the limousine well she passed away just before these cars came out so what they did is they took one of those patches scanned it in and then laser wretched it onto titanium so that's what is in very cool and how about that cherry tree chopped down whatever happened to that one remember you couldn't tell a lie I don't think that that was the one that he no that was the one okay well just throw it in there for but yeah it is funny that it's so low-key because usually think it be the president you know looks very cool and they're always black aren't they have they ever been any other color not since we've started making okay I don't a few Camp Davids that are were different color but we do have Camp Davids that are silver I think now when you say Camp Davids what what does that mean uh those are what we have is the Suburban platforms that are presidential limousines so it's more of if we are going on an off the Record Movement we want to be a little bit more low profile we'll use those instead of pulling these out I think I rode in one of those when I was with Vice President Biden once quite possibly yeah that's so I see okay and imagine those are built pretty much close to the same standard of diseas uh they are they are built subst as robust robust they robust built robust robust is there a sun there's no sunroof is no sunroof no you can't get a sunroof ah I'm not running for president oh very nice okay and these windows do not go down obviously they do not and obviously I'm sure they could take anything you could you could throw at them pretty much and I know we can't talk about but yeah yeah and obviously you've got every conceivable type of air conditioning air filtration and all that kind of all that kind of thing you do stay comfortable the the seat that he rides in those rear two seats they are heated and cooled they have massage function and they slide back and forth so it's uh it's not a bad way to ride for for a little bit but if he goes through the drive-thru he can't get a Wendy single Patty no we'd have to send somebody else to send somebody El when Clinton was President that was probably a big problem couldn't get a Wendy single Patty through there and that would be the end of that all right and the the wheel covers are just look sort of like standard Cadillac wheel covers but I'm sure there's something very special about them too and we can't discuss that either not really there's there's they're just bolt-on wheel covers just to make the the wheel look nicer well here's a question are there follow-up vehicles that carry spare parts or things that possibly could go wrong you know what I'm saying so we have uh the follow-up Suburban that the shift agents rid in they uh have few sare parts in there you know oils and uh antifreeze mechanics are there mechanics that travel with the car so yes I'm one of the mechanics with the car okay yeah so if anything happens uh I'm going to address it and hopefully get it back on the road yeah you really can't pull us into the Jiffy Loop no no not not not usually uh we we have been known to use uh facilities if we need to but typically there's not enough time if he's just on the ground for several hours you you know you you're just kind of and I imagine the amount of checking that must go into verifying every single part and every single person who brings every single part I mean that's literally what's involved isn't it yes I mean if you're going for gas who's pumping the where's the gas coming from the gas I mean just just every every possible care is taken in every area probably we try sometimes you know we have to go to uh the local gas stations and you know uh occasionally things will happen uh we were you know on a trip to North Carolina and apparently had rain for several days before we got there and I guess one of their tanks absorb some water oh and so we pull in fuel up and as we leave one of them shuts off and I get a call you know on the radio hey one of the cars is shut off so uh it has a auxiliary fuel pump so I had them you know apply the auxiliary fuel pump to see if that was you know a bad fuel pump or something and it didn't help so I was pretty much thinking it was the gas and so we got the vehicle off the off the road and uh ran a few Qui quick Diagnostics on it didn't see anything wrong with the actual car uh pulled a fuel sample and yeah it looked like muddy water out of a river wow so luckily we were close enough in North Carolina that they were able to deliver another car down on a flat bed so uh went to swap it out and uh the next morning we uh go to you know meet the president when he lands and the door uh doesn't shut right on the new car so I ended up having to borrow the part off of the one with bad gas put it in the new car and we actually arrived uh out on the ramp of the Airfield as he was approaching we had about two minutes to spare and this is the first anybody's heard that yes okay well that that's well it's all human isn't it but uh but obviously every precaution is taken with this thing every and how many miles a year would you put on something like this is that something you can say is it is it in thousands or hundreds of miles it really just depends on how far we're having to drive to go to the different sites right we're traveling obviously you fly everywhere correct but uh are there places where uh the president might be in a car like this for hours and hours is that something that's never even considered no the only time he's ever in for a extended amount of time would be if we took the bus out so we've got the armored bus as well right that's a campaign year sort of thing to where we have to advance that and then get guys trained up on CDL licenses so that they can drive the bus but those are really the only times that it's extended amounts of time in the car and how about you guys are you guys military background then went into Secret Service were you law enforcement or or you did you go right from college run into Secret Service how how did you get is that something you can talk about sure I graduated from Florida state with a master's degree uh had hopes of going home and working for the Orlando Magic but that didn't work out so a friend of mine was on Chelsea Clinton's detail and he told me that we're hiring a bunch of new people so I applied got the old typewriter out and filled out the application and got hired on and that's got to be every I mean if you had a joint in your sock in 1969 they know about it they definitely will a deep dive on I mean it really is it must be incredible how about you what's your background so I was an auto mechanic in a dealership for about 16 years what kind of dealership uh Ford and GM both okay oh all right and yeah so found this job on uh USA jobs and applied on USA Jobs hey president looking for oh hey yeah it didn't it wasn't very descriptive when I found it but uh turns out did it say Secret Service uh not directly oh okay yeah so it was kind of more like it was a government agency looking for automotive technicians that had experience and uh yeah soon as checked into it and figured out it was a secret service and right yeah I I used to be part of the transportation section when I was a a new agent on PPD the president's detail and it's it's a little stressful when the first time you're getting behind the wheel and you look in the rearview mirror and there's the president staring back at you avert your eyes very quickly and try to look away wow just like driving movie stars correct wow there was uh one trip we were in Mississippi over the summer and it was crazy hot we were supposed to drive a quarter of a mile down the road to The Landing Zone but right as we got to the site it was a bad weather call weather was coming in so we had to drive 45 minutes back to the airport as the president's getting ready to finish up his uh meeting at little city council I'm sitting in the driver's seat and it starts get warm in there so Steve was actually the mechanic on the trip I grabbed Steve I'm like hey check this out and as he comes in and the words I believe the compressor dying the president's coming out at this point so he gets in the car the Camp David and we start driving and it gets hot in there pretty quick middle of the summer and the supervisor at the time had to tell the president that the air conditioning had died so we continued on to the airport for 45 minutes uh by the time I got there I looked like Ted Striker at the end of airplane just sweat pouring off of me but we didn't want to stop we had to keep going so we made it safe and live to live to tell the story all right but obviously the ventilation was going through just no air conditioning correct just blowing hot air just blowing the warm air wow well for a politician blowing hot air that's the worst thing that could happen all right well very good well I I mean it's it's a very imposing vehicle it's when the president is speaking how many people you must have a half a dozen people guarding it at any one time there there's a the shift is around them and they've all got their own responsibilities it really depends on where we are and what we're doing as to how they're they're set up I can tell you as a driver The Generation 3 that we've got now is a lot better to drive than the Gen one or Gen 2 they've definitely made improvements yes um I can tell you that when the generation one that was the the version I was driving the a pillar on that thing was so wide that you would lose a police cruiser right as you're making turns I was thinking that too when I saw it and a lot of blind spots yeah so it's a lot of Leaning forward to look out the windshield leaning back to look out the the Side Glass the driver's glass and and most is is parade speed isn't it 7 to 12 miles an hour no we like to keep moving uh we we anytime you slow down you're giving somebody the opportunity to do something nefarious so uh if we can get him from the plane to wherever we're going safely and as quick as we can uh we also try to ensure that the motorcycle police that are with us uh if they're Lea frogging around that we give them a lot of space too to operate and imagine the the stress on this job because you I mean you're on you everything that's H you've got to keep your eye out for everything all the time isn't it yeah it and especially when you're you're driving down these city streets and there's people left and right all over the place and you're counting on them to obey the police warnings from the officers that are on the road trying to keep them safe it's it's it's tough to articulate to the the local police you know how much space we need because it's hard for us to see out of these cars so uh if we can get a little extra space for them we can keep them safe and and keep the president safe as well now what do you guys think when you watch a movie like Air Force One or any of these movies where these guys are protecting the president do you laugh is it fun to go that doesn't happen like oh that would never happen get off my plane you know right uh a lot of people always ask that you know which one's the most accurate right guarding tests maybe for like a small detail oh okay that's a that's a good fairly accurate one all right okay but yes we all do get a good kick out of all of the the Secret Service and do you all rotate between current president past president pres spouses or do you get a signed to you're the Obama guy you're the Trump guy you're the bush guy so through your career you'll start in the local field office do five to seven years hopefully there and then you come to DC and do one of the big details if that's what you want to do you can also go to a former president so you'll do six years on the president detail uh during that time you'll work the sh what we call the shift the guys that walk around with him uh we do satellites between our transportation section the first ladies detail our counter surveillance Division and then you'll go back to the shift and you'll be a more senior agent at that point and you're starting to do uh more complicated sites and be more responsible and a leader on the on the show and people always think it's secret serve it's men but it's both men and women certainly in the last 30 or 35 years yes we've got a a lot of a lot of the the agents that are on the transportation section now uh it's a good solid mix of men and women uh they rotate through between the different driving assignments did they send you guys to high-speed driving school if we do all all that kind of sure we go to our protective operations driving course out at uh our training facility that you had a chance to go to uh so they go through a weeklong course they do the high-speed driving and then they get the generation 2 limousine to drive around out there for a little bit to get some practice oh very good very good how long does a driver last is it a are you each president you change or yeah it's just part of your career path through the detail so for the transportation section you are there for two years so you'll start out doing the follow-up driver so the the truck that's behind this car and then from there you'll slowly move up to the spare limousine and then eventually you're out doing advances and then you're you're driving the limousine so it's a two-year commitment okay and later today we're going to see you load this into the cargo plane is that correct that is correct oh that's pretty exciting very good are either you guys driving into the and I'm responsible for Lo having it loaded and watch it to make sure that it's uh loaded correctly and you are very kind to offer us some uh some photographs of this very car being designed being made in uh in clay and all that kind of stuff right yeah GM was able to provide some photos for use here for the program okay well we appreciate that thank you very much because I mean this you have no idea how top secret this is it's it's it's just amazing we can't open the doors for obvious reasons we can't show the inside but I I think you get an idea of what well you see how tall it is I'm just a hair under six feet tall and it's as tall as I am so uh but I imagine it moves out pretty good doesn't it yes yeah there you go okay and of course the pred is not allowed to do burnouts so you cannot do a presidential burnout because that would be wrong okay but uh are we about ready to load it up to the plane I think we can do that can we do that let's uh let's go over the airport now and see how that works [Music] [Applause] as we watch the presidential limine get loaded onto the c17 I want to take this opportunity to say what a privilege and an honor it is to have the Secret Service and the beasts visit my garage the dedication these men and women give to their country is of the highest order and they have never stopped learning the lessons of the past to keep America safe whether it's poor gas or no air conditioning these are stories that secret service learned from to ensure they don't happen again thank you to the Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service for this incredible opportunity and thank you for watching see you next week

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 814,464

Keywords: Jay Leno, Jay Leno's Garage, car reviews, compares cars, classic cars, vintage cars, sports cars, super cars, cars, car gear, McLaren P1, Porsche 918 Spyder, Camaro Z28, jay leno garage, jay lenos garage, car collection, cnbc, episode, motorcycle, ford, corvette, tour, dodge, lexus

Id: thZX9zHwodk

Length: 26min 40sec (1600 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 08 2024