The Beast: Evolution of the US President's Bulletproof Car

hello everybody welcome back to another episode of mega project that might not exactly be about a mega project this one is all about the president's car which is an insane piece of engineering and i am fascinated by it and i'm excited to learn more i hope you are too but speaking of learning more this video is brought to you by the brilliant people over at brilliant a problem-solving website an app with a hands-on approach you can improve your stem skills while having a great time that's great i mean i feel like that's like mega projects improve your skills improve your knowledge while having a great time what a fit brilliant and mega projects together brilliant.org forward slash mega more about them in a bit and let's get into it [Music] the mighty power of the united states is seen in a variety of ways the monstrously large nuclear aircraft carriers that cruise menacingly through the oceans its fearsome aircraft trialled first at the secretive area 51 nasa's extraordinary escapades into outer space and then there is a car the presidential state car comes with a variety of names cadillac one first car and stagecoach which is the official designation used by the secret service but personally i prefer another name that really describes this rather extraordinary automobile known to many is simply called the beast and just before we get started i don't know if we'll get into this maybe we will also be getting ahead of myself but one of the insane things about this car is that when the president travels abroad it comes with him maybe even more than one because it's more than one of these things they go in planes and they fly this whole giant heavy car around the world so he has something to ride around in like it's awesome anyway let's carry on if you've ever seen the presidential motorcade with its stars and stripes fluttering on those little poles on the sides of cars you'll know that transporting the president of the united states is no mean feat the man who occupies that seat in that dark car is likely the most well-defended human being on the planet the secret service is well known for keeping its protocols well under wraps but it's thought that the white house the treasury building and other diplomatic missions in washington dc are protected by 3 200 special agents with an additional 1 300 uniformed guards from snipers on roofs to sniffer dogs patrolling perimeters these are incredibly well protected places and people the role of the presidential car has always been an important one it needs to provide military grade protection without looking like a car with military great protection [Music] the world has changed markedly since the advent of the automobile at the end of the 19th century and so is the method of transportation for sitting u.s presidents the ben's patent motor car arrived on the scene in 1885 and it's fair to say it's a craze that definitely caught on estimates place the number of cars worldwide at an astonishing 1.4 billion with that figure expected to hit 2 billion by 2035. when you take into account how many people on earth are too young to drive and how many live in impoverished situations where a car is just a distant fantasy that is an unbelievably high number the first recorded instance of a u.s president riding in an automobile came with william mckinley in 1901 with a trip in a stanley motor carriage company steam car theodore roosevelt famously chose to ride in a horse-drawn carriage while his secret service followed him in a car in his own words he was a rough riding horseman things began to change in 1909 with the election of the 27th president of the united states william howard taft it was he who ordered the stables within the white house be converted into a garage and with good reason president taft was also the first president to purchase cars for official use and yes i said cars plural his fleet of four included two luxury pierce arrow cars a baker motor vehicle electric car and a 1911 white motor company steam car which cost four thousand dollars which is about a hundred and fifteen thousand dollars today that is quite a collection mr taft all in all the shopping spree cost the u.s taxpayer twelve thousand dollars which doesn't sound so bad until you realize it's 341 thousand dollars today which is not going to sound so bad when you figure out how much the beast costs president warren g harding became the first to be driven by car in his inauguration in 1921 and also the first man to hold a valid driving license when he took office and no doubt some of you are now mulling over just when driving licenses were first introduced and i can tell you that in the united states at least that was in 1903 when both massachusetts and missouri passed laws requiring drivers to have a license but there wasn't actually a test yet even by 1935 only 39 states required a driving license at all and the last to bring in a driving license was actually south dakota who did it in 1954. franklin d roosevelt bought a ford v8 phaeton coupe in 1936 and the rebellious president had it equipped with hand controls firmly against secret service protocols which prohibited presidents from driving their own cars and just a side note here i know the comments are going to be like simon it's cope and i will tell you that in the uk it is most definitely coupee with the world building up to the second world war he obviously had more pressing matters on his mind than car safety but never underestimate the power of the secret service and in 1939 the sunshine special arrived probably a nickname it wouldn't get these days the lincoln motor company v12 convertible was the first car to be built to secret service specifications and should be considered the first beast or maybe baby beast as we're about to get to it was nicknamed sunshine because of the president's frequent desire to ride with the top down and it was built over the chassis of a lincoln k series it came with a 4.1 meter 13.3 foot wheelbase meaning the horizontal distance between the two sets of wheels which in this case was enough to seat 10 passengers it also came with rear doors hinged backwards heavy duty suspension and two side mounted spare tires outside the now iconic platforms for secret service agents to ride on appeared on either side of the car the car took an entirely different tone after the japanese attack on pearl harbor in 1941. suddenly the country was at war and there was a fear that the president's car presented a soft target changes included adding 2.5 centimeter thick bulletproof glass metal clad flat proof inner tubes a radio transceiver a siren red warning lights and a convenient place to keep a few submachine guns just in case as well as all of this the car received an undisclosed but presumably a hefty amount of armor plating the beast well it had come of age with president truman came a break with tradition when he chose lincoln over general motors for his presidential motorcade rumor is he fell out with gm because they hadn't provided him with the use of their cars during his election campaign ten lincoln cosmopolitans were leased by the white house then adapted to suit the presidential needs the leasing company must be upset like you return the car and it's completely different be like you're going to lose your deposit on that one one of the lincolns was an armored convertible measuring 6.1 metres long 2 meters wide and weighed 2 900 kilograms all of the cars came with 152 horsepower v8 engines and heavy duty hydramatic transmission the first mass-produced fully automatic transition now i'll be the first person to tell you that automatic transmission is truly brilliant brilliant like today's sponsor brilliant and how is that for an advertising transition you're welcome brilliant is a problem-solving website and app with a hands-on approach they've got over 60 interactive courses maths science and computer science now you might have heard me talk about brilliant before i don't think i've talked about brilliant on this channel but i've got other channels where i've definitely talked about brilliant they teach you about math science and computer science whether you're a student looking to get ahead that's a good thing or a professional keen on building some skills well that's good as well get get that promotion well if you're looking to do that you should definitely check out brilliant look maybe you've wanted to learn about neural networks these are essentially how computers can program themselves well brilliant have a course on that and it teaches you how that works through easy to access puzzles and it happens in plain english look i've tried this and i was like look i'm so there's no way you're going to be able to teach me how neural networks i've got no idea and then they're just like just move this shape here and then this does this with that and you're like oh oh i get it i get it and then they tell you what you learned it's actually pretty incredible and that's just one example there's loads of great stuff on brilliant including daily challenges which are a great way to flex your grey matter every day look brilliant is a great complement to watching educational videos like this one and i help you master even complex technical subjects like neural network something that i didn't think i could get my little brain around so if you want to support mega projects and get unlimited access to all of brilliant's in-depth maths and science courses head on over to brilliant.org forward slash mega to get 20 off their annual premium subscription and let's get back to it as president kennedy's 1961 lincoln continental cruised through dallas on the 22nd of november 1963 with the top down and the president leaning jovially on the door two things were about to happen the assassination of the u.s president and with it fundamental changes in the protocols of the presidential car with the open top continental now on dealey plaza a shot rang out then another and another the president slumped forward we're not going to dive into the conspiracy theories here but let's just say there are plenty of unanswered questions what was clear however was that john f kennedy was declared dead on arrival at the hospital the fourth u.s president to be assassinated the irony of it all was that this had been the most sophisticated presidential car yet with a price tag to match 200 000 about 1.7 million today nicknamed x-100 by the secret service it came with not one but three sets of removable roofs a standard soft top a lightweight metal one and a transparent plastic one this was a car that the president wanted to be seen well from and it also included a hydraulic lift capable of raising the rear seat 27 centimeters it's all the more tragic that it was this that made him so much more exposed that was the last time a u.s president ever had the top down in 1974 a two-year-old lincoln continental 6.7 meters in length and weighing a hefty 5 900 kilograms arrived at the white house it was fully armor plated and had bulletproof glass this new lincoln continental managed to keep all of its occupants safe while in the car and it was also actually used to transport president reagan to hospital after he was shot on the 30th of april 1981. the presidency of george w bush saw the beast take on a few more home comforts including an integrated 10-disc cd changer a fold-away desktop and reclining rear seats with massaging and adaptive cushions there were also rumors of sealed passenger compartments each with their own air supply this was an entirely new vehicle thought to weigh 6400 kilograms and was a switchback to general motors from cadillac it was also the first time that the nickname the beast first appeared for the inauguration of president obama things switched back to cadillac once again with a car weighing between 6800 and 9100 kilograms and goodyear regional rhs tires often found on heavy duty trucks this considerable weight means that the car was limited to a top speed of 97 kilometers an hour 60 miles per hour and probably wasn't the best for long journeys as it only got a paltry 16.8 to 36 miles per liter that's 3.7 to 8 miles per u.s gallon its cost was reported to be between 300 000 and 1.5 million dollars but it's fair to say that it was probably on the upper side of that estimate now there are many other aspects of obama's beast that i could go into but many are also included in the latest model so without further ado let's get into the newest and baddest beast the newest version of the beast was first used on a trip to new york city on the 24th of september 2018. it is believed to be modeled on the cadillac ct6 but details are still on the hazy side with this one nbc stated that it believes the armor of the car is made of aluminum ceramic and steel the exterior walls are 20 centimeters eight inches in thickness while the polycarbonate windows are multi-layered and 13 centimeters five inches thick enough not only to make it bulletproof but armor-piercing bulletproof too the fuel tank is not only armor-plated but also comes with a special foam that would prevent it from exploding after a direct hit the kevlar reinforced tires are both puncture and shred resistant even if somehow the tires were destroyed the steel rims aren't designed to be able to drive with or without the tires the car uses hermetic ceiling which essentially makes the vehicle entirely airtight in case of a chemical attack and possibly my favorite fact about the current beast is that the doors are believed to weigh as much as those on a boeing 757 and this is a great part the handles can be electrified to prevent someone from entering although if someone can actually get close enough to pull the door open then i mean a whole lot has gone wrong already and a fun fact about those doors which will ruin movies for you when you see the president going around in a car in the movies and then they open the door and it's just like a regular limousine you know and they're saying like it's the presidential car have a look at photos of the real beast well obviously let's just put one up here look at how thick that door is you don't see that in movies and tv shows thought away between 6800 and 9100 kilograms the cadillac also comes with onboard storage of the president's blood type night vision devices smoke screens and oil slicks as defensive measures if things got really serious there is an onboard water cannon a pump action shotgun and tear grass grenade launchers thought to be kept under the front of the car where secret service agents can quickly retrieve them there is probably a direct correlation between how many people you've infuriated and how much armor plating you need on your car we don't have time to be totally politically correct in this country if that's the case well american presidents are going to rank up there i suppose that's not entirely surprising and probably comes as part and parcel of being the leader of the most powerful country in the world if you know of a better defender car anywhere on the planet let us know in the comments below we'll probably do a mega projects video about it but i don't think you will the beast is about as close as you can get to military grade without starting to make it look like the president is riding around in a tank in fact it's remarkable just how elegant the presidential cars have always appeared over the years despite their fearsome underbelly they may be known as the beast but there is a real beauty to go along with them so i really hope you found that video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below don't forget to subscribe brand new videos just like this several times a week if you've got suggestions for us it doesn't have to just be about armored cars it can be about anything mega-ish project-y let me know in the comments and thank you for watching you

Channel: Megaprojects

Views: 453,200

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Id: F411NAbjvmA

Length: 14min 58sec (898 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 19 2020