Unexpected Cars You Didn't Know Former Presidents Once Owned

Some of the most iconic and infamous moments in presidential history occurred in cars. John F. Kennedy was assassinated while being driven through Dallas. Ronald Reagan was thrown into the presidential limo and rushed to the hospital after being shot. The presidential motorcade driving from place to place, centered around "The Beast" — a limo that costs millions of dollars and has plated armor 8 inches thick –  projects the huge amount of power imbued in the office (or if you live or work in the area it is driving through, is just a major pain in the butt).

But most presidents are less well-known for the cars they personally choose to drive. Part of this is probably because in recent decades, the Secret Service forbids presidents and ex-presidents from getting behind the wheel themselves except in very specific, safe situations, something most of them agree is the worst part about getting the highest office in the land. Still, some of these men managed to own interesting and even surprising vehicles before, while, and after they occupied the White House. 

Here are some of the unexpected cars you didn't know former presidents once owned.

William Howard Taft wasn't the first president to ride in a car; that honor went to William McKinley. Teddy Roosevelt did eventually own a car, but as president preferred horse-based transportation. Taft was the first president to really use cars in the White House, as well as in his private life.

By the time he was elected in 1908, Taft was already known as something of a gearhead. Shortly before he entered the White House, Congress appropriated $12,000 for the purchase of a small presidential fleet. Taft had the White House stables turned into garages to hold his new automobiles. Throughout his presidency, he was front and center at events celebrating cars, including auto shows and endurance races. He spoke of the importance of improving the country's roads so they were more comfortable to drive on. And when he vacationed away from the White House, he made sure several of his autos came with him so he always had one to drive.

While the president owning automobiles was controversial at the time, the most shocking car acquired by Taft wasn't for his own use. In 1909, he bought a Baker Electric Queen Victoria model for his wife, Helen. The Baker Electric was the first commercially available electric car, and it was considered both posh and acceptable for women to drive. A second Baker, purchased three years later, stayed at the White House after the Tafts left and was used by several other first ladies.

By the time Calvin Coolidge became president on the sudden death of Warren Harding in 1923, the presidential fleet had become dominated by flashy Pierce-Arrow limousines. Woodrow Wilson had liked his fancy presidential car so much that his friends purchased it for his personal use once he left office in 1921. But Coolidge was known to be a quiet, modest man, and he wasn't drawn to the flashiest cars out there, although as president during the over-the-top Roaring Twenties, he certainly could have demanded and received them. So during the defining decade of the automobile boom, while the number of families that owned a car in the United States tripled, Coolidge ditched the Pierce-Arrows for an understated Lincoln Model L.

While there were no official records kept by the Secret Service about the presidential fleet at the time, it is believed that Coolidge started using a 1923 Model L as vice president and brought it to the White House when he unexpectedly became president just months later. While the next two administrations would choose different brands of cars, in 1939, Coolidge was proved to be right about the suitability of a Lincoln for the commander-in-chief when it became the official producer of the presidential limo, a position it held for more than three decades.

Nor was Coolidge just trying to fake humility to the public with his modest Model L: He also chose a Sport Phaeton version for personal use during his summer vacation in 1928.

The Great Depression consumed most of Herbert Hoover's single term in office, and he had little chance of reelection thanks to the suffering that so many in the U.S. were going through. Considering this, Hoover would have been smart to follow the lead of his predecessor, Calvin Coolidge, and stick to modest, practical cars as his preferred vehicles.

The Great Depression also came at an unfortunate time for Cadillac. In 1930, the year after the stock market crash, the company introduced one of its most opulent car models yet, the Series 452-B V-16. One of the only V-16 engines of any brand to be made for general sale to this day, it was expensive and showy, and the amount of gas its large engine would have consumed did not make it price-friendly in the long run. While they managed to sell a healthy 3,251 units of the luxury vehicle in its first year, by 1932, the company only produced 300 of them.

One of the few people who bought a V-16 that year was the soon-to-be ex-president Hoover. This was a purchase he made himself for his personal use, not an official car of the president paid for out of government funds. The optics of purchasing a luxury vehicle that so few of his fellow citizens could afford at the time would not have been good. Regardless, Hoover loved the car and owned it for over a decade before selling it to a friend.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was probably one of the most famous people who survived polio. This wasn't a secret in his lifetime, either. FDR was already a well-known politician by the time he contracted polio at age 39. The time it took him to recover his strength meant leaving the spotlight for an extended period, and while the public didn't know what illness had sidelined him at the time, once he returned to the political stage, he was somewhat open about his ailment and subsequent disability. However, he wanted to look as if he could still do everything he could do before he got polio. This meant disguising his wheelchairs, using braces and assistance to stand or "walk," and having specially made cars that allowed him to drive.

FDR had at least four cars altered to be used with hand controls after he lost the use of his legs, including a Ford Model A, a DeSoto, and two different Plymouth PA Phaetons (one is pictured above). Driving allowed him to regain the personal independence that paralysis had in some ways taken from him. It also made campaigning and talking to constituents easier. If he was behind the wheel, he could pull up to an event under his own power, and as long as he stayed in the car, he wasn't expected to stand up. 

Others with paralysis wanted to know how they could drive, too. In 1933, a diagram of FDR's hand controls was published in The Polio Chronicle newsletter.

Harry Truman owned many cars throughout his life, and the models spanned an astonishing 61 years, from 1911 to 1972. Truman was never flush with cash, however, so he often traded in his former car to go toward the price of a new one, and always tried to get a good deal. So he must have loved getting a free car, right? Well ...

Truman became president near the end of World War II when Franklin D. Roosevelt died in 1945. Once the U.S. entered that conflict, companies, including Ford, switched their manufacturing output from things like civilian cars to products needed for the war effort. After the war ended, Ford was allowed to return to making cars and gave the first one off the production line to the president: a 1946 Ford Super DeLuxe Tudor. As pictured above, Henry Ford Jr. himself came to the White House to present the automobile to Truman. It was a sign that America was back after the difficult war years. But despite smiling for these photos, Truman never even drove it. 

The president wasn't trying to keep a historic automobile in good shape or anything — he just didn't drive Ford cars. Truman was a Chrysler man through and through. Months after he left the White House, Truman and his wife took a 2,500-mile road trip in their Chrysler New Yorker. And the final car he ever bought, just six months before he died? A Chrysler Newport.

Lyndon B. Johnson had what must be one of the quirkiest hobbies of an American president, ever. He enjoyed taking unsuspecting passengers on a ride around his Texas ranch in a seemingly normal car ... then, disaster! 

As recounted by Joseph A. Califano, an aide to the president, in his book "The Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson: The White House Years," the prank went something like this: "We reached a steep incline at the edge of the lake and the car started rolling rapidly toward the water. The President shouted, 'The brakes don't work! The brakes won't hold! We're going in! We're going under!' The car splashed into the water. I started to get out. Just then, the car leveled, and I realized we were in an Amphicar." Califano says LBJ didn't let him forget that he was willing to leave his president to drown while trying to save himself.

The reason this prank worked on so many people was that Amphicars were very uncommon, even then. Based in West Germany, the company was (and still is) the only one ever to make an amphibious car for civilian use. They were in production for just seven years, which resulted in a mere 3,878 vehicles. So when LBJ would careen toward the lake, none of his passengers would have had any reason to think they were going to float. The president sometimes got his Secret Service agents to play a part, adding to the realism — and the terror.

It is perhaps surprising that Jimmy Carter, who was known both for being thrifty and environmentally conscious, was a huge fan of motor racing and sports cars. He attended NASCAR races and endurance races throughout his life, often bringing his whole family. He claimed to be able to tell different sports cars apart just by listening to the sounds of their engines.

Becoming president meant he never got to drive again, but he didn't give up easily. According to members of his Secret Service detail, well into his 90s, and many decades since he had been allowed to drive a car, Carter was still trying to convince them to let him get behind the wheel. The desire for the open road probably wasn't lessened by an amazing present he got only a few years before he died.

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter hold an impressive presidential-couple record for the longest marriage. When Rosalynn died in 2023, they had been married for 77 years. For their landmark 75th wedding anniversary, the couple received a special gift from their friends, the country singers Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood: a 1946 Ford Super Deluxe. If that sounds familiar, it was the same model presented to Harry Truman after World War II ended, although this version was a convertible. It also happened to be the year that the Carters got married, making the present extra special to the car-loving former president, who was reportedly very excited to receive it. 

Ronald Reagan's most famous vehicle enhanced the image he wanted to project of a rugged American man. The battered red Jeep CJ-6 was a gift from his wife in 1963, and he was regularly photographed driving it on his ranch in California during his presidency two decades later. But there was another red vehicle at the ranch that got just as much use but didn't feature in iconic press photos.

In 1977, Japanese car company Subaru released the BRAT (which stands for "Bi-drive Recreational All-terrain Transporter," obviously). It was both a car and a truck and yet not really good at being either one. What it was, however, was sturdy as all get-out. So much so that Subaru was having trouble testing them to the point of destruction. When a contact of the company mentioned he knew someone with a large ranch who could give it a try, the company offered to send him one. That's how Ronald Reagan became a secret Subaru test driver.

It had to be secret, because it was unthinkable in the late 1970s and 1980s that the U.S. president — or even a candidate, which Reagan was at the time — would drive a Japanese car. Competition between the two countries, especially their automotive industries, was too intense. So Reagan continued to use his sturdy little BRAT at his California ranch, even if it never got the glamorous photoshoots the Jeep did.

Before he became president, Barack Obama enjoyed driving, and he lamented that as soon as he became a candidate in the 2008 election, he wasn't allowed to do it anymore. But according to comments he made on the campaign trail, his love of being behind the wheel came about in spite of his first car.

"The car I learned to drive on was my grandfather's Ford Granada," Obama told Indianapolis radio station WFBQ (via The Truth About Cars). He went on to suggest that the Granada might have been "the worst car that Detroit ever built," comparing the vehicle to a tin can. "[Detroit was] trying to compete with the Japanese," he explained. "They wanted to keep the cars big, so they made them out of tin foil ... You basically couldn't go over 80 without the thing getting out of control."

In a political era where scandals could be made out of tan suits and Dijon mustard, Obama's comments drew backlash from some parts of the media. The conservative outlet The National Review sniffed that if Obama really was trying to drive over 80 mph in a time when the speed limit on highways was only 55 mph, he was breaking the law. And that he was turning up his nose at a car that had been incredibly popular with the public, selling hundreds of thousands of units per year. Even they, however, had to admit that Obama was right about the Granada being basically a tin can on wheels.

Before Donald Trump became a politician, he was famous for his opulent lifestyle and conspicuous displays of wealth (or at least the appearance of having wealth). This made him a perfect match for Lamborghini, which effectively hired him as a brand ambassador. Trump had a transactional relationship with Lamborghini in the '90s, when they sent him loaner cars to drive around in. He would get photographed in them, making him look like he could buy exotic cars, and Lamborghini got free publicity. He also talked up the cars, specifically the Lamborghini Diablo, telling the press that he voted for it in Robb Report magazine's "Best of the Best" survey in 1996.

Lamborghini was apparently happy with how their partnership with Trump went, because when the very limited '97 version of the Diablo became available, he not only got one but was allowed to get it in a custom color — Le Mans blue — making the car not only one of just 132 sold in the U.S. between 1997 and 1999, but the only one in that color from that year.

Trump sold the car in 2002, and it had two subsequent owners before it ended up at auction in 2024. Despite being a rare car in its own right, it was the vehicle's connection to the president that increased its value far more than expected. Bids blew past the estimate, before it sold for $1.1 million.