Free Republic

From the wilds of Craigslist, this piece of automotive excellence emerged recently seeking new ownership for the price of an entry-level iPad. Yes, it's a 1992 Geo Metro given a limousine stretch. Yes, there's a mural of Betty Boop with a tiger on the hood. And it has some of the most avant-garde ad copy I've seen...

Some members of a bankrupt Orange County, Calif. megachurch are expressing outrage after fielding an email request for congregants to deliver food to waiting limos so that it can ferried to the founder's sick wife. The appeal comes weeks after a lawsuit charged that the founder of the Crystal Cathedral house of worship, Rev. Robert Schuller, and his family had been paying themselves lavish salaries and other benefits while the church was in financial straits. "They've completely depleted the church's funds," one member, Bob Canfield, told the Orange County Register. "But they have shown that they have absolutely no remorse...

ZiL 114 series Russian PM Dmitri Medvedev had commented earlier this year that he'd be more than happy to trade in his Mercedes official car for a real Russian ride, if an appropriately upscale limo could be sourced from within the country. Not willing to wait for such a new car to utilize in Putin's revivalist Red Square military processions, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov can already be found saluting chins-in-the-air Russian troops from the back a fully-restored cca 1975 ZiL open parade car.While only economy types are produced in Russia (Lada) these days, the USSR had indeed built various tiers of (mediocre)...

[snip] Just ask, ahem, President Obama. Seems the big guy lost a magnetic presidential seal that was affixed to the side of his limousine as he wrapped up a fundraising visit to Philly on Thursday. The seal flew off the side of the limo and whipped by motorists in the eastbound lanes of Interstate 76, where it was presumed lost . . . until shortly before noon yesterday. That's when a veteran Philadelphia police officer found the seal on the side of the highway, near the Montgomery Avenue exit, while he was assisting the driver of a disabled vehicle, said...

Obama administration officials are riding in style. A new report from a watchdog group shows that the number of limousines owned by the federal government rose by 73 percent during the first two years of President Obama's administration. The State Department was the recipient of most the new luxury vehicles. The "Limousine Liberals?" report from iWatch News, part of the nonprofit Center for Public Integrity, showed that government data pegged the number of limos in the federal fleet at 412 in fiscal 2010, up from 238 in fiscal 2008. Some of the details are a bit hazy. Most of the...

What began as a mid-winter invitation to enjoy a spring luncheon at the Palace in the merry month of May with the Queen and her royal consort the Duke of Edinburgh turns out to be one of the biggest international fiascos on record. What originally was to be a casual invitation to spend the day and possible stay the night at one of the royal households could have possibly been a judicial means apology for not inviting Obama to the Royal Wedding. This is as if the Queen wanted to give the young presidential couple from the states, new...

Maybe next time he'll ride his unicorn.

Too funny. This epitomizes his administation. OBAMA'S LIMO GETS STUCK

The Car That Thinks It's A Tank: Inside Obama's 'Beast' Cadillac that is being flown from the U.S. to drive down the Mall By CHRIS GREENWOOD and REBECCA ENGLISH 23rd May 2011 An extraordinary entourage will accompany President Obama and his wife Michelle when they sweep into London tomorrow. The team of at least 500 will include White House aides, a six-doctor medical team and a squad of personal chefs. There will be more than 200 secret service agents, many of them armed. The President will travel in ‘The Beast’, his gigantic bomb-proof General Motors Cadillac with eight-inch thick armour-plating...

Global Warming allies left scratching their heads as Dear Leader arrives at summit in a 8mpg Panzer... Most Americans are no longer surprised by Obama's do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do liberal duplicity on issues such as smoking, green lifestyles, or personal modesty/frugality. And anyone who did actual DD on Obama's environmental platform back in '08 can tell you his last ride before arriving in DC to heal the earth was a 300hp Chrysler 300 Hemi. But the starry-eyed European Left is still coming out of the hopenchange ether, so many of them were appalled that even as the EU's left-leaning leaders -Obama's best carbon-trading...

Whoops, President Obama must have missed the memo on this one. While the Portuguese prime minister and the Portuguese president of the European Union’s executive commission are tooling around the NATO summit here in no-emission electric vehicles, Mr. Obama is fouling the Lisbon skies with his no-efficiency "Beast," the eight-ton, diesel-fueled behemoth of a limousine the president carts around the world with him. Obama is expected to discuss climate change and a common US-Europe approach to it when he takes part in a US-European Union (EU) summit after the NATO meeting on Saturday. But in the meantime, the Portuguese capital...

Margaret Thatcher, in a television interview for Thames TV This Week on February 5, 1976, said, "…Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They [socialists] always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them." Of course, until they run out of other people’s money, they spend freely. They don’t seem to have a problem watching you and I toil for our earnings, then taking those earnings away from us via taxes and spending that money frivolously to live a lavish lifestyle. Don’t believe me? For you Obama koolaide drinkers that still think he has your...

President Obama's limo is a basically a diesel-powered tank. When he came into office, the new President asked if he could get one with a hybrid drivetrain for his Presidential Topkick Cadillac to go along with his push for greener vehicles across the board. During a recent stop at a North Carolina manufacturing facility that builds battery components for hybrid cars, Obama was asked about the status of his hybrid limo hopes, and admitted that this isn't going to happen. The reason, the President said, was that the Secret Service rejected his idea "because the cars that I'm in are...

Here is video of President Obama being asked if "the limos he rides around in" are going to go "electric" or "green." He responded that the Secret Service told him it is not possible to do so because the cars he rides around in "are like tanks." With all the "extra stuff," he said they could not get the needed acceleration out of a hybrid.

Cadillac has unveiled pictures of its new presidential limousine, a heavy-duty machine that will transport Barack Obama down Pennsylvania Avenue on Inauguration Day. The images show a sleek black car with the U.S. flag and presidential standard positioned on the front fenders. The vehicle, referred to by the Secret Service as "the beast," will reportedly feature heavy armor that is at least 5 inches thick and comes complete with run-flat tires, bulletproof glass and a completely sealed interior to ward off a chemical attack, among many other high-tech security features. Cadillac confirmed in a press release Wednesday that the company...

The Obama campaign is lavishing some of its cash advantage on the LGBT community with targeted ad buys in Ohio and Texas leading up to the critical March 4 primaries in both states (Rhode Island and Vermont also vote that day). According to Eric Stern, a member of the Obama LGBT steering committee, the campaign has just completed an ad buy with queer newspapers in the four largest LGBT markets of those two states -- Columbus, Cleveland, Dallas and Houston.

LAKE JACKSON — Charles Tyler’s mobile 55-foot tribute to presidential candidate Ron Paul was afflicted with a problem the congressman’s grassroots campaign is unlikely to face. It lost its bearings. Tyler is the driver of a stretch limousine adorned with images and slogans of the Lake Jackson lawmaker, promoting Paul’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination. He was driving Wednesday through Houston when the wheel literally came off. “I had already driven from Florida and still had thousands of miles left, so I was pretty upset it already needed repairs,” said the 50-year-old Paul supporter, who is making his way...

NEW HAVEN — Federal customs agents seized a Mercedes-Benz on Thursday from an Army reservist who said the armor-plated, bulletproof luxury car likely belonged to Saddam Hussein. First Sgt. William von Zehle said he bought the car while serving in Iraq. U.S. Immigration and Customs enforcement agents said the car, which was also equipped with loudspeakers and hidden microphones, was being treated as a "possible war trophy." "It belonged to the former Iraqi regime," ICE spokesman Dean Boyd said. He said investigators were unsure whether the former Iraqi dictator actually owned it. Von Zehle, of Ridgefield, was quoted in news...

A Hummer limo filled with people celebrating a birthday party turned into a wild ride early Sunday after a man attempted to steal it, San Antonio Police said. What the suspect did not realize was there were 15 people in the back of the limo. Twenty-one-year-old Noe Ochoa was arrested, police said. He was held down by people in the limo until officers arrived. Party-goers could not believe what was happening. “The Hummer starts to move and everybody's like, ‘What's going on?’” Kenneth Thornton said. His friends had rented the limo for Kenneth’s 28th birthday. The limo driver was apparently...

DETROIT (AP) — Americans will get an idea of what Cadillac's newest model will look like when President Bush rides down Pennsylvania Avenue on Thursday. Mr. Bush will take part in the inaugural parade in a jet-black Cadillac DTS limousine produced by General Motors Corp. It will provide a glimpse of the design direction of the mass-produced version of the 2006 DTS. "General Motors and Cadillac are proud to write this latest chapter in American automotive history," said GM Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner.