I wonder where it is today?
(https://forums.cadillaclasalle.club/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffarm9.staticflickr.com%2F8019%2F7417742188_77bd4400ca_b.jpg&hash=9124b52c81c1786a4bdbff7d9e628b62f73d4f6b)
To Breshnev? Such capitalist decadence! ;D
The text says that the car had a "padded" top, sort of looks just like my avitar. That car is parked in my garage.
Greg Surfas
Nixon also gave us the EPA and a few other simi;ar goodies.
Doug,
What on earth has that got to deo with the car being featured?
Greg Surfas
I assume it was a backhanded political statement within the context of this discussion. Best to keep a tight lip and move on.
As for the car itself, I know that when Presidents travel, their vehicular entourage is shipped to the receipient country. Someone else can probably elaborate on when this practice started, Nixon may have been the first since obviously the vehicles would have to be flown.
It does seem out of character for a US President to give such a gift of conspicuous consumption to a Communist leader, although Nixon did pursue (and this is my only political statement within the context of this discussion) a policy of detente with USSR, China, etc and it may have been considered a "goodwill" gesture.
I recall reading that Nixon and Brezhnev were driving this car around in the area of Camp David, MD, shortly after the car was presented to Mr. Brezhnev. That must have been quite a sight.
Brezhnev was an avid car enthusiast. The year after the Cadillac gift, President Nixon gave him a new Lincoln Continental. I have heard that the Lincoln is in an auto museum in Riga, Latvia, but I don't know where the Cadillac wound up.
Rich,
The 72 Eldorado was shipped to Moscow for presentation on Nixons first visit there. It was on Brezhnevs first visit to the US that he recieved the 73 Lincoln at Camp David.
Here is a link to rare film footage of Brezhnev driving the new Lincoln. Plus there is a scene with Nixon and Brezhnev leaving Camp David in an armoured Cadillac Fleetwood series 75 Limousine. Followed by a 73 Chrysler Newyorker and a Mercury Colony Park wagon.
http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675057033_visit-of-Leonid-Brezhnev_President-Richard-Nixon_Aspen-House_Lincoln-Continental (http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675057033_visit-of-Leonid-Brezhnev_President-Richard-Nixon_Aspen-House_Lincoln-Continental)