1928 Cadillac owned by Al Capone and Used by FDR

[Peter Gariepy 26457]

(get this via email... is it true?)

HERE IS A BIT OF HISTORY...   Hours after Pearl Harbor was bombed on 7 December 1941, the Secret Service found themselves in a bind.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt was to give his Day of Infamy speech to Congress on Monday, and although the trip from the White House to Capitol Hill was short, agents weren't sure how to transport him safely.

At the time, Federal Law prohibited buying any cars that cost more than $750, so they would have to get clearance from Congress to do that, and nobody had time for that.

One of the Secret Service members, however, discovered that the US Treasury had seized the bulletproof car that mobster Al Capone owned when he was sent to jail in 1931.

They cleaned it, made sure it was running perfectly and had it ready for the President the next day.

Al Capone's 1928 Cadillac V-8 "Al Capone" Town Sedan became the President's Limo in December 1941 .

Mechanics are said to have cleaned and checked each feature of the Caddy well into the night of December 7th, to make sure that it would run properly the next day for the Commander in Chief.

And run properly it did. It had been painted black and green to look identical to Chicago 's police cars at the time.

To top it off, the gangster's 1928 Cadillac Town Sedan had 3,000 pounds of armor and inch-thick bulletproof windows.

It also had a specially installed siren and flashing lights hidden behind the grille, along with a police scanner radio.

Footnote: The car sold at auction in 2012 for $341,000.00

[Jim Miller]

Beyond old Cadillacs I have collected material on FDR for over 50 years. Been to all his homes, talked with associates and relatives. I heard this story before. The newsreals for December 8th show his traveling up to the Capitol in a regular closed White House auto. Its always been hard to tell whether it was a Cadillac or one of the Packards. Regarding the Capone car here is what the head of his Secret Service detail, Mike Reilly had to say. "On December 9th, the day after the declaration, the President sent for Reilly and told him he wanted to go for a ride. They rolled him out to the driveway and there was Capone's Cadillac. FDR said "What's that thing, Mike?" "Mr. President, I have taken the liberty of getting a new car. It's armored, I'm afraid it's a little uncomfortable, and I know it has a dubious past" "Dubious FDR asked?" " Yes sir, it  belonged to Al Capone". FDR responded "This is very interesting. I hope Mr. Capone doesn't mind". Soon after they took one of the two 1939 K model Lincolns and had it armored and bullet proof glass added. But it still have a soft top. That car is currently in the Henry Ford Museum.

[Peter Gariepy 26457]

I've been set straight on this...

http://www.myalcaponemuseum.com/id196.htm

[Jim Miller]

Peter - thanks for posting the article. Very interesting. I've never seen the still photo of them leaving through the gate. Confirms he was in a newer closed Cadillac. You can see the 1938 Cadillac follow up car behind. The newsreels always showed the cars from behind and at a distance - and I could never quite tell if it was a Cadillac or a Packard. The photo, if it comes through, shows him sitting in the back of one of the 1938 Cadillac follow up cars reviewing troops during the war.

[Brad Ipsen CLC #737]

The 38 is one of the two long wheel base V-16's.  Looks like 41 hubcaps on it instead of the 38 V-16 hubcap.  Have not seen that before.  Eventually the V-16's engines got replaced with flathead V-8's and then those were replaced with OHV 331 V-8's before they were retired.

[Alan Harris CLC#1513]

In the summer of 1962, my mother and father took us to the Niagara Falls museum, where we saw Capone's 1928 Cadillac. It was displayed next to Mussolini's Alpha Romeo, which I also remember quite well. It was a very strange museum, which also had a large collection of Egyptian mummies.

The Cadillac still looked good. I have no idea if it ran or not. I remember that the sign said that the underside was armored as well as the rest of the body and that it got approximately three miles per gallon.

[TonyZappone #2624]

I was  a graduate student at the University of Buffalo, and was visiting the Niagara Falls museum on the day that Kennedy was killed.  I recall seeing the Cadillac that was touted to be Capone's car.  As a matter of clarification, the Mussolini car was a Lancia Astura.  I, (who now cannot remember what I had for lunch yesterday) remember the Mussolini car because it was so big and beautiful

[bcroe]

I realized that article was not accurate when it stated the car had a
police scanner.  A scanner would be pretty much impossible before
transistors (invented 1947), and not practical before integrated
circuits (invented 1957).  If I designed a vacuum tube scanner with
1928 parts, it could not fit into a car. 

Besides there were very few public service mobile radios back then,
if any. 
Bruce Roe