The U.S. Secret Service is looking to upgrade its ride as they recently met General Motors (GM) and the talks revolved around upgrading their armoured SUV fleet. Currently, the Secret Service uses an armoured Chevrolet Suburban which escorts the U.S. President’s Cadillac limousine, also known as “The Beast”. GM has been making customized Cadillac limousines for the U.S. President since 1980. Based on the latest reports, GM is now looking to upgrade Secret Service’s SUVs to Cadillac.
New digs for Secret Service: Cadillac Escalade
The U.S. Secret Service shared on social media that Director Sean Curran met with GM executives to discuss how next-generation armoured SUVs can adapt to evolving threats and provide top-tier protection. In the official U.S. Secret Service X account (former Twitter), the agency stated, “ Countering evolving threats requires us to constantly explore new innovations and improvements to our armoured fleet of protective vehicles. Director Sean Curran met with GM executives to discuss advancements that could benefit the next generation of armoured SUVs.”
Based on a Reuters report, the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security have contracted General Motors $14.8 million to manufacture the U.S. President’s next-generation ‘the Beast’. In September last year, the new president’s limousine was caught testing. At the moment, there’s no timeline revealed on the new limousine, though a Secret Service spokesperson told Reuters, “Our engineering, protective operations, and technical security teams work for years to develop the state-of-the-art framework that is used to produce these highly advanced vehicles.”
From Grandpa mobiles to Caddy
Before the 1980s, the US Presidents were ferried around in Lincolns like Cosmopolitans, Continentals, and Town Cars, which had less somehow didn’t have the same menacing road presence as the Cadillacs.
In 1984, Ronald Reagan broke tradition by upgrading to a Cadillac Fleetwood, moving away from the previous vehicles, which came across as rejected cars from Bond movies. Since then, the White House and the Secret Service have not looked back. Since then, George Bush, Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Barrack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden have been chauffeured in custom Cadillacs.
