My Deep Dive Into That Limo Mess
Alright, so I kept seeing stuff online about what actually happened to Kennedy’s limo after he got shot. Wild theories, government secrets, all that jazz. Honestly? I didn’t have a clue. Figured it just vanished into some government warehouse, dusted off occasionally like a morbid museum piece. Time to actually dig in and see.
Started simple: Googled like crazy. “Kennedy limo after assassination.” Bam. Instant overload. Conspiracy sites screaming “It was destroyed!” mixed with official-looking pages saying it got fixed up. Who do you believe? Seriously. Clicked on like twenty different links, felt like going in circles. Every page seemed to contradict the last one.
Finally hit pay dirt buried in some old car forum, of all places. Some dude posted a photo – grainy as heck, black and white – showing what looked like the same limo, Secret Service guys standing next to it, but… the roof was different? Like, no bullet holes? Had to double-check against known shots from Dallas. Yeah, distinct roof line. Weird.
Turns out, they actually rebuilt the damn thing. Yeah, you heard that right. The car where the President got his brains blown out? They dragged it back to the factory, right to Hess & Eisenhardt – the coachbuilders who made it originally. Imagine that phone call. “Hey, uh, about that car… it needs some work. Major hail damage?” Nope. Just tried to scrub away history.
Here’s the kicker I found in official docs (took ages to find, pure luck):
- Ripped out the entire original interior. Bloodstains, bone fragments, yeah… gone.
- Replaced the busted windshield (the famous “magic bullet” hole).
- Rebuilt that entire rear section – roof, trunk lid, the works.
- Painted it up nice and shiny again. Good as new, right?
But it gets wilder. They kept using the car. Pure insanity. Put LBJ in it straight after Dallas! Seriously? Sat in the same spot? Then hauled Johnson, Nixon, even Ford around in it for years afterward. Passed it down like a creepy family heirloom. Regular people rode in it too, on White House tours! Unbelievable. Kept it rolling until the late 70s!
Why wouldn’t they just scrap it? That bugged me most. Kept digging. Seems it wasn’t just a car. It was THE Presidential limo, part of some super-secret government program codenamed “SS-100-X.” Way more armor-plated than anyone knew back then. Fancier than it looked. Too valuable, I guess. Sentimental value? Zero. Practicality? Apparently high. Still… gives you chills.
Eventually, someone woke up. Late 70s, Ford was President. They finally decided maybe cruising around in JFK’s hearse wasn’t great PR. Retired it. Sent it to the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan. Not hidden away. On display. Right there. With a little plaque explaining its “history.” They sorta mention the, you know, incident, but you gotta look close.
So, yeah. Far from being vanished or destroyed, that car got patched up like an old fender bender and kept doing its job for 15 more years. They literally tried to wash the history off it and pretend nothing happened. Guess it didn’t stick. Found the whole thing equal parts fascinating and just plain messed up.
