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and people were always astounded to think that this car was put back into service after the assassination. would you assume either that it was destroyed or perhaps locked away in a warehouse somewhere. but the simple fact is, the president needed to have a vehicle. president johnson at that point, and there simply wasn't time go back to the drawing board and build something from scratch. the most expeditious thing to do was to rebuild this car. that said, they thoroughly rebuilt it, stripped the car down to its bear frame and put tight tainium plating under the doors, there was a special filter put into the trunk there so that if there was a gas attack it would filter and take out harmful gas to protect the

president. and of course there was this large wrap around rear wind screen which at the time was the largest piece of bullet proof glass that had ever been made the. these cars from this tricky dual mission, they have to protect the president but then make him as visible as possible and it's tough to find the balance between those two things. we see the car now. we nlgts it's black instead of that elegant midnight blue that we think of when we think of president kennedy. and that's with done at the insistence of president johnson. he was in the motorcade that day and he was always very uncomfortable riding in this car for obvious reasons. one thing he insisted at the last minute was that the car be painted black. he thought the blue would be too associated with the tragedy in the public's mind. if we look at that time now we notice there's a hatch that's built into the roof that wasn't originally there. that was put there at the insistence of president nixon who wanted to be visible.

he wanted to get outside of this armored bubble and wave to crowds. so that was put in. there's this constant sort of strain between the president and his protecters. the president wants to be seen. very much they thrive on that interaction with the public and the secret service would like to have him hermetically sealed but you can't have that. another issue with the car that i don't think they ever got right, with all that glass and roof, it the good very hot in that car. and of course the original air-conditioning which just ran off the vents in the front wouldn't be sufficient to keep a car of this size cool so they added a second air-conditioning to the trunk to add more power to it but it could be sweltering hot in that car. but this car was used through 1977 into the carter administration. it was no longer the primary presidential vehicle in the '70s but it might be used by the president if the primary vehicle was unable to be used.

and then it came here to the hentry ford museum of innovation pirt should point out too, these cars at this time were not purchased outright by the white house or the secret service. they just didn't have the budget at that time to be being expensive vehicles like this. they were leased to the white house by lincoln for a nominal sum each year. and lincoln thought it was worth because they got tremendous public blisity to. and typically they would have a ten, 15 service year life at most. and the problem with these cars is that at a certain point they get too dated. this car which looked very modern in 1961 looked decidedly out of fashion by the mid 1970. a that point it had to be retired and then there was a new presidential vehicle that was the primary vehicle, and that's the one question lowe can look . we're being loog now in the last of our series of presidential vehicles here at henry ford

museum of innovation. this is a 1972 lincoln konltmental built for nixon and used by every subsequent president through george h.w. bush, the first president bush. this car represents the final step in the evolution of presidential transportation. we've gone from the carriage which belonged to teddy roosevelt, moved up through the sunshine special, and then lincoln's transitional cars, the point where the cars are built as unarmored, just standard lincoln's modified, perhaps stretched a little but no other changes than that. this was a car built from the ground up as an armored vehicle. it was designed to provide maximum coverage of the president. you have one flat tires which are reinforced with steel inside so if the tire gets punk tured the vehicle can still drive away to safety. this car built for president nixon and became the primary cav after 1972 but it is most often

associated with president reagan. he was shot in 1981. he survived, of course, though it was very close. it was more dangerous than perhaps we realized at the time. and this is the car in which he was getting after he made the speech to that union at the washington hilton when he was shot. and it's almost ironic, as the president was getting into the car, more properly being pushed into the car by secret service agents, he was actually hit not by a direct bullet but by a bullet that ricochetted off of one of the armor pan heels of this car. s it waya perfect shot, the rick crochet went between the gapping and the door and the body. so had things moved an inch one way or the other it's quite possible he may not have been hit at all. he was pushed into this car and sped off to the hospital and was able to make a recovery. the car continued to use, any damage it received that day would have been minor. that's something we don't think about. we think about them as being glamorous but they lived rough lives. they were being pushed in airplanes all the time, strapped

down, banged up and skraxd, they were sometimes getting hit by paint, rocks, stones by protesters. it's part of the american way of life. we are free to speak our minds and protest and these cars would have been on the front lines of it. of course they did get a lot of care. the secret service had a garage located near the white house where they could repaint them, wash them, all of those kinds of things and keep them until top condition. but even with that, the cars did simply just age after a certain point. they fell out of fashion, the styling looked too dated. this is a car, in fact, if you look at photos of it you'll see that the front end looks quite different from what it looks like today. they changed the front end to try to make it look a little more current. whenever they could, they would fry do that to keep these cars fresh. but at a certain point they looked too dated as this one did by the early 1990s. some of these car are associated not just with the president easy but with some of the passengers that they carried with them in these cars. and really almost world leader or dignitary could you think of from the middle part of the 20th scentry would have ridden in one of these cars.

we think of the roosevelt's sunshine special, he had winston church gls hi chur churchill, queen elizabeth, and of course any number of dignitaries would have been in these more vent cars too. so being in the presidential cars is a real perk and a real kind of point of pride for folks and anyone from perhaps a big city mayor to someone in the congress who the president is trying to woo in order to get legislation passed might be given a ride in this car just as air force one is treated as a real perk today and something the president uses to get people there and sway them to vote he's might wish them to. this car is several decades old alleged t and the fact is the cars aren't going to museums

anymore. part of that is because they're not build just one primary car they're building several copies of the primary parade car so there are more of them out there and these cars ever really destroyed at the end of the service life. that's partly perhaps to keep the technology from falling into the wrong hands but to test the effectiveness of the armor against different and more modern weapons. so it's rare to see them in museums anymore. and we may not get anymore either. of course we got these vehicles from the lincoln motor company. they were leased to the white house by lincoln and when the lease expired and when the cars became too dated, lincoln then took the cars back and turned around and gave them to us for which we're grateful. now the cars are provided by cadillac and they're purchased out right by the white house. they remain the property of the government do with as they see fit. visitors always have questions. the question they ask all the time is this the car that he was

really assassinated? because it's hard to believe that it would have been put back into service and used for several more years. it is, it was simply a matter of time, they needed a car for the president so it was faster to rebuild that one than start from scratch. they ask about the reagan car are you see what looks like a spoiler on the back. does this car have a spoiler like a sports car or something? that's actually a happened rail for secret service agents. the bump every folds down, that lifts up from the trunk for them to hold on to when they're riding with the president in the parade. i think people think they're assuming they're something james bond might drive. it's pretty basic. there might be pa system? there with a microphone could the president can talk to the crowd, a phone might be in there so he can make a few phone calls, but that's about it. they were just trons partation vehicles, they were designed to

serve a purpose to get the president where he was going and allow him to be scene in parades. beyond that the technology was really fairly basic. if i had to pick a favorite car of these, i suppose it's the one a lot of people would pick. but i think of the kennedy car as being of a favorite of mine because that represents two worlds of presidential transport. you have what starts as a modified lincoln. it's been stretched and given a slightly larger enbegin but beyond that it's like a car did you buy from any dealer. after the assassination it's completely rebuilt into an armored vehicle with the titanium plate, with steel plating underneath to protect from grenades. that's a car that represents this changing moment where we have to start thinking about protection for our presidents. it's surprising that it took that long and something that tragic to make that realization happen. of course president lincoln had been assassinated into the 1860s. it seemed to be for a time we thought these were distractions, people wouldn't harm the

president, it couldn't happen again and unfortunately it did several times even before president kennedy was asas nated. i would pick that one. i do like sunshine special because it is so associated with president roosevelt and so perfect for his sunny optimism even during the darkest years the depression. he loved that car very much. e joyed riding in it, always insisted on riding with the top down. they're both charismatic leaders and they loved to be able to reach out, shake hands, they had to feel connected with the public. they did get a lot of energy out of that. so both of those cars are really associated with both of those leaders. our presidential limousines are here at the museum and all of them have been on the floor from the day we've got them and remained on the floor. that car we left off of display just out of respect for the tragedy osht associated with it. but it's been on the floor since the late '70s.

they're some of the first things people see because they're some of the first things people are looking for. they know they're here and they want to see them. i always have fun seeing people posing with pictures for these cars. in fact, a few years ago when we commemorated the 50th an rers i have of the kennedy assassination we moved it up to the front so it was closer to the museum and that was one of the most remarkable days in my professional career seeing people lined up out the door and waiting for an hour or more just to spend a few minutes with that car. and they left flowers, they left cards, they left notes. it really kind of shows how these are real physical, tangible links to our own memories and our own personal experiences. and i think that's what's makes these cars so special. you can watch this and other american artifacts programs by visiting our website at cspan.org/history. the conservative political action conference is meeting

this week at maryland's national harbor. president trump will also be speaking at c pac this morning. other speakers include kellyanne conway and the head of the fcc. that's live at just past 10:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. a bipartisan group of governors will unveil their blueprint for improving the nation's health system. we'll hear from ohio governor john kasich. colorado governor hiccan looper and alaska governor bill walker. live starting at 2:00 p.m. on c-span 2. sunday on c-span's q&a, duke divinity school talks about her memoir, everything happens for a reason. reflecting on being diagnosed with stage four colon cancer at the age of 35. >> i felt the presence of god. i felt the love of other people. i mean, just people pouring in, the intense all the intense prayers. i mean, the second i got sick, my whole little community got

together in a chappell and just prayed like marathon runners for me like handing off through outny whole surgery. part of it was them reflecting back to me love but also the sense that my hope is that as you're preparing to die like i was having to make preparations, that someone or something meets you there. and i certainly felt that way. >> q&a sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span. monday on c-span's landmark cases, we'll look at the supreme court case mccull lock v. maryland, the case that solidified them to take action not specifically against the constitution and the state action use of this power. explore the was with university of virginia associate law proffer fara peterson and mark kill len