President Obama’s Cadillac limousine, nicknamed “The Beast”, broke down during the first day of the U.S. leader’s official visit to Israel. Something similar happened two years ago, when the presidential limousine was stuck on a ramp while exiting the U.S. Embassy in Dublin, Ireland.
This time, the Cadillac limousine’s engine stopped running in the middle of the motorway between Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport and Jerusalem. The mishap was reportedly caused by a rather embarrassing mistake. It appears that someone from the Secret Service has filled the car’s tank with…diesel fuel instead of gasoline gasoline instead of diesel!
At least this is what Israeli media reported, including Channel 2 television station. Fortunately for Barack Obama, the Cadillac broke down before he landed in Tel Aviv, so he was spared the embarrassment of being stranded on the motorway looking for a ride. The U.S. President traveled from the airport to Jerusalem by helicopter as scheduled, with another car being flown in from Jordan to drive him around the city.
Meanwhile, the stalled car was towed by a local company. The owner said the U.S. Consulate called him to ask him to recover the vehicle.
“They told me that this was Obama’s car,” the owner of the company, Moti Matmon, told the Daily Telegraph. “They didn’t say what had happened to it. They just said it had got stuck. Only the mechanic was there when I arrived. The driver had left in another car. The whole thing was very funny.”
The limo is now being repaired, with a spokesman for the Secret Service saying the cause of the fault is unknown. Well, maybe the car doesn’t like trips abroad that much…
At least now people all over the world feeding their cars the wrong fuel have the perfect excuse: “It happened to Obama’s limo, too.”
Correction: A previous version of this story said that the limo was gasoline powered and was fed diesel. As it turns out, it’s the other way around as the “Beast” features a diesel unit and the secret service agent used gasoline fuel.
By Dan Mihalascu
Story References: Daily Telegraph via Autoblog , Photo Credits: 2424
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