Would a Bubble-top Have Saved Kennedy? More Answers From the Strange Story of JFK's Lincoln Limo

Editor's note: This story was originally published May 5, 2013. We're bringing it back to coincide with the release of federal documents as part of the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act.President Barack Obama's hulking black limousine -- all 15,000 pounds of it -- reportedly carries on-board systems for fresh oxygen. It carries bottles of blood of the president's type: AB negative. It also carries an ungainly nickname: "The Beast." Or, as Matt Anderson, curator of transportation for The Henry Ford museum in Dearborn, Mich., describes it: "A tank with a Cadillac badge." The blast-resistant car rolls on tires reinforced with Kevlar. The rear doors are 8 inches thick and as heavy as the massive, main-cabin door of a Boeing 757.In contrast, the open-top car that President John F. Kennedy waved from on a sunny day in Dallas, Nov. 22, 1963, could not have been more different. That car was fashioned from a stock 1961 Lincoln Continental four-door convertible — retail price $7,347 — that had rolled off the assembly line at parent company Ford's plant in Wixom, Mich.  Continue reading...