Al Capone's Cadillac Headed for the Auction Block
Gangster's V8-powered 1928 Town Sedan is one of the oldest surviving bulletproof vehicles.
By Joshua Condon Fri 7:24 AM
Next weekend in Michigan, the personal vehicle used by perhaps the most famous of American gangsters will cross the auction block.Al "Scarface" Capone's 1928 Cadillac V8 Town Sedan is expected to fetch between $300,000 and $500,000 at the RM Auctions St. John sale in Plymouth on July 28. The vehicle is said to be one of the oldest surviving bulletproof vehicles, with 3,000 pounds of armor plating and inch-thick glass in the windows. There's also a circular cutout section to accommodate a machine gun, and the rear window was set up to quickly release downward for unobstructed firing on any pursuing vehicles.
Those aren't the only tricks Capone had up his sleeve when it came to his car. The Cadillac was modeled after the same vehicles that Chicago police drove during the 1920s and '30s, even incorporating a regulation police siren, flashing lights and a police-band radio receiver.
Adding to the vehicle's mystique is that Capone wasn't the only famous name to occupy it. After the notorious mobster's conviction for tax evasion in 1931, the car was seized by the Treasury Department, which loaned it out to the White House a decade later when President Franklin D. Roosevelt traveled to the Capitol to persuade Congress to declare war on Japan. Fearing an assassination attempt, the president took the trip in Capone's own armored car.For more information, visit RM Auctions here.
[Source: RM Auctions.]
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