The most expensive world leaders’ cars: from the Queen’s £10m Bentley to Donald Trump’s Cadillac Beast
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It’s no secret that world leaders tend to be treated a little differently to the rest of us.
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Hide AdFrom luxury accommodation and bodyguards to personal chefs and private jets, they’re used to a little extra attention, and that includes in how they get around.
And funny as it is to imagine the Queen bashing around in a Ford Fiesta or Donald Trump slumming it in a pick-up truck, our heads of state tend to stick to more exclusive vehicles.
The US President, for example, eschews the Ford F-150 favoured by millions of his fellow Americans in favour of a £1.2 million stretched and armoured Cadillac nicknamed The Beast. Fitted with five-inch-thick bulletproof glass, its own oxygen supply and bags of the President’s blood type, it’s more than 20 feet long and weighs an estimated 10 tonnes.
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Hide AdAnd according to research by Motoreasy, the President’s limo costs a whopping 53 times that of America’s best-selling F-150.
(Graphic: Motoreasy)
However, that’s nothing compared to either North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un or our own Queen Elizabeth II.
Despite strict sanctions, North Korea’s dictator managed to import a Mercedes Maybach S600 Pullman into the country to use as his official transport. The heavily-armoured stretched limo is expensive by any nation’s standards but its £1.2m price tag means it’s worth 300 times more than the “popular” Gaz-24 Volga.
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Hide AdBut in terms of both outright cost and compared to the nation’s bestselling car, the Queen leads the way. Her bespoke Bentley State Limousines (she has two) cost a staggering £10m each thanks to their made-to-measure nature and the wealth of defences - such as Kevlar-reinforced tyres, blast-proof glass and a cabin that can be sealed against chemical attack. For the same price, she could have 610 Ford Fiesta Trends. Or 33 of Boris Johnson’s armoured Jaguar XJ Sentinals.
(Graphic: Motoreasy)
Other leaders not scared to splash the cash on their cars include Germany’s Angela Merkel, whose Audi A8 L Security costs £959,000, and China’s Xi Jinping whose Hongqi L5 costs an estimated £621,372. Vladimir Putin’s Aurus Senat costs a mere £440,000, but that’s more than 100 times more than Russia’s bestselling Lada Granta.
However, not every head of state spends a fortune. New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern makes do with a humble Hyundai Ioniq Electric that costs just £23,840 but for sheer parsimony, Uruguay’s former president Jose Mucija is famous for sticking with his trusty 1987 VW Beetle which, when he left office, was valued at less than £1,500.
(Graphic: Motoreasy)