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Autos

Presidential cars? Coolest rides here

By Charles Fleming
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With the battle for the Republican and Democratic nominations reaching fever pitch, no one is asking an essential question of the would-be Presidents: What will they drive?

We can’t guess, but several automobiles owned by past occupants of the White House may give some indications of what the next Commander in Chief might use to blast around the Beltway.

According to a poll by ClassicCars.com, which asked readers to vote for the coolest cars ever owned by a past President, the debonair Franklin Delano Roosevelt scored top honors for his 1932 Packard Phaeton.

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But the reserved Herbert Hoover, who served just before Roosevelt, was right after him in coolness. His 1932 Cadillac V16 was in second place.

Third? The coolest modern President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, with his 1961 Ford Thunderbird.

Check out the photo gallery for a fuller parade of Presidential rides, including cars owned and driven by Bill Clinton, Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and more.

Barack Obama’s Ford Escape Hybrid? That’s on the list, too -- at the bottom.

Twitter: @misterfleming

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Charles Fleming

Charles Fleming writes about automobiles and motorcycles for the Los Angeles Times’ Business section. He also writes the urban hiking column LA Walks. A former staff writer for Newsweek, Variety and the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, he is the author of the Los Angeles Times bestseller “High Concept: Don Simpson and the Hollywood Culture of Excess,” the New York Times bestseller “My Lobotomy,” and “Secret Stairs, A Walking Guide to the Historic Staircases of Los Angeles” and its sequel, “Secret Walks: A Walking Guide to the Hidden Trails of Los Angeles.”

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