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Meet the next president's new Beast, a giant bomb-proof limo

We don't know who will be our president in 2017, but now we have a better idea of how that person will be transported on land. The next presidential limo, officially referred to as the presidential state car, will be another Cadillac. And a big one. You're looking at a lone spy photo of a car that will be of high interest to actual spies – not to mention Secret Service agents and lots of law-enforcement types. President Obama has been riding around in a Cadillac nicknamed The Beast for a while now. (It recently made an appearance on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.) Over the Secret Service radios, it goes by Cadillac One and Limo One. While the current car looks like a stretched Cadillac DTS sedan, it's actually kind of huge and built on a Chevrolet Kodiak medium-duty truck chassis. The same is likely to be true again, but this one will look a lot more like the latest Cadillac models. Through the camo we can see a front end reminiscent of the new CT6 large sedan. Imagine one of those scaled to about 5/3 of the production car and you've got the right idea. Fun fact: It will be the first presidential limo to feature Caddy's new wreathless crest logo on its grille. View 6 Photos As for features, we're in the dark and will remain so even after the new president-mover goes into service. The details are a legitimate matter of national security, but you can bet it's bulletproof, can withstand small bombs, and has some kind of onboard secondary air supply in case of a chemical or biomedical warfare attack. Oh, and it has that big red phone in back in the event things get really bad. The new one will no doubt carry the latest communications and safety technology. The new presidential limousine has been in the works for some time. The government sent out a request for proposals in 2013, and this model is expected to go into service sometime in 2017. Chances are it will make its debut at the inauguration of [INSERT CONTROVERSIAL NAME HERE] in about a year's time. Related Video:

One of the world's largest muscle car museums is auctioning off its cars

Rick Treworgy's Muscle Car City is one of the biggest collections of high-performance American cars in the world. With over 200 cars of mostly GM makes, it's a mecca for fans of the golden age of Detroit iron. Unfortunately, the museum will be shutting its doors for good on Jan. 17 and auctioning off most of its assets with no reserve. The collection is, to put it bluntly, astounding. Advertised as a combined 65,000-plus horsepower, it occupies a 60,000-square-foot retail space in Punta Gorda, Fla., in a former Walmart store. It make sense when you learn that founder Rick Treworgy made his fortune in the commercial real estate business. As a hobby, he began to amass a truly jaw-dropping collection of muscle cars, filling out a collection that often has every year of a particular model represented, or a grouping of the rarest and highest-performance option packages of that year or model. Often, Treworgy bought placeholders while scouring the country for even rarer versions. It helps that Muscle Car City also houses a showroom where unwanted cars are sold, as well as its own speed shop that stocks plenty of parts. There's even a '50s-style diner called Stingray's Bar and Grill. According to a 2014 episode of Car Crazy, Treworgy has 80 Corvettes alone, more than the actual Corvette Museum. Among them are 20 models from 1967, one of Treworgy's favorites. The rest span the decades from 1954 (he once had a '53 but sold it) to a recently acquired 2020 C8, which, according to The Drive, has only 300 miles on the odometer. You like Impalas? There are models of every year from 1958 to 1969. El Caminos? He's got 'em from 1964 to 1972. Novas? Every year from 1963 to 1970 is represented. Most are the more desirable examples of each breed, with four-speed transmissions, the biggest blocks, and unicorn option packages like a factory 1965 Z16 SS396 Chevelle, one of 200 that were ordered off-menu at Chevy dealerships. And don't even get us started on the Camaros, which include not one, but two COPO 1969s. Treworgy even owns the only known surviving example of a 1936 Chevrolet Phaeton, of which only seven were built. On top of it all, many of these cars are concours quality and have won awards at prestigious car shows. While it's sad to see a collection like this broken up, Treworgy told The Drive that he'd been planning to retire next year anyway. However, the COVID-19 pandemic sped up those plans, greatly reducing the number of visitors to his museum.

GM winding down Chevrolet brand in Europe

If you've taken even a cursory look at GM's European strategy and wondered how it can target the market there with both Chevrolet and Opel/Vauxhall, you're not alone. In fact General Motors itself has found it difficult to justify the two-pronged approach. That's why it's essentially pulling Chevy from the European marketplace.
Instead of trying to ply European buyers with what are mostly former Daewoo products rebadged as Chevys, GM will now let Opel (or Vauxhall in the UK) represent its mass-market aspirations. Chevrolet will keep its presence in Russia and other former Soviet markets, and will continue selling certain niche products in Eastern and Western Europe. The Corvette, for example, has long been sold in Europe through Cadillac dealerships, which for its part is currently "finalizing plans for expanding in the European market".
While the shift in strategy is expected to help GM get a stronger foothold in the European market in the long run, in the short term the restructuring will cost it dearly: between $700 million and $1 billion, according to its own estimates, split between the last quarter of this year and the first half of the next. Jump into the full press release below for more.