The SST Car Show crew ran into Reece Mail in Wallaceburg Ontario this past week, and she shared an interesting tale of President Dwight Eisenhower's Cadillac. Ike was of course a General during World War II and the car was a staff car used during his War years. Reece told SST Car Show Host Rick Walker that she was at a Car Show a couple years back, and a museum curator happened to pull up beside her in Ike's Caddy...a car that is normally only seen inside a museum. Reece was beside herself because Ike's car was beside her and her husband's Caddy...and the couple is Cadillac Crazy. They own two and had them on display along with pictures and memorabilia proving that their cars really were in the presence of President Eisenhower's old staff car. What follows here is the full interview with Reece!
QUESTION AND ANSWER WITH:
REECE MAIL
Tell everybody your name.
I'm Reece Mail from Chatham Ontario and my husband is Bruce and we own an 89' Cadillac and we own a 88' Cadillac and in the year 2002 we came to Wallaceburg, Friday night to the WAMBO cruize and we parked at the top of the hill and all of a sudden this great big hulking thing came regally down the highway. Turned around, came up the hill, backed up and parked beside us.
Dwight Eisenhower's 1942 Cadillac
And this car was a special car. It happened to be general Eisenhower's 1942 Cadillac. With stars on the trunk and on the side door and had a bullet hole in the corner window in the front at the driver side. And there was a photograph of a 1942 Cadillac coming off the end of the line with all the employees around it. And we talked to the man that drove it and he said they were on a special tour and so we were lucky to get this chance to see it and for WAMBO to have them to come was special.
So this is a big car show here in the town of Wallaceburg and so you would never expect something like that to happen because this is general Eisenhower's Cadillac. This is probably second to MacArthur, the most famous U.S. general in history, from World War Two and there's his car which is extra special for you because you are a Cadillac owner.
My brother in-law worked at Cadillac and his father worked in the design department in Cadillac and his grandfather worked at Cadillac so we have kind of a Cadillac history.
Reece's Cadillac on the right, Dwight Eisenhower's Cadillac to the left.
So here's the pictures to prove it. So here's Eisenhower's Cadillac. There's yours and parked right over there is Eisenhower's Cadillac. And there's a bullet hole in it?
There was a round bullet hole in that corner glass.
Why were you shooting at him?
(Laughing) Yeah sure.
Well these are beautiful cars that you have, so what are they?
This is a 89' Fleetwood Cadillac Chrome Delegance and this was the last car in 89' to come off the line and the lady that bought it worked at Cadillac and she could have put a gold grille on or a chrome grille on. She put the chrome grille on but wouldn't it have been nice if it was gold. She turned it in for a truck. She still loves it. She asks about it all the time but we were able to get it second hand and he's loved it ever since and then we started showing them as soon as they would let 89' and 88' Cadillac's come to the car shows, then we started which was in 2003.
And I see here you've got some awards, these are awards from, what's Lazy Days Promotions?
Well that was a show they had at that park along the river in Chatham, where they used to hold Heritage Days. They had a small car show there and they had a whole bunch of people looking at it and then they decided to award him this thing.
And what's this Cadillac over here? You brought two of them today.
Yeah this is an 88' and it's different because you don't have to turn the keys to open the windows, it's wired directly to the battery so I can turn the windows up and down without starting the car. And it has new shocks several years ago because they all of a sudden went and the car was riding high in the back end and then we put new shocks on it and it rides nice now. And we had headliners in both of them cause the headliners go.
Yeah the foam starts to rot and then you have to put in new ones but there's nothing to compare to this experience you've had with the general and what was that? A 1942 Cadillac? I didn't even know they were still producing Cadillac's in 42' because car production was pretty much put on hold during the war.
That's what they told me and my brother didn't correct me and he worked at Cadillac.
Well I'm not a bonafide historian, so don't take my word for it but it's certainly from the 40's anyway so that's very cool. Thank you very much for sharing the story and enjoy the rest of the show.
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