I was driving home from the office this evening (yeah, yeah, I know — I prefer to think of it as Arizona taxpayers getting good value for money) and I saw this enormous Ron Paul Revolution limousine thing go by. It was as long as a semi. Arizona is McCain country, but there are also plenty of libertarians out here, too, and many of them are even opposed to state-sponsored torture. So it makes sense that Paul is doing a bit of campaigning in the vicinity.
Naturally, there’s a website. Now that I look at the photo, it seems that it’s more a glorified pickup-truck camper attachment than a limo as such. It seems like there should be a joke there about Paul’s candidacy, or libertarianism, but it’d probably be too much of a — well, you know.
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Rebecca 01.21.08 at 3:56 am
One of the biggest adjustment I’ve had since I moved to AZ is the fact that for a red state it has a very libertarian vibe. I attribute it to the “old west” thing that had them genuinely arguing about whether to allow loaded guns in bars when I got here.
eric 01.21.08 at 4:07 am
It’s funny that the Ron Paul Limo web page has an ad for John McCain.
Colin Danby 01.21.08 at 5:33 am
I want to regulate it.
bi 01.21.08 at 7:38 am
“It seems like there should be a joke there about Paul’s candidacy, or libertarianism”
Abolish torture, pollute the air… Viva la revolucion!
Or something.
Bob B 01.21.08 at 10:39 am
In Britain, stretched limousines have dodgy connections, according to this report in The Times:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2494824,00.html
Just thought you would like to know.
GreatZamfir 01.21.08 at 10:57 am
Did anyone see the Top gear show with stretched cars?
They have home-made stretch limos made from Fiat Panda’s, and held together mainly by duct tape. Then they proceed to use these to bring (very, very minor) VIPs to the MTV Awards or something resembling it. They get lost, stuck in corners and one of the cars breaks down the middle, but keeps on driving. In the mean time, the ‘VIPs’, who were clearly hoping for some free publicity, realize they are going to be late, or arrive in an embarassing way, or not arrive at all.
If youe ever thought that hiring a limo was a stylish idea, this is a good cure.
On the other hand, the Ron Paul trailer-limo looks both well-made and a lot more practical than most strech limos. I wonder when this model is going to show up in P. Diddy clips.
novakant 01.21.08 at 11:45 am
once you’ve seen a girl in cheap skimpy clothes standing next to one of those puking her heart out, the glamour factor will be severely diminished
GreatZamfir 01.21.08 at 11:49 am
You mean there stretch limos once had a glamour factor?
MR. Bill 01.21.08 at 11:51 am
Passed a stretch humvee on a scenic road the other day. I nearly wrecked, laughing.
Ginger Yellow 01.21.08 at 11:51 am
The sociology of the limo would be quite a fascinating subject for study. I get the impression that they are still considered high status in the US, but here in class conscious Britain the phenomenon of “[h]ordes of young people hiring stretch limos for a party night”, as the Times delicately puts it, has thoroughly undermined the perceived classiness of limos.
GreatZamfir 01.21.08 at 12:24 pm
Ginger yellow: I guess the problem in Britain is not just that low-status use them, but more that high-status people do not. As long as the president, CEOs and not-entirely-ridiculous rap stars keep driving in them, the copying behaviour of teenagers is just prove that stretches are something to aspire to.
But in countries where the roads have more corners than in the US (that’s the rest of the world, I guess), no high-status person in his right mind would drive one.
Ginger Yellow 01.21.08 at 12:31 pm
Sure, but don’t you think part of the reason high status people don’t use them in Britain is because low status people do? See Brad DeLong’s posts on the utility value of exclusivity.
Jon Mandle 01.21.08 at 12:44 pm
Are there many self-professed libertarians who are opposed to abortion, and make – as far as I can tell from his website – no exceptions? That’s not being snarky – I’m curious.
It’s much more snarky to point out that on the same page that he says that “Life begins at conception … but, I do not believe this should be a federal issue” he also notes “In Congress, I have authored legislation that seeks to define life as beginning at conception, HR 1094.”
John Emerson 01.21.08 at 1:51 pm
I get the impression that they are still considered high status in the US, but here in class conscious Britain the phenomenon of “[h]ordes of young people hiring stretch limos for a party nightâ€, as the Times delicately puts it, has thoroughly undermined the perceived classiness of limos.
On the West coast of the US too, I think.
GreatZamfir 01.21.08 at 2:50 pm
Sure, but don’t you think part of the reason high status people don’t use them in Britain is because low status people do? See Brad DeLong’s posts on the utility value of exclusivity.
No, I don’t think they were ever in use, not even when renting super-stretched limos was still unknown. I would say the really high-status limo is not the superlong partylimo for popstars, but the ‘executive’ limo that is stretched enough to have opposing seats in the back, so you can have ‘meetings’ in the back.
These appear to be really in use in the US among important people, even if more for show than for real utility. The rest of the world has limited itself to BMWs and Mercedeses that are stretched a some inches to give extra legroom in the back, but not enough to have opposing seats.
Ginger Yellow 01.21.08 at 4:03 pm
Oh sure, I don’t think the really long ones (or stretch Hummers) were ever more than a gimmicky thing. But even normal “executive limos” are now considered chavvy in the UK.
Bruce Baugh 01.21.08 at 4:05 pm
Jon, re #13: If I had to guess, I’d say that about a quarter of politically active libertarians (that is, those who actually vote as opposed to just whinging online) are anti-abortion in some significant way. Ron Paul’s position is very much not the prevailing libertarian wisdom, but it’s also something every libertarian who does anything political encounters from time to time.
albertchampion 01.22.08 at 6:47 am
well, this is quite silly. long before limos were commonplace in the usa, the brits were using them. i can recall arriving at heathrow in 1973 and being picked up by smiths industries in the division bentley.
and in 1976, air france shuttled me from orly to charles de gaulle in a citroen pallas athena.
and just think of flying into hong kong. and staying at the peninsula. routinely greeted at kai tak and ferried to the hotel in royces.
no big deal about limos. second nature to me now.
Ginger Yellow 01.22.08 at 4:18 pm
Bentleys and Rolls Royces don’t really count as limos. They’re classic luxury cars (not a value judgement but a description, by the way). We’re talking about stretched cars with backfacing seats – the “executive limo” or longer as described above.
ed_finnerty 01.23.08 at 3:26 am
“I was driving home from the office this evening (yeah, yeah, I know—I prefer to think of it as Arizona taxpayers getting good value for money)”
typical of you environmental hypocrites – it’s always up to someone else to suffer the outrages of transit
MFB 01.23.08 at 11:47 am
But does it have a Carrera marble floor? And a Jacuzzi?
PersonFromPorlock 01.25.08 at 2:15 am
Good heavens, you’ve all missed the point! The ‘Revolution’ limousine isn’t a stretch limo, it’s a blue-collar joke about stretch limos.
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