me?

["Mahoney, John" <jmahoney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

*While the dual-cowl concept   

http://www.joesherlock.com/LeMay.html

never became a real AMC, the real Ambassador limousine does have a real
relationship to one of the real Popemobiles.  The 1964 Lincoln
Lehmann-Peterson conversion started its drive to fame as a stretched
Continental that Ford drivers had [accidentally] crashed during testing.
Both ends were totaled but the reinforced center section was undamaged (as
Lincoln had had prior experience in taking Nash-style unit body construction
to [131"] extremes...) and the coachbuilder had always wanted to build
Lincoln landau limo.  On went new-style front and rear fenders; off came
about 75% of the roof (in 1950 Rambler Landau style, obviously) --- the
result was ready to haul His Holiness around New York (would he rather have
seen the Fair from a new Ford Mustang?), several US cities in 1965 (when it
also flew several US astronauts) and in South America (a very interesting
feat of engineering to make sure the high-comp, lead-loving, big-block V-8
would run [creep!] reliably at the 8,500 foot altitudes: send along a
Detroit crew and borrow some [Colombian] Air Force fuel!)

This particular Chicago-built limo, looking a little less than "lovely"
today (and beside a Grosser [Pullman] Mercedes, it looks even shabbier!)
resides in a French auto museum, but it suffered another gross indignity
before it retired.  That's how it crossed paths with a limousine by AMC.

After the Pope's second season of use, the car went back to Chicago and its
[elevating] "throne" seating was removed.  The rear compartment was
re-configured for "normal" parade purposes (politicians, athletes, rock
stars and beauty queens) and re-upholstered.  The third set of skins for
this limousine.

Two years later, Chicago was hit: not with a new fire or a mob massacre, but
with a super-duper January snowstorm.  The L-P roof collapsed above where
the "Pope pieces" were being stored, so yet -another- interior had to be
sewn.  That 1968 interior replicated the 1964 one (in appearance), but it
had two "urp" (I imagine you remember childhood) seats instead of three.
The old built, built, and rebuilt battlewagon now had a console with rear
heat and a/c.

(If I ever get an AMC "position" it'll be "seated" - with heat and a/c!)

So did you guess what it had once "shared" with a real AMC limousine?

(It's "sew" easy, it isn't necessary to declaim --- or even to scream...)