Product description
For more than a century, Czechoslovak and Czech presidents have been driving automobiles. This book attempts to map the diverse range of several hundred cars from two dozen domestic and foreign brands that have made a significant contribution to our history thanks to their users. In addition to well-known cars, it also commemorates some almost forgotten ones.
The founder of Czechoslovakia, TG Masaryk, not only drove Laurin and Klement, Praga, Škoda Hispano-Suiza and Tatra cars, but in 1919 also an Austrian limousine, Gräf und Stift.
In 1936, Edvard Beneš had an armored Praga Golden convertible built, in which he drove through liberated Prague after returning from exile in May 1945. In 1945 and 1947, he then purchased two English Daimler limousines. Emil Hácha served as the so-called state president in the German-controlled protectorate from November 1938, and in the summer of 1942, he received an armored Mercedes 770 from Berlin for his 70th birthday.
The eight-cylinder Daimler after Beneš was used by the first communist president, Klement Gottwald, from June 1948. However, he soon exchanged it for the domestic armored VOS. Antonín Zápotocký also drove the same one, then switched to Soviet ZIM and ZIS cars. Antonín Novotný was proud of Soviet ZIS and ZIL cars from 1957 to 1968, while his successor Ludvík Svoboda was content with the more modest GAZ 13 Čajka. From 1975 to 1989, Gustáv Husák, who ruled, enjoyed the comfort of a series of large ZIL cars, but did not disdain the Tatra 613 either.
The Velvet Revolution brought dissident Václav Havel to Prague Castle in December 1989, and his first presidential car was a Renault 21 TSE. The head of state's fleet also included BMW 7 Series limousines and Mercedes-Benz S 600. Václav Klaus's castle car was dominated by Audi from 2003 to 2013. President Miloš Zeman's decade belonged exclusively to the Škoda brand from 2013 to 2023, and his successor Petr Pavel prefers BMW 7 Series limousines.
The book is supplemented with technical descriptions of individual cars. The text is accompanied by two hundred mostly period photographs, some of which are published for the first time.
Published by Grada Publishing House, hardcover, format 21 x 25 cm, 160 pages.
ISBN 978-80-271-5354-1.
