The Cadillac remains a firm representation of American culture - loud, brash, hard to deal with and you can see them a mile away. Bruce Springsteen has sung about them, Clint Eastwood (above) has made a film on one and now Barack Obama's armoured car of choice is a heavily modified Caddy, built to withstand a bomb blast.

However the environmentally friendly president wants gas guzzlers outlawed excluding his own extremely heavy, armour plated model of course. Its classic legacy of slow, fuel-inefficient motors could be banished from streets recently painted green, and it's not just the relics either; even the relatively new Cadillac XLR 4.6 V8 only gets 13.2 mpg.