PRESIDENTIAL LIMO RESTORED FOR PUBLIC VIEWING.

Byline: Scott Lindlaw Associated Press

Four years after President Kennedy was assassinated in an open car, the designers of a new presidential limousine got their orders: Build a rolling fortress for President Johnson.

The result, an 11,000-pound, 22-foot-long modified Lincoln Continental, safely shuttled U.S. presidents until it was retired in 1978. Tuesday, it rumbled to what could be its final stop at the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace in Yorba Linda.

Presidential limos are flown wherever the chief executive goes, and Nixon used the car code-named ``800-X'' in 32 countries, including his peace-making visits to China and the Soviet Union.

``It's actually a piece of the history of the Cold War,'' said library director John Taylor.

Once, Nixon made a pilgrimage in the car to the house where he was born, near where the museum now stands. The car will stay in front of the house until a permanent site is found, said library spokesman Kevin Cartwright.

Ford Motor Co. restored the car earlier this year and donated it to the library, putting it out to pasture with just 54,000 miles on the odometer.

``It's still very much a working vehicle,'' he said.

Asked how the library will maintain the engine while the car sits, Cartwright said, ``We might have to give it a presidential tuneup now and then. You never know when (former Presidents) Ford or Carter might want to take a ride in it.''

Carter, in fact, was the last president to ride in the car that has windows thicker than a phone book. That trip was 21 years after Ford Motor Co. first leased it to the White House for $1 a year.

In 1967 the automaker handed the car over to Lehmann-Peterson, a Chicago firm specializing in customizing Lincolns. The company cut the Continental in half and inserted a new center section, expanding it from the standard 18 feet long to nearly 22 feet.

Lehmann-Peterson spared no expense, loading the car with sheet metal and gadgets that beefed it up from its stock weight of 5,049 pounds to 11,000. The final price tag was $500,000.

Among the car's features:

Two tons of armor plating.

Bulletproof windows thicker than that used in fighter planes.

Truck tires with inner steel discs capable of being driven up to 50 mph with all four tires flat.

Microphones in the side-view mirrors for listening to crowds from within.

Headphone jacks for two-way communications with Secret Service agents.

Exterior lights for illuminating presidential and U.S. flags on the hood.

Hydraulic fold-out rear bumper and handle for transporting agents.

It was delivered to President Johnson in 1968.

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Photo: The limousine built for President Lyndon B. Johnsonnow sits at the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace.

Associated Press