The Cadillac at the Rabin Center. Open parking, exposed to the weather. That's not how to preserve a historical exhibit (Photo: Surfers' Photos, Gustavo Matos)
The wounded Rabin is put into a Cadillac and evacuated to Ichilov, seconds after the assassination (Photo: AP)
At the beginning of 1995, the Shin Bet's personal security unit made a precedent-setting decision: to transfer the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to an armored vehicle. Until then, Israel's prime ministers drove in ordinary American cars, almost always from popular brands, while from the 80s it was the Chevrolet Caprice.
But in the mid-90s, the Shin Bet identified an increase in the level of threat to the prime minister following the signing of the Oslo Accords, and it was decided to purchase for him for the first time a car that could protect him from gunfire, as was already customary in securing many leaders abroad. On August 14, 1995, a protected Cadillac Fleetwood, the flagship of the American luxury brand, was registered for traffic in Israel and was added to the Prime Minister's Office's vehicle database.
The public was exposed to it when the extreme right-wing activist at the time, and the Minister of National Security today, Itamar Ben-Gvir, was photographed with the symbol he managed to remove from the car, promising: "A symbol is a symbol, and just as we reached this symbol, we will also reach Rabin."
On November 4, 1995, Rabin arrived at the peace rally at Kings of Israel Square in Tel Aviv in a Cadillac. Menachem Damti, his driver, waited with her to pick him up at the end of the rally. Immediately after Yigal Amir's shooting, the security guards rushed to put the wounded Rabin in the car, and Damati rushed him to Ichilov Hospital, in what would be the last trip of the prime minister's life.
Gustavo Matos, who coordinates Cadillac collectors in Israel under the Club of 5, was horrified when he ran into her while touring the center. "The objects inside the museum have a conservation budget," he says. "But so far not for this car, why don't you see an item here that deserves to be displayed historically?"
The symbol, literally, is spoken in epoxy (Photo: Surfers' Photos, Gustavo Matos)
After the assassination, the car continued to serve Shimon Peres when he replaced Rabin in the Prime Minister's Office, and later served current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his first term and Ehud Barak in his only term.
After several incarnations, the car whose vehicle license lists "the State of Israel" as the owner was neglected. Since then, for several years, the Rabin Center has submitted requests to the Government Vehicle Administration in order to make the car displayed on the spot. In 2005, the state agreed to transfer the car, which, according to testimonies from that time, was already in poor condition to the center.
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Rot popping out of doors (Photo: Surfers' Photos, Gustavo Matos)
A year later, in May 2006, the car arrives at UMI, Cadillac's importer to Israel, headed by Maj. Gen. (res.) Avihu Ben-Nun, and donated the first renovation of the car. After the renovation that lasted a year and a half, on December 11, 2007, she moved to the Yitzhak Rabin Center.
This is what Col. (res.) Yossi Lachmani, Director General of the Rabin Center, said about her when he received it: "The Cadillac that drove Prime Minister Rabin to the rally from which he did not return is an important historical exhibit, and we at the Yitzhak Rabin Center are proud to have been given the opportunity to display it, as part of preserving the memory of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The Cadillac will be one of dozens of exhibits, photos and activities that will be concentrated in the center and serve the goals of the Rabin Center for Education for Democracy and Citizenship of Israeli students, soldiers and policemen."
The engine compartment, pay attention to the fire extinguisher at the front (Photo: Surfers' Photos, Gustavo Matos)
However, since those solemn declarations and despite attempts to preserve the car, displaying a vehicle in a way that preserves it amounts to more than its position in shaded parking and periodic washing. Indeed the condition of the car today as seen in the pictures and depicted by an airplane is bad.
"I found him in bad shape. Opening the hood took me half an hour, people were messing with the car at some point," said Matos, who spotted rot in the vehicle starting to show on the door thresholds and widespread rust on the surface of its 8.5-litre V7 engine.
The Rabin Center said: "Recognizing the importance of its presentation, the Cadillac vehicle located at the Yitzhak Rabin Center will move in the coming year to an interior foyer that recently received, after years of effort, an occupancy permit. In the meantime, the vehicle is guarded and handled by the center's staff with the utmost attention and sense of mission in the best way possible. The vehicle has already undergone a massive overhaul by Cadillac's importer to Israel."
Not the ideal place for conservation (Photo: Surfers' Photos, Gustavo Matos)
The restored Lincoln, as displayed at Weizmann House in Rehovot. Why doesn't Rabin's Cadillac get such preservation? (Photo: Documentation on social networks according to section 27A of the Copyright Law, Weizmann House in Rehovot)
"My vision is to restore it to a perfect travel condition, to bring it out into a live exhibit and a passenger commemorating Rabin," Matos says. However, as things currently stand, the chances of that happening are not high. Unless the relevant parties are mobilized again.
22 years ago, on July 11, 2001, the armored Lincoln car of the first president, Chaim Weizmann, was returned in honor. The car, which is the only one of its kind in the world, underwent many hardships, including being dumped as scrap outside the Weizmann Institute, the first round of renovation in 1974, and decades later, when its condition deteriorated again, it was transferred to another thorough overhaul by the manufacturer itself and at the initiative of Delek Motors, Ford's importer to Israel. The cost of the renovation was about $200,350 at the time, which today is equivalent to about $<>,<>. Delek also funded a special display structure for the vehicle, which helps preserve it.
The Cadillac is in much better condition than the Lincoln before restoration, so the cost of restoration and preservation will be significantly cheaper. Will Yitzhak Rabin's Cadillac suffer the same fate? Time will tell if this commemorative glove is donated again.
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