“I am not just an honorary member of the Automobile and Motorcycle Association—I am an active member. In fact, I am its oldest member, because I passed my driving test back in 1912!” Josip Broz Tito often said. According to some historians, he learned to drive while working as a test driver for the Austrian company Austro-Daimler.
Approximately 290 automobiles are directly associated with Tito, including vehicles he personally drove, cars in which he was transported, and those used by his close security entourage. He had a particular passion for American automobiles, which—along with the Rolls-Royce Phantom V—were the only cars he personally drove. On the Brijuni Islands, he often used a Cadillac Eldorado convertible and a Lincoln Continental convertible to greet visiting dignitaries at the harbor and personally drive them to the presidential residence, introducing them to the beauty of the islands along the way. Among his passengers were Sophia Loren, Elizabeth Taylor, Gina Lollobrigida, Indira Gandhi, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Jawaharlal Nehru, and many others.
After the Second World War, Marshal Tito was assigned a Mercedes-Benz 540K (which he reportedly disliked) and a Horch 951A. In 1945, Joseph Stalin presented him with an armored 1937 Packard Twelve, which remained in service until the late 1950s. It was the first in a long line of two- and four-wheeled gifts received by the Marshal. U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave him a Cadillac, the British Queen presented him with a Rolls-Royce, Zastava built him a hand-crafted Zastava 102 (the first Yugo), while Tomos and Pretis supplied him with motorcycles. Tito also received automobiles as gifts from Serbian expatriates in Canada (a 1946 Cadillac Series 62) and from factory workers, including a 1965 Lincoln Continental Convertible presented by the Zagreb Fair.
The first official acquisitions for Tito’s state vehicle fleet were made in the early 1950s, when a Mercedes-Benz 300 (W186) and a Mercedes-Benz 300 Cabriolet D were purchased. Soon afterward, his official escort also received its first Mercedes-Benz Ponton models, all equipped exclusively with gasoline engines—a policy that remained in place for all subsequent acquisitions.
Throughout his lifetime, Tito was driven by only three official chauffeurs: Nikola Prlja, Ivan Kužnik, and Marko Agbaba. Vehicles for Tito were purchased through the budgets of the Federal Assembly (where he served as President), the Yugoslav People’s Army (as Supreme Commander), and the state protocol and police services (for the needs of his security escort).
Josip Broz Tito entered automotive history as the “owner” of the largest number of the legendary Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullman limousines. He had no fewer than six of them, including two Landaulet versions. Until the end of his life, no other head of state in the world could match this remarkable collection.
