The most expensive world leaders’ cars: from the Queen’s £10m Bentley to Donald Trump’s Cadillac Beast

It’s no secret that world leaders tend to be treated a little differently to the rest of us.

From luxury accommodation and bodyguards to personal chefs and private jets, they’re used to a little extra attention, and that includes in how they get around.

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And funny as it is to imagine the Queen bashing around in a Ford Fiesta or Donald Trump slumming it in a pick-up truck, our heads of state tend to stick to more exclusive vehicles.

The US President, for example, eschews the Ford F-150 favoured by millions of his fellow Americans in favour of a £1.2 million stretched and armoured Cadillac nicknamed The Beast. Fitted with five-inch-thick bulletproof glass, its own oxygen supply and bags of the President’s blood type, it’s more than 20 feet long and weighs an estimated 10 tonnes.

And according to research by Motoreasy, the President’s limo costs a whopping 53 times that of America’s best-selling F-150.

(Graphic: Motoreasy)

However, that’s nothing compared to either North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un or our own Queen Elizabeth II.

Despite strict sanctions, North Korea’s dictator managed to import a Mercedes Maybach S600 Pullman into the country to use as his official transport. The heavily-armoured stretched limo is expensive by any nation’s standards but its £1.2m price tag means it’s worth 300 times more than the “popular” Gaz-24 Volga.

But in terms of both outright cost and compared to the nation’s bestselling car, the Queen leads the way. Her bespoke Bentley State Limousines (she has two) cost a staggering £10m each thanks to their made-to-measure nature and the wealth of defences - such as Kevlar-reinforced tyres, blast-proof glass and a cabin that can be sealed against chemical attack. For the same price, she could have 610 Ford Fiesta Trends. Or 33 of Boris Johnson’s armoured Jaguar XJ Sentinals.

(Graphic: Motoreasy)

Other leaders not scared to splash the cash on their cars include Germany’s Angela Merkel, whose Audi A8 L Security costs £959,000, and China’s Xi Jinping whose Hongqi L5 costs an estimated £621,372. Vladimir Putin’s Aurus Senat costs a mere £440,000, but that’s more than 100 times more than Russia’s bestselling Lada Granta.

However, not every head of state spends a fortune. New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern makes do with a humble Hyundai Ioniq Electric that costs just £23,840 but for sheer parsimony, Uruguay’s former president Jose Mucija is famous for sticking with his trusty 1987 VW Beetle which, when he left office, was valued at less than £1,500.

(Graphic: Motoreasy)