“At an FOP meeting in February of 2009, Lt. Tom Tunney gave me a copy of the book, Paper, Mister? and said there was a reference to the Dayton police department on pages 182-83. As it turns out, Tunney, who knew nothing about the car, had given me the chance to get the background needed to identify the car,” Grismer said.
The car is a 1930 or ’31 Cadillac, which became known as the “Bank Flyer,” which gained some level of fame in H. Jamison Redder’s book, Paper, Mister?, published in 1995.
The author, Redder, as a kid paperboy, would stop by the main police headquarters and actually saw the Cadillac.
“It’s understood that it was purchased by local banks and given to the police department to help thwart back robberies during the early ’30s,” Grismer said.
It’s believed that the Cadillac was still in the possession of the city of Dayton into the early 1950s.
“A retired officer told me that he saw the car in a city storage garage and it was called the ‘Gangster Car,’ ” Grismer said. “I’ve recently heard that it might still be in the Dayton area, but I don’t know. If anyone has any information about the car, we’d sure like to know.”
The Cadillac is believed to have been modified by the Cincinnati company of Hess and Eisenhardt, a well-known coachbuilder who later built limousines for the president of the United States.
This Cadillac had bulletproof windows and tires, armor plate to protect the radiator and giant steel bumpers. It also had special racks built inside to hold machine guns, rifles, ammunition and bulletproof vests.
This might not be the first Cadillac modified for use during the bank robbery days of John Dillinger, Bugs Moran and Al Capone.
Capone had two Cadillacs modified with bulletproof glass, armor plate in the doors, and small trap doors that opened for shooting machine guns.He also had the cars painted green and black, just like the Cadillacs provided to the city of Chicago for use as police cars at the time.
The Feds seized one of Capone’s cars when they arrested him on tax evasion charges. His gang sold the other Cadillac, and it has been through a number of documented owners until it was last sold by RM Auction Co. in 2006.
When President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the target of an assassination attempt, his security team took the other Capone Cadillac out of storage and pressed it into use as the presidential limousine. Roosevelt was the first American president to ride in a bulletproof limousine.
To read more about the “Bank Flyer,” go to www.daytonhistorybooks.com/bankflyer.
If you have any information about the Dayton “Bank Flyer” Cadillac, contact Steve Grismer at the Dayton Police History Foundation via e-mail at DPHFoundation@woh.rr.com.
To nominate your special vehicle for Wheels of the Week, contact us at: Wheels, Marketing Publications Department, Dayton Daily News, 1611 S. Main St., Dayton OH 45409 or via e-mail at arollins@coxohio.com. Include your name, daytime telephone number and a photo of your vehicle.
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