Limousines are supposed to have chauffeurs.
Champagne glasses.
Tinted windows.
Maybe a tiny television nobody has used since 2007.
They are generally not supposed to have nitrous and a dirt jump.
Somebody forgot to tell Jim York.
At Holley LS Fest West 2023, Jim climbed into a well-used Cadillac Fleetwood limousine and attempted to answer one of the automotive world's most pressing unanswered questions:
How well does a stretch Cadillac fly?
Pretty damn well, apparently.
PREPARING A CADILLAC FOR FLIGHT
The car was a stretched Cadillac Fleetwood—a massive rear-wheel-drive luxury car that had spent its previous life fulfilling a purpose considerably more dignified than this one.
For LS Fest West, dignity was removed.
Nitrous was added.
Holley brought the limo to the event's off-road course and put Jim behind the wheel for what it billed as a world-record limo jump attempt. Contemporary event coverage reported the Cadillac clearing more than 100 feet.
That's more than 100 feet.
In a limousine.
At some point you have to admire the commitment to a bit.
THE TAKEOFF
The formula for any vehicle jump sounds deceptively simple.
Get enough speed.
Hit the ramp straight.
Hope the math was right.
The problem is that cars get less interested in your math once all four tires leave the ground.
And stretch limousines introduce several additional variables, including a wheelbase approximately the length of a municipal bridge.
Jim committed.
The Cadillac charged toward the dirt jump, hit the face of the ramp, and launched.
For a moment, the limo did something Cadillac engineers almost certainly never put on a test sheet:
It flew.
More than 100 feet.
The crowd got what it came for.
Then gravity returned to the program.
THE WORLD'S FIRST LIMO KICKFLIP
The landing was not what anyone would describe as delicate.
The Cadillac came down, dug in, and rotated violently.
Holley later described the stunt as producing the world's first limo kickflip—which feels like exactly the sort of record you earn accidentally while attempting a different record.
Tony Hawk had a skateboard.
Jim York had several thousand pounds of stretched Cadillac.
Everybody chooses their own equipment.
Most importantly, Jim walked away.
The limo?
Its future airport-transfer schedule became significantly less certain.
WHY DOES JIM KEEP JUMPING LIMOS?
Because normal cars aren't funny enough.
Seriously.
A purpose-built trophy truck flying over a dirt jump is impressive.
A limousine doing the exact same thing is something you immediately send to five friends.
That's the difference.
Jim figured out a long time ago that the vehicle itself could be part of the stunt.
Not just the machine performing it.
The joke starts before the motor ever fires.
You've already won half the audience the moment they see a stretch limo lining up at the bottom of a jump.
Then you actually send it.
THIS WASN'T JIM'S FIRST LIMO PROBLEM
By the time LS Fest West came around, Jim had already established an unhealthy relationship with stretched vehicles.
He'd jumped limos before.
He'd put a hot tub in one and jumped that.
He'd taken a lifted Lincoln Town Car stretch limo through the Mint 400.
Limos had essentially become Jim's preferred medium for expressing poor judgment at scale.
The Cadillac at LS Fest West simply continued the tradition.
With nitrous.
DO A STUNT
There's something beautifully simple about these things.
Thousands of people can debate horsepower, suspension geometry, landing angles, vehicle preparation, and whether a limousine should ever be airborne.
Eventually somebody still has to sit in the driver's seat.
Eventually somebody has to stop talking.
Eventually somebody has to hit the gas.
Jim York tends to be available.
The Cadillac left the ground.
The record books got another deeply unnecessary category.
The crowd got a show.
And the limo made the crash reel.
That's a successful weekend.
Gonna live forever. Do a stunt.
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