JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- If the presidential limousine is known as "the beast," thanks to its heavy armor plating and other James Bondian extras, the new official tour bus could be called "the behemoth."
The Secret Service is trucking President Obama and his senior staff through the Midwest this week on an imposing jet-black coach, outfitted with top-notch security and communications equipment to keep its occupants safe.
The White House says the $1.1 million bus, and its accompanying motorcade of more than two dozen vehicles, allows the president to visit "real people in real places" that wouldn't otherwise be easily accessible. Obama began the three-day trip in Minnesota and ends in Illinois Wednesday.
Neither the Secret Service nor Hemphill Brothers Co., the Nashville, Tenn.-based company that built the bus, would comment on the "security additions" or what it's like inside as it rumbles along rural roads.
But a review of comparable custom coach designs on the Hemphill company website reveals the president is likely riding in comfort and style.
The bus manufacturer outfits its coaches with luxurious floor plans, some with leather sofas and seating areas, kitchen space, bunk beds with privacy curtains, a full-sized bed stateroom and even a bathroom with a granite shower.
The exterior of the government's custom coach has no presidential or campaign signage or identifiable markings. But it does have a public address system from which the president or a dignitary could address crowds as he or she rolls through town. So far, Obama hasn't tried it out.
The bus, one of two acquired by the Secret Service earlier this year, is government property and will be part of the "protective fleet" used by the Secret Service to transport any official, dignitary, presidential candidate or protectee, officials said.
The bus purchases were long overdue additions to the fleet because the agency was never satisfied with the old practice of renting buses and retrofitting them with added security, Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan told ABC News in April.
Should the Republican presidential nominee in 2012 want to hit the road, he or she will be able to campaign in one as well, he said.
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