Woodrow Wilson never had a driver’s license, yet his 1919 Pierce-Arrow limousine became his favorite car. When he left the White House in 1921, friends bought the Woodrow Wilson Pierce-Arrow so he could keep it. The car carried him until his death in 1924, and it survives today in running order.
The limousine is more than a presidential hand-me-down. It wore the presidential seal on its doors and a motor club badge on its radiator. It also connects to a president who backed the early growth of American roads.
The details below come from the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum in Staunton, Virginia, which displays the car, along with Hagerty, Classic & Sports Car and Richmond Magazine. Its own pages are the main record, and the other outlets confirm the key points.
A new limousine waiting at the dock
The car entered Wilson’s life at the end of a long trip. After the Treaty of Versailles, the Wilson Presidential Library says, a new Pierce-Arrow limousine awaited him at the dock in New York. It took him on to Washington, and it had just joined the White House fleet.
The Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company of Buffalo, New York, finished the car in June 1919, according to the library. It was the 120th Series 51 that Pierce-Arrow made. From July 1919 until his successor’s inauguration in 1921, Wilson often rode in it on official business.
The maker had a strong reputation at the time. For example, Barrett-Jackson’s catalog for a different 1919 Model 51 limousine calls Pierce-Arrow automobiles the pinnacle of luxury in the pre-war era.
Presidential seal and an AAA badge
The car carried the trappings of the office. On each of its arched rear passenger doors, the library notes, the limousine displayed the Presidential Seal.
On the front of the radiator panel, meanwhile, sat the AAA emblem. Wilson joined the American Automobile Association in 1917, the library says, as the first president to do so. A 2025 post on the library’s blog adds that no president had used that emblem before. Wilson also appeared in AAA advertisements extolling the benefits of membership. As a result, the post argues, displaying the emblem on his favorite car served as an executive endorsement of the automotive age.
A president who loved cars but never drove
Wilson was a passenger, not a driver. “Woodrow Wilson never had a driver’s license, but he loved cars,” the library’s blog post says. It calls the 1919 Pierce-Arrow his favorite, and it says he became attached to the car right away.
His interest went beyond his own garage. According to the library, Wilson signed a 1916 bill providing federal aid to highways across the country. Classic & Sports Car identifies it as the Federal Aid Road Act, which allocated $75 million in matched funding to improve rural roads. The magazine also notes that Wilson was the last president to ride to his inauguration in a horse-drawn carriage.
Why friends bought the Woodrow Wilson Pierce-Arrow
The limousine started out as government property, Hagerty notes. That changed when Wilson’s term ended. When he departed the White House in 1921, the library’s blog says, friends purchased the car for him.
Hagerty tells the same story. It says that in 1921 his friends bought the car from the White House fleet and presented it to him as a gift. Likewise, Classic & Sports Car says friends who knew how much he liked the car bought it and gave it to him. None of the sources name the friends or the price, so this article doesn’t either.
After that, the Pierce-Arrow was his primary transportation until his death in 1924, according to the library.
From Edith Wilson to the museum floor
Wilson’s widow, Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, later gave the limousine to the Woodrow Wilson Birthplace Foundation, the library says. Hagerty places that gift after his death in 1924. The foundation has since restored the car, and its engine remains in full working order.
The car has traveled at least once. In 2018, Richmond Magazine reported that the library loaned it to the Virginia Museum of History & Culture from May 1 to June 4. That stay was the longest period the library had ever loaned the car to another institution. The visit also tied in with the museum’s yearlong World War I programming, and a Memorial Day event on May 28 offered visitors a close-up look.
Today the 1919 Pierce-Arrow is on display at the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum in Staunton, Virginia.
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