Stretched cars: the good, bad and ugly

If you've not seen already, the Department of Homeland Security has invited design pitches for the next presidential limo. And we want you to come up with it. We'll even get a proper render of your suggestion drawn up if it's good enough.

Thing is, the contract's limited to major domestic American carmakers with a primary HQ in the USA. Which pretty much restricts things to the country's big three - Ford, GM, and Chrysler. Though, as we've already mentioned, due to the slightly confusing state of who owns what in the current carmaker landscape, there's a bit of flexibility for your base car. 

Now, we understand that this is a big ask. And, being the helpful, fragrant-smelling internetists we are, we've put together this collection of elongated cars to give you some inspiration. Some are good, some are bad, and one looks like a half-chewed chip. But we'll leave it up to you to decide which is which. 

Now get your crayons out, then send your offering to editor@topgear.com with 'Presidential Limo' in the subject line. 

It's based on ZiL underpinnings, and doesn't strictly exist (alas, it's just a render), but it is massive, and according to its designers, "holds a majestic style that is full of classicism that mostly resembles power and authority". Mostly.

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It was designed by Scaglietti as a soft-top 250 GT for North America, and if you don't agree that this car is utterly, achingly beautiful, your opinion's wrong.

We're still not sure if this exists in, y'know, reality, but it's is a render of a V10 R8 hen-do special, brought to you by paragons of good taste, Limo Brokers. But if you think this is bad...

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...a company called Cars For Stars has threatened that this CGI rendering - with four scissor doors - "could easily materialise into a reality with the support and investment of a willing and passionate sponsor." Please. Put your wallets down.

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This is the most luxurious Jaguar XJ LWB... in the world. It gets (deep breath) two individually tailored rear seats with massage function, a champagne chiller and flutes between the seats, two eight-inch hi-res screens on the back of the front seat headrests, two 3rd gen iPads and keyboards docked in the front seat backs and a solid aluminium table. An exceptional use of extra Jaaaaag.

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It's 5.85m long, it has six wheels, and it can hit 62mph in seven seconds. Oh, and it weighs in at 3.85 tonnes. The pricetag? €300,000. Which sounds like a lot. Because it is. But you would, wouldn't you?

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It's six meters long, it's got six wheels, and there's a two-seat Jacuzzi in the boot. Mini built it for the 2004 Athens Olympics - though we're still not really sure why - and fitted the rest of its innards out with a retractable telly, and a special intercom so passengers can talk to the driver. Presumably to ask which postcode he's in.

When we were asked to provide luxury transport for a constellation of stars to travel to the Brit awards in, we gave the task literally some thought, then decided homemade limos really couldn't be that hard. There was a stretched Fiat Panda. There was a stretched MG F. And there was an unholy coupling of Saab 9000 and Alfa Romeo 164. Pretty sure we nailed it.

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