22 July 2022
‘The Parties were bigger. The pace was faster. The shows were broader, the buildings were higher, the morals were looser, and the liquor was cheaper.’
F Scott Fitzgerald on the 1920s.
Al Capone, or Alphonse Capone, also called Scarface, was an American Prohibition-era gangster who dominated organised crime in Chicago and became perhaps the most famous gangster in the United States.
The man who coined the phrase Chicago Overcoat, a coffin for his enemies, the man who ran The Blind Pig, an illegal drinking establishment where ‘clients’ pay an entrance fee to view an exotic animal, the man who ran the famous ‘Clip Joints’, nightclubs where the prices are high, and the frequenters fleeced and who was chauffered in a Bulletproof Cadillac Town Sedan in 1928
Cadillac’s model became more distinct and gangster. It was in 1933 when the vehicle gained significant advantages over its predecessors with the introduction of Cadillac’s V12 engine, designed in 1931 and was an option for the 33 Town Sedan. This development gave Capone and his chopper squad (his machine-gun armed associates) a major advantage when attempting to escape from the buttons (Police).
The power that the V12 had to offer pushed the Town Sedan to high speeds, making them the perfect getaway driver. Along with housing much-needed power, the interior was also large and comfortable enough to fit any Crime Boss’s entire entourage.
Mr Capone was a prime target with a permanent fear of death from other Crime Bosses, yet Al Capone died of cardiac arrest in 1947, but his decline began earlier. After his transfer to Alcatraz prison, his mental and physical condition deteriorated from syphilis. He was released in November 1939 and was sent to a Baltimore mental hospital before he retired to his Palm Island estate in Florida with his wife and immediate family, in a secluded atmosphere, until his death due to a stroke and pneumonia on January 25, 1947.
