t’s not often you’re going to read about a 14-second drag car. Even rarer would be a drag car with four doors, functional air conditioning and a history of chauffering the rich and not-so-rich for a night on the town. But Roger Kusser’s 1953 Cadillac Fleetwood Limousine proves the exception to the rule. The 5,000-pound behemoth is a regular at Summit Motorsports Park in Norwalk, OH, where Kusser’s son, Chris (shown below), recently steered it to a career-best pass of 14.63 seconds at 97.34 mph.

The elder Kusser purchased the car off e-Bay in 2002 in essentially the same condition it races in today. Originally built as a racecar to run the 2,000-mile La Carrera Panamericana road rally in Mexico, Kusser added a pair of DOT-legal Goodyear drag radials on the rear to make it drag-worthy. “It’s still running on the street so it’s got mufflers on it, no open headers, but other than that it’s still pretty much the way it was for the Pan American,” he says. “We drive it to the track since we’re only about 10 miles from the Norwalk dragway.”

Kusser also owns a rare, factory-built ’57 Chevy limousine that he rents out with his daughter, Jessica, behind the wheel for weddings, anniversaries and other special occasions. The crowd-pleasing Caddy serves as ideal advertisement for his Vintage Limousines business. “I’d never had a performance car before, but I always wanted one and thought it would be a good marketing tool, too,” he says.

Despite its less-than-imposing performance, Chris Kusser says the car always draws a lot of attention at the track. “People really love it; they call it the lead sled,” he says. “I heard (Norwalk track co-owner) Bill Bader Sr. say once that he thought it looked like machine guns were going to pop out the back windows as I went down the track. So people love it; you don’t see anything like it and it’s really fun to see their reactions.”

With a full interior, complete with racing harnesses for passengers in the rear seat, Kusser says he’s also used the limo periodically for its originally intended purpose. “Oh yeah, I’ve given people rides sometimes. Mostly pretty girls,” the 21-year-old admits, “but some have even paid to take a ride with me.”

In his first year of driving the car, Kusser calls it “really exciting,” perhaps because he has to move the driver’s seat all the way forward just to reach the pedals. “Actually, it’s really easy to see out of. I’m up pretty high and have a great view all around.”

The car tracks nicely, too, he adds. “It’s real smooth, the rearend keeps it steady and it’s good all the way down the track for as big as the car is. It’s still a Cadillac, after all, and it still drives like one.”

And if he gets tired on raceday, that back seat is plenty big enough for a pit-side nap.