This US President's Custom Car Included A Pretty Interesting Lit-Cigarette Dispenser

Smoking cigarettes in the 21st century is looked at much differently than it was throughout the 20th, thanks in no small part to advancements in science and medicine that has since deemed them extremely bad for health. A nationwide survey from 1935 found that 52.5% of adult men and 18.1% of adult women at the time smoked. Those numbers climbed considerably for people under 40, with 65.5% of men and 26.2% of women puffing away.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States, was om office from 1933 to 1945, when he passed away. He was elected an unprecedented four times, becoming the longest serving U.S. President in history, and led the country through both the Great Depression and World War II. Roosevelt was diagnosed with polio at the age of 39 (in 1921), so by the time he was elected to his first term, he was well accustomed to the constraints of the crippling illness that left him unable to walk. However, he didn't let that stop him from enjoying one of his favorite pastimes — driving a car, a trend many U.S. Presidents partook in, often in a variety of cool vehicles.

FDR had several automobiles especially designed so he could drive them using hand controls instead of the standard foot pedals. He was also part of the aforementioned smoking generation and went through no less than a pack a day. One particular feature found in perhaps his favorite vehicle (a 1936 Ford phaeton) was a relatively small device attached to the steering wheel shaft that dispensed a pre-lit cigarette.

It's believed that the device in FDR's 1936 Ford Phaeton, which hands you a lighted, ready-to-smoke cigarette as you drive, was manufactured by Masterbilt Products Corp. It was incredibly easy to use. Flipping down the opening at the bottom of the case caused a cigarette to drop into a tray where it was held against a heating coil. After a few seconds, the cigarette was lit and bam, pre-lit cig ready to go. As one might expect during the heyday when nearly everyone was smoking, other fine purveyors were selling similar products including Pres-a-lite lighted cigarette dispenser, which worked under the same mechanical principles.

In 1942, DeSoto included a steering wheel that came with a push-button cigarette case already installed — for the convenience of the driver, of course. And why not? These contraptions were actually touted as a safety feature. In fact, Masterbilt lost a case in 1939 wherein the court ruled that (via Casemine) "the device enabled a smoker who was driving a car to obtain a lighted cigarette without taking his eyes off the road, and the contrivance was advertised by the plaintiff as an automobile safety device." Keep in mind that seatbelts wouldn't become a thing for another decade (1949), when Nash Motors Company first offered them.

FDR was quite fond of Fords, having not only the '36 phaeton but also a 1938 convertible sedan amongst his collection. Ironically, Henry Ford was not a fan of Roosevelt and went so far as to publicly tell his employees to vote for the Republican incumbent, Herbert Hoover.