A limousine is a longer luxury car. The chassis may have been extended by the manufacturer or by an independent coach builder, traditionally black or white in color. Limousines come in other colors, however, have also been used for limousines, such as pink, magenta, or blue. Limousines are most commonly driven by chauffeurs and until the mid-1990s were most often associated with the wealthy. While some limousines are owned by individuals, many are owned by governments to transport senior politicians, by large companies to transport executives, or by broadcasters to transport guests. Most limousines, however, operate as livery vehicles, providing up market competition to taxicabs. The word limousine is derived from the name of the French region Limousin, and is associated with the long cloaks once worn by the shepherds there. Newer limousines such as the Maybach 62, Audi A8L, Mercedes-Benz S-Class, Hummer H2, Leyland Miracle, BMW 760li, Lincoln Town Car;L Edition,and the Cadillac DTS do not feature such seats since stretch limousines are usually used to transport more than three passengers, excluding the driver. In production American limousines however, the jump seats almost always faced forward. The last production limousine, by Cadillac, with forward facing jump seats was in 1987, the last Packard in 1954, and the last Lincoln in 1939, though Lincoln has offered limos through their dealers as special order vehicles from time to time. Vehicles of this type in private use may contain expensive audio players, televisions, video players, and bars, often with refrigerators.

It is simpler and more straightforward to determine the effects of altering a separate chassis than it is to determine the effects of altering a load-bearing unit body. For this reason, the automobile of choice for conversion into stretch limousines is currently the Lincoln Town Car, whose Panther platform is one of the last remaining automotive platforms using a separate load-bearing chassis.[citation needed] However, coachbuilders have recently built many new models based on SUVs with separate load-bearing chassis, including Hummer H2s and H3s.

Gasoline Engines

Gasoline engines have the advantage over diesel in being lighter and able to work at higher rotational speeds and they are the usual choice for fitting in high-performance sports cars. Continuous development of gasoline engines for over a hundred years has produced improvements in efficiency and reduced pollution. The carburetor was used on nearly all road car engines until the 1980s but it was long realized better control of the fuel/air mixture could be achieved with fuel injection. Indirect fuel injection was first used in aircraft engines from 1909, in racing car engines from the 1930s, and road cars from the late 1950s.

Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) is now starting to appear in production vehicles such as the 2007 BMW MINI. Exhaust gases are also cleaned up by fitting a catalytic converter into the exhaust system. Clean air legislation in many of the car industries most important markets has made both catalysts and fuel injection virtually universal fittings. Most modern gasoline engines are also capable of running with up to 15% ethanol mixed into the gasoline - older vehicles may have seals and hoses that can be harmed by ethanol. With a small amount of redesign, gasoline-powered vehicles can run on ethanol concentrations as high as 85%. 100% ethanol is used in some parts of the world (such as Brazil), but vehicles must be started on pure gasoline and switched over to ethanol once the engine is running. Most gasoline engines cars can also run on LPG with the addition of an LPG tank for fuel storage and carburetion modifications to add an LPG mixer. LPG produces fewer toxic emissions and is a popular fuel for fork lift trucks that have to operate inside buildings.