What Happened To Elvis Presley’s Convair 880 Lisa Marie & Lockheed JetStar Hound Dog II?

Elvis Presley’s larger than life character was matched with the way he traveled. His choice of air transportation included two private jets taken on in 1975 in the form of a Convair 880 and Lockheed JetStar. Let’s take a look at these two planes of the legendary rock and roll star.

Big spender

The Convair 880 went by the name of the Lisa Marie, after Presley’s daughter. It was purchased from Delta Air Lines for $250,000 (≈$1.2 million today) in April 1975. However, refurbishing brought the total cost to more than $600,000 (≈$2.9 million today). The music artist then hopped to the skies on the plane in November of that year.

The interior was modified with elegant sleeping quarters, a penthouse bedroom with a custom queen size bed, an executive bathroom with gold taps, and a gold washbasin. It even had a videotape system linked to four televisions and a stereo system with 52 speakers.

Flying in style

Presley could even make use of the conference room on board the aircraft. Moreover, his ex-wife also had input on the interior design of the plane.

“The plane was in a hangar at Meacham Field in Fort Worth, and for months Elvis took great pleasure in flying friends out to check on progress as the interior of the plane was refurbished to his very specific design requirements (he bought another plane to make those trips – a smaller Lockheed JetStar). Elvis wanted a seating area, a conference room, and a private bedroom on the plane (with space for an in-flight reading library),” Elvis Australia shares.

“He picked fabrics, decided on color schemes, chose the on-board audio-visual system, and even OK’d the gold fixtures in the bathrooms (he counted heavily on some aesthetic input from Priscilla, too). Elvis was especially excited about the fact that the same design team had previously customized Air Force One. The craft slowly came together as an airworthy mix of modem function and Graceland elegance.”

A great selection

Presley took on the  Lockheed JetStar, nicknamed Hound Dog II for approximately $900,000 (≈$4.3 million today) as he awaited for renovation work to be completed on the Lisa Marie. It wasn’t the only unit of the type that he flew in. He also had a 1962 Lockheed JetStar, which he once joint-owned with his father,

Here is a look at the specifications of the two planes:

The Lisa Marie

• Crew: three
• Capacity: 28
• Engines: 4 x General Electric CJ-805-3 Pod Mount Jets
• Cruise speed: 615 mph (989 km/h)
• Range: 3,000 miles
• Service Ceiling: 41,000 feet

Hound Dog II

• Crew: two pilots and typically one flight attendant
• Capacity: 8-10 passengers
• Engines: 4 × Garrett TFE731-3 turbofans
• Cruise speed: 504 mph (811 km/h)
• Range: 2,995 miles
• Service ceiling: 43,000 ft (13,105 m)

For the world to see

Presley would not fly on the two jets for long as he passed away just two years later in 1977 at the age of just 42. According to Rolling Stone, the two planes eventually ended up in the care of OKC Partnership, which agreed in the middle of the 1980s to display the aircraft at Graceland in exchange for a percentage of ticket sales. However, the situation became complicated in April 2014. Elvis Presley Enterprises wrote to OKC asking it to make arrangements to remove the planes by April of the following year.