Exclusive:Luxury car hire firm in windfall US government order ahead of Donald Trump visit to Scotland

It is understood a slew of lucrative orders placed with the Glasgow firm, Little’s Chauffeur Drive, will secure a fleet of vehicles and drivers to accompany the vast presidential motorcade that is being brought to Scotland by the US Air Force.

The US State Department has made at least eight orders to the company since the beginning of July, according to an official database of US federal government spending records.

Cumulatively, the delivery orders placed by the US government agency are worth $454,725 (approximately £335,850), with the single largest order, worth more than £90,000, placed on 13 July. The payments were made via the US Embassy in London.

It is understood Mr Trump will arrive in Scotland at Prestwick airport on Friday, when he will depart Air Force One and make his way to Turnberry via a presidential motorcade that is being transported to Scotland. He will travel in a heavily armoured limousine known as ‘The Beast’.

A spokeswoman for the White House told The Scotsman that Mr Trump’s visit was a “working trip.” It is not clear if vice-president JD Vance will be accompanying him, but a large contingent of US government officials is expected alongside members of the US Secret Service. It is understood the car and driver hire orders placed with Little’s will provide transport for that wider entourage.

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Little's did not respond to enquiries about the State Department orders. The company, based in Glasgow’s Paisley Road West, has previously provided vehicle hire for UK politicians and is accustomed to transporting VIPs and celebrities around Scotland. But since Mr Trump was first elected to the White House, it has counted the US government among its most prized customers.

During his first visit to Scotland as president in the summer of 2018, The Scotsman revealed how it received a flurry of delivery and purchase orders from the State Department worth around £850,000.

Ahead of that visit seven years ago, US federal spending records revealed the sums that were being paid to Mr Trump’s hotel at Turnberry for accommodation - a trend replicated at the US president’s other properties, and which raised repeated ethics concerns.

Since he first entered the White House during his first term, Mr Trump’s Scottish firms have been paid hundreds of thousands of pounds by the US government. The transactions continued even when Mr Trump was voted out of office, with US freedom of information requests filed by The Scotsman detailing the ongoing payments.

However, the official US government spending database has not disclosed any payments to Turnberry’s parent firm, SLC Turnberry Limited, since 2019, when the State Department booked rooms in connection with a visit to Scotland by Mr Trump’s son, Eric.

The latest records show that the State Department has made two purchase orders for accommodation in the UK during the timescale of Mr Trump’s visit, one worth $208,875 (£154,270), the other $65,271 (£48,200). But the recipient of the payments is not disclosed, and is referred to only as “miscellaneous foreign awardees.”