The van that crashed into and exploded outside the Australian Christian Lobby's Canberra headquarters on Wednesday night was not the first car to have ever crashed into a political building in the capital.
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Though police have dismissed political motivation in the incident, for some it would evoke memories of cars smashing into the gates of the US Embassy, the Prime Minister's Lodge and the front doors of Parliament House.
National security at building at heart of Australian democracy has flooded headlines in recent weeks with plans to build a new 2.6-metre security fence around the building.
But it was in its infancy in 1992 when a 68-year-old part-time teacher rammed through the building's entrance with a sawed-off shotgun in his four-wheel-drive vehicle.
Fortunately none of the tourists, students and office workers standing around were injured when the 4WD crashed through two sets of double doors and into the busy lobby, the Associated Press reported.
Witnesses reportedly recalled seeing Clifton Courtney Moss signal a left turn before driving up the gravel, stopping, reversing and aligning the vehicle so he could drive between two sets of pillars outside the doors.
The building's occupants, which included former prime minister Paul Keating, were evacuated and a bomb squad found a 10-gauge sawed-off, double-barrelled shotgun.
The AP reported he had no explanation for the crash.
Other cases of cars crashing into political buildings occurred more recently.
The AFP bomb response unit attended the Yarralumla complex in what was a five-hour police operation, though neither the vehicle or the embassy security gates were significantly damaged.
No explosives were found in the orange Peugeot hatchback.
Just two years ago, an eight-metre section of The Lodge wall was demolished after a man crashed his car into the prime ministerial property on a Saturday.
A 65-year-old Victorian man was hospitalised after his white Hyundai i30 crashed into the rear wall of The Lodge in Canberra on a March 2014 morning.
At the time, ACT Policing Superintendent Rod Anderson said that while there had been other car crashes in the area, "we haven't seen a car career into The Lodge every day".
