The driver and limo involved in Saturday’s horrific upstate crash should never have been on the road as he wasn’t properly licensed and the vehicle had badly failed a safety inspection last month, Gov. Cuomo revealed Monday.

“The driver of the vehicle — the quote-unquote limousine — did not have the appropriate license to be operating that vehicle,” Cuomo said, referring to 53-year-old driver Scott Lisinicchia, who blew a stop sign and crashed Saturday, killing 20 people.

“Second, that vehicle was inspected by the New York State Department of Transportation last month and failed inspection and was not supposed to be on the road,” Cuomo added.

The limo was cited for an inadequate “suspension system, chassis system, braking system,” Cuomo told reporters at the annual Columbus Day Parade in Manhattan.

The customized 2001 Ford Excursion was also “chopped” and lengthened but lacked the required “certification that it was extended in a way that was compliant with federal law,” Cuomo said. “The owner of the company — in my opinion, because there’ll be legal consequences — the owner of the company had no business putting [a] failed vehicle on the road.”

Asked whether the crash indicated the need for tighter controls on limos, Cuomo replied, “We’ll go through the whole situation, but sometimes we have the laws, we have the regulations, [but] they’re broken.”

Just minutes before being killed while en route to a birthday party at the Ommegang brewery in Cooperstown, a doomed woman in the limo complained in a text message to a friend about the vehicle’s shabby condition.

“The motor is making everyone deaf,” newlywed Erin McGowan texted pal Melissa Healey, according to The New York Times. “When we get to brewery we will all b deaf.”

Cuomo identified the limo’s owner as Prestige Limousine and said the state was “doing a cease-and-desist order” to keep it from operating until an investigation of the crash was complete.

Government records show Prestige has a dismal inspection record, with its vehicles failing four of five inspections during the past 24 months. That 80-

percent failure rate dwarfs the national average of less than 21 percent, according to online data compiled by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

Meanwhile, Lisinicchia was twice busted on drug charges during the past eight years, including once during a traffic stop, according to reports published at the time. He was charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance, unlawful possession of marijuana and an equipment violation when he was stopped while driving in Saratoga Springs on Nov. 22, 2013, The Saratogian reported the following day.

Lisinicchia was also charged with unlawful possession of marijuana in Saratoga Springs on July 2, 2010, according to the Saratogian.

Additional information on the arrests or how the cases were disposed was not immediately available.

All 18 people inside the limo Saturday, including the driver, were killed when it smashed into a ditch after blowing past a stop sign and hurtling through a packed parking lot outside the Apple Barrel Country Store and Cafe in Schoharie, about 35 miles west of Albany.

Two bystanders were also killed when they were hit by a parked car that was struck by the limo.

During a Monday news conference, State Police Major Robert Patnaude said the limo driver didn’t have the “P endorsement” on his license that’s required to operate a limo with 15 or more seats.

Patnaude said cops had recovered the limo’s “airbag control module,” which he said “would be considered the vehicle’s black box” and which will be examined with an eye toward potential criminal charges.

Patnaude also confirmed that the limo was hired at the last minute when a reservation for another vehicle from a different company was unexpectedly canceled.

In addition to the wrecked limo, authorities seized two Town Cars and a third vehicle from Prestige Limousine, whose owner, Shahed Hussain, had been located but was out of the country, according to Patnaude.

Robert Sumwalt, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said a preliminary review by federal investigators found “evidence of high-energy impact” that pushed the limo’s engine block all the way “into the front of the car.”

Sumwalt said emergency efforts to extract the victims left it unclear how many seats had safety belts and who was belted in at the time of the crash.

Under state law, only the driver and front-seat passengers would have been required to wear seat belts.

Sumwalt also said the NTSB had used drones to survey the intersection the limo hurtled through after traveling a steep downhill grade — and would compare its T-shaped design to an earlier one that was changed in an effort to improve safety.

Gualberto Diaz, who runs a company that builds stretch limos in Rego Park, Queens, said he “never understood how the [Department of Transportation] allows 18 passengers in a limousine.”

“Six passengers are OK,” said Diaz, president and founder of Picasso Coach Builders Corp. “When you put 18 passengers in a car, you’re talking about an additional weight of 3,500-4,000 pounds. You can’t stop.”

Additional reporting by Reuven Fenton