1948
Meteor
(USA) Hearses,
ambulances and funeral limousines
The Meteor funeral car for 1948
Left: Meteor Service Car, Center: Meteor side-loading
tray, Right: Meteor Landau Funeral Car
Miller
(USA) Hearses,
ambulances and funeral limousines
Left: Miller Landau style, Center: Miller Limousine
style, Right: Miller ambulance
[ Photos: Z. Taylor Vinson collection ]
Schmidt & Bartelt
(USA)
Various professional cars converted from regular Fleetwood styles, like the examples
below:
S&S [Hess & Eisenhardt]
(USA)
Various bodies for the funeral and ambulance trades
[ Photos: Internet, 2008 ]
Superior
(USA) Various bodies
for the funeral and ambulance trades, including this one
(Above and below): This is the Superior limousine; it
sold for $5,450
Unidfentified - USA ?
Versteegen (Netherlands) Cadillac
aficionado, Jo Thewissen of Holland sent me in December 1999 a series of photos of custom
Cadillac ambulances and hearses built in the forties, fifties and sixties by this
relatively unknown Dutch coach-builder. The first of these (an ambulance on the 1948
Cadillac chassis) is shown below. Thanks for the pics and the information, Jo.
1949
Eureka (USA)
These ambulances owe their
"leopard spots" to my apparent
inability to scan B&W images properly!
Hess & Eisenhardt (USA) [see
"S&S", below]
Meteor (USA) Various
commercial cars on Cadillac chassis for the ambulance and funeral trades, like the example
below:
Miller (USA) Various
commercial cars on Cadillac chassis for the ambulance and funeral trades, like the
artist's drawing and the surviving examples below:
This Miller combination ambulance/hearse was offered
for sale on the Internet in 2002
S&S [Hess & Eisenhardt] (USA)
This S&S features carved
panels in the rear window recesses
S&S Knickerbocker 3-way bearse
[ Photo of a survivor: Internet 1999 ]
Schwartz, Maurice
(USA) Movie studio people-hauler
Between 1947 and 1949, MGM Studios
ordered six Series 75 Cadillac chassis from Hillcrest
Cadillac, the Beverly Hills dealer. These chassis were
dispatched to Maurice Schwartz ro receive custom, “woody”
bodies. This car was the sixth in the series. Schwartz was
possibly inspired by an earlier, six-door woody he built in 1947
for cowboy star Gene Autry in 1947 (see Database). Like the
other MGM cars, the vehicle was used to transport actors and
support staff to and from location shoots. On one such trip, the
car was damaged and lay abandoned thereafter until it was
acquired more than 10 years later by a Los Angeles collector
whoe intention was to restore it. Various work was begun done
but never completed and the car was subsequently bought by the
Ramshead Collection in Sacramento who completed the job,
including rebuilding the motor and fitting a completely new
interior with some alligator trim. The restored car was acquired
by a New England collector in the mid-1990s and carefully
maintained. The metal parts of the body were repainted from red
to dark green. Late Extra (Jan. 2011): The car was sold at auction by the RM group at
their Arizona venue.
The restored car after the second paint
job
[ Photos: © 20121 and courtesy RM Auctions ]
Superior (USA) Various other commercial
vehicles for the ambulance and funeral trades, like the examples below:
The new Superior funeral
coach with completely automatic "Side-o-Matic" table
[Left] The "Landau" hearse; [Right]
rear-loading funeral coach
[Left] combination coach; [Right] Service coach
Typical "Superor" bodies for the 1949
Cadillac commercial chassis
Superior landau hearse
[Photo: courtesy Frank Perch of the CML]
This funeral limousine is in pretty bad shape !
[Unknown, USA] Funeral coach.
