Re: A Sad Day.......

Posted by LINC400 On 2010/8/23 11:07:20

My friend collects hearses. I didn't give them too much thought before I met him. But I still would never have wanted to have my final ride in an Escalade or Dodge Caravan. Now that I have viewed a bunch of his books and attended several hearse club meets to see the old carved sides, and elaborate postwar landau styles, it is even more disgusting to think that eventually all funeral homes will be using truck or minivan based vehicles for hearses. I guess it is one more indication of how people and society simply lack the class of decades ago. I guess it is only surprising in that they have managed to hold onto the traditional luxury car based ones this long, considering how the rest of the auto industry abandoned traditional luxury cars ages ago.

I do have to add that Lincoln does not go back to the early days of hearse building. From the 1930's only Cadillac and Packard offered commercial chassis for building hearses and ambulances. (That is why a Packard hearse, not Lincoln was used for Henry Ford as previously discussed on this forum) Packard never produced as many chassis as Cadillac, and 1954 was the last year Henney built Packard hearses and ambulances. After that, Cadillac basically had the entire market. While you would see the oddball Chrysler, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and even an Edsel, it was far more efficient to build from the Cadillac commercial chassis than buying a whole car and then cutting it up, modifying it, and paying for the whole car when most of it from the front seat back would not be used. In 1985, Cadillac discontinued its commercial chassis. So then there was no advantage to buying a Cadillac for conversion because you had to buy the complete car from Lincoln or Cadillac and then convert it. That is when you started seeing Lincoln hearses.