(first posted 11/27/2017) And here we are, back to the humble hearse. Perhaps the most unappreciated service vehicle on account that by the time you call it, there is definitely nothing else you can do. These one however, has one or two things that could be of interest.
I’ve (quite thankfully) been rather out of touch with the world of hearses. The last time we required their services in the Solis household a dark blue GMT400 suburban was the vehicle handling the sombre deed. Nowadays I’ve been told that the job has been taken over by Hyundai H1 minibuses or Toyota Hiaces (note to self: arrange un-terrible hearse before demise) in my neck of the woods and by stretched Lincoln MKTs stateside. I’ve no comment about this, as the mere sight of a Lincoln MKT (especially in its stretch ‘Town Car’ badging) still makes me go into a blinding rage and shout “HOW DARE YOU STAND WHERE IT STOOD!?”, which admittedly would make going to New York a rather awkward experience.
Anyway, our featured vehicle was posted on the cohort by chrisjcieslak, and it must’ve been quite a surprise as they walked past it and the brain took a second to parse that the ends did not match. I can only speculate what exactly happened for the front-end swap. Was it an aesthetic choice? I don’t think that Roadmaster front ends are that much cheaper than their Cadillac equivalent. And even if they were, it’s unlikely that it was just a bolt-on job, much as the late C and D-Bodies had in common. The other option would be that it had an accident at some point and the Buick’s front end was extricated from a junkyard for a cheap repair, which is fair enough. It’s not like a Caprice one will do the trick.
It may have been cheap, but it seems well-done. I spent a bit of time looking for a crappy panel gap or color mismatch, but saw nothing that couldn’t be explained by me getting used to my new glasses or the light when taking the picture. Whoever did this did it with care.
Everyone knew where the B- C- and D-Body cars were going in the early 90s (Well, I didn’t. Mostly because I was three). The whale styling was more divisive than the 77-90 clean-cut styling and the market was shrinking. We were driving full-speed ahead to a future where the large SUV would be the halo model for American tastes. GM did a pretty good on those ones it must be said. But, like the aforementioned Town Car, there was still a gap left on the market. One that would be inadequately filled by the Pontiac G8 a decade later, and the Chevrolet SS/Caprice (if you could manage to get one as a civilian) after that.
As far as Cadillac is concerned, they are trying to make a large sedan again after a couple of unsuccessful attempts in last years. The CT6 is based on a bespoke platform and has styling that, in your authors opinion, finally manages to look like the large Cadillac sedan for the 21st century (the XTS got close, but it had odd proportions thanks to FWD) and, the Internet says, will soon be available with a 4.2-liter V8.
Wait, wait…I’m digressing again. Sorry, I am one of those guys; the ones that want to cling to the olden ways of doing things as everything gets downsized and yet fatter around us. Large American vehicles, especially, should make no apologies about their size. It’s not like they will sell in any meaningful numbers anywhere else anyway (Do you see many Impalas or Dodge Durangos sold in Europe?) This especially can be seen on hearses. Think about it, what does the modern hearse look like?
Umm…no. How dare you et cetera. What about the Cadillac version?
O…kay…Somebody should probably get that poor Caddy some cream for the swelling. anyone from Europe wants to chime in?
*sigh*
Well, whether this particular hearse is still doing its duty delivering the bodies of the unfortunate to their final resting place; or it’s the personal vehicle of the sort of person who is so desperate to become one of them that they already sleep in a coffin, it’s very nice to see it still running around. I mean, as we have seen, it’s not like hearses have gotten any better looking since Harold and Maude.
Those Buillacs were largely ordered by SCI, the 800 pound gorilla in the funeral biz. I suppose they cost less than genuine Cadillacs and the families weren’t paying enough attention to know they weren’t looking at a proper Cadillac. I worked for an SCI firm in the late 80s, and we got all sorts of push-back from families when we showed up in Buick LeSabre limousines….not even Electras. At least the company still had proper Cadillac funeral coaches at that time.
That’s amusing that families would complain about the Buick hearses. I would have assumed that hardly anyone would notice, given the circumstances and everything else the family would be dealing with at that point. And those LeSabre hearses looked rather stately — it’s not like their loved one was being carted off in a Century Custom or something.
The topic of families and Cadillac hearses reminds me of the early 1990s song by Confederate Railroad called “Daddy Never Was The Cadillac Kind,” about a man’s unpretentious father who often railed about vain people and their obsession with status. In the end though, he was buried in a Cadillac hearse, and his son, the singer, had to laugh at the irony.
The LeSabres we had in the 80s were 6 door professional limousines stretched by Henry Bros in Arkansas…BASIC cloth seats, plain wheelcovers, one of them even had crank windows?!? Families expected a ride in a stretched Fleetwood, with tufted seats, load leveling, wire wheelcovers, etc, not a stripped down Buick. I had one guy tell me he felt like he was riding in the 3rd row in a stationwagon, not a luxury car. Like the image below, but white paint and top, and blue cloth seats.
OK — I get it now. I mis-read and thought you were talking about the hearse, not the limo. Yes, I can see the stripped-down LeSabre limo as not being exactly comforting in a moment of need. And crank windows in a limousine is pretty bad.
In the mid-seventies my Uncle Jack was laid to rest from a converted 1973 or ’74 Ford wagon painted in a sombre dark grey. In Australia at the time, that was actually a pretty classy hearse. The matching ‘mourning coach’ was cramped though; teenage me didn’t have enough legroom in the rear.
A Buick would have been unthinkably luxurious!
I’m guessing the LeSabre limo was from late 1984 or 1985 when an Electra would have been a FWD, transverse V6 unibody that the limo converters weren’t used to.
Weirdly, limoing a Buick brings it hugely downmarket. I think the only worse one I’ve seen is the Chrysler K limo. Market expectations? Or perhaps the Buick styling just doesn’t lend itself to a stretch.
One could take their last ride farther down GM’s luxury ladder, and not just in recent years: Here’s a 1959 Oldsmobile hearse:
The firm I worked for was located in a solidly blue collar neighborhood in South St. Louis, and back in the 60s and 70s, did a neat thing with their livery. GM, Ford and Chrysler all had plants in St. Louis, and in the interest of not offending anyone, they had Lincoln lead cars, Cadillac hearses, and Armbruster Stageway Chrysler limousines, all in light metallic blue, navy top and interior. By the mid-70s, they couldn’t get Chrysler limousines anymore, so they got Cadillacs. Then SCI bought the company in 1981, the Lincoln lead cars were replaced by Buick LeSabres, Cadillac coaches, and the cheesy Buick limousines, all in white, white top, blue cloth.
Surprising they went for cloth seats and not all-vinyl. And the only reason there’s a vinyl top is that it’s cheaper than metal finishing and filling the welds where the stretch insert meets the factory roof.
Buicks have been in funeral service about as long as Cadillac. Many times likely by families who would likewise be “Buick types” anyway. As not all of them were “low end” conversions. My Great uncle and Grandmother (brother and sister) had Buick hearses in their respective services, and that was no accident. My great uncle has a Buick man (I’m not sure if he ever even DROVE any thing other than a Roadmaster or,later an Electra 225! Here is a definite “pre badge-engineering” example from 1937 (period photo):
“Cadillac Jack” by Andre Williams:
https://youtu.be/ujSCHFvWUWg?si=hMn-ekdneyxja8hR
“Those Buillacs were largely ordered by SCI, the 800 pound gorilla in the funeral biz.~”
Were they actually a production piece?
It would make sense to start with a Buick if they have to convert from whole vehicles. A base Roadmaster sedan was about $4K cheaper than a Fleetwood, and they were mechanically identical. The Roadie wheelbase was shorter, but it would be stretched anyway. The standard Buick sedan had an upright grille that would be appropriate for a hearse.
“It would make sense to start with a Buick if they have to convert from whole vehicles. A base Roadmaster sedan was about $4K cheaper than a Fleetwood, and they were mechanically identical. The Roadie wheelbase was shorter, but it would be stretched anyway. The standard Buick sedan had an upright grille that would be appropriate for a hearse.”
But… wouldn’t the added cost of purchasing Cadillac rear components and side trim erase most of any savings? I wouldn’t doubt if the Cadillac rear pieces alone would have rung the cash register at $2500, even back then.
Or maybe it was something packaged up by GM as an incomplete vehicle kit?
I would suspect that once the coachbuilders have designed the back 2/3 of the body and sourced the components it would be cheaper to just stick with the established design (which was certainly for the Cadillac). I would also suspect that the interior was trimmed more cheaply in the Buick than in the Caddy version. If ordered by a large national funeral home operator, even a savings of $1000 multiplied over a relatively large number of units would affect their bottom line.
The side trim behind the front doors probably doesn’t interchange from Cadillac sedan to hearse. The “crash parts” at the back of the new Buick would have significant salvage value to offset purchase of some standard Cadillac trim parts like taillights.
Yup, Eureka built them when they were owned by CCE.
Are you saying this car came from GM with a Buick front clip on a Cadillac chassis and bodywork?
Cadillac chassis? The chassis underneath was shared by all the divisions that used it, along with the powertrain.
The body work behind the front doors is mostly specially made for the hearse. The Buick front doors interchange with Cadillac.
…and Chevrolet, and Oldsmobile (Custom Cruiser), for the first time since 1960 if I’m not mistaken.
I recognize a Chicago street scene in 2 secs. 😉
Yep! It’s at the corner of division and wood.
The first few generations of Lexus LS would have made a stately hearse – the new spindle grille generation? Not so much.
And now we know…that’s it is indeed possible to make a Porsche Panamera uglier.
Well, these are depressing. Not the idea of a hearse so much as hearses that look like these. These make me want to live forever, or at least until someone can make a decent looking hearse.
That Porsche reminds me of a phrase from the version of the Nicene Creed I had to memorize as a kid – The quick and the dead. 🙂
These are ugly monstrosities in my opinion. I would be appalled to be hauled to my final resting place. I wonder if someone has an older hearse rental business or a horse drawn one? The horse drawn ones have more class than these do in one wheel. JMO.
I kinda like this XTS hearse from GM Fleet.
https://www.gmfleet.com/cadillac/professional-vehicles/coachbuilder-hearse.html
Once upon a time hearses could be grand affairs, like this 1929 S&S.
Interesting mashup. That’s a sedan (not SW) front, of course.
The “big chrome” front bumper not so clear and easy to ID, that may be Cad, but one-piece?
Looks like a Cadillac bumper with Buick grille. Be interesting to see the registration. Had a bunch of hearses and limo’s, should have kept the 58 Cadillac hearse and limo for final event..
Looking at how well the water beads on the hood and the Buick wheelcovers makes me think that this car was built as a Buick and they didn’t bother making a different rear end for the Buick. I think that the taillights look like the ones from a FWD deVille of the same year, not the RWD Fleetwood. Seeing the dash would say for sure, as the Buick and Cadillac dashes looked a lot different from each other. Since the rear bodywork is almost all coachbuilt, the builder could avoid a lot of extra work without creating any by using the same body regardless of what badge the chassis/cab came with.
Dave, in case Paul shows up I wouldn’t want to get caught betting my CC posting privileges, but to me the taillamp and rear bumper appears to be Bro-Ham.
And the side trim seems to lack the typical Roadmaster oversize “bumper car” rubber.
Point being, in production, by the time the non-Buick pieces were rounded up what would be the economy in such a mish-mash?
(See link) The coachbuilt page for Eureka shows a Buick like this one, with a Buick sedan front clip and Cadillac taillights. It also has Cadillac wheelcovers. Google image search for 1994 Buick Eureka shows cars both ways, including both sedan and wagon front clips.
The world may never know.
Even when desiring a Buick hearse, use of the Cadillac taillights makes since in this generation as it simplifies the rear door, to do a proper Roadmaster rear gate would mean a heck of a custom sheet metal and wiring job for the Buick tailights,
Either that or using the wagon taillights shared with Chevrolet.
This car was Coachbuilt by Eureka specifically for SCI. The car is built on a Buick chassis and has Cadillac rear features.
Interesting. Do you know the backstory?
Did the builders start with a complete Buick sedan or with an incomplete cowl-and-chassis?
Surprising it wasn’t wagon based, rather than sedan.
Yeah, it’s a service vehicle, and as such has to have accommodations made for what it is intended for, but these new hearses are hideous. The “swoopyness” of a modern sedan makes it unfit for the hearse accoutrements, so it would seem that a SUV on the order of an Escalade would make a much more appropriate hearse. The family can be chauffeured to the graveside in a stretch sedan, but take the deceased in something dignified for his or her last ride.
I had the same thought, that an SUV would probably be better suited to hearse duty than most modern sedans.
Limos, on the other hand… I never liked most of the stretch SUV limos you often see. They usually end up looking kind of like school buses to me, especially the Hummer based ones. So yeah, sedans I agree are better for limos, SUVs for hearses.
Back in the day, and up until recently hearses were solemn and dignified. Today’s hearses (if that’s what you want to call them) are garish and make me want to vomit. There is no way I would want to be caught alive in a modern hearse, let alone dead.
Nice car. RWD Cadillacs made the best looking hearses, and since the Panther Town Car went out of production, the hearse industry has struggled to make a decent looking hearse without a traditional body on frame American car as a starting point. This one with a Buick front clip actually looks pretty good, though I think the Cadillac front end looks better whether it’s on a sedan or a hearse.
If you are into classic hearses from the 20’s to the 50’s and happen to be in the Houston area, check out the National Museum of Funeral History. They also periodically host classic Professional Car shows (hearses, flower cars and ambulances)
http://nmfh.org/
Love the unmistakeable Harry P reference!
Maybe someone will attempt a conversion of a Chrysler Pacifica one day.
Well, there was this one I saw on the road this past summer . . . .
I’m just not feeling it for this minivan based unit. Looks pretty well integrated however. Thanks JP.
And it’s still better looking than the MKT 😐
The black Cadillac in Gerardo’s sixth photo is an S&S Masterpiece of recent vintage. As noted recently elsewhere, I passed one of these, in Champagne paint, on the freeway recently. I thought I was coming up on a rolling phone booth, to judge by the very vertical rear view. The door, it turns out, opens on a single massive hinge: http://hearsecentral.com/ccshub/StockImages/2GEXG7U30H9500367_img_05.jpg
The Cadillac posted by CJC is better looking, in my view, though it’s a little disconcerting to see the sedan windows in their entirety, peeking out from within the swelling body. But the height isn’t so extreme, so the rooftop doesn’t diminish in width quite so much as in the “Masterpiece.”
What I’m not sure about is whether GM ever built a Roadmaster with a “livery” package…livery-specific Cadillacs had upgraded springs, cooling, etc. Newer FWD Cadillacs even have 8-lug wheels. The Cadillacs could be ordered without rear doors, trunklids, even rear seats, since that stuff would be discarded anyway…used to see truckloads of them en-route to Eagle Coach in Amelia OH for conversion.
The prettiest current production coach is the Armbruster Stageway Imperial…low roof so it doesn’t look like a doorstop, and limousine-style side glass…almost gives off a 1959 vibe on the back of the car.
https://armbrusterstageway.com/
That Crown Regal would look awesome in another modern Ghostbusters movie.
Nice. My issue with the Armbruster line would be with the 6-door limos, where the center door window is prisoner to the factory front and rear door shapes. The makers have created their own stretched rear door — so why not remove the front door chrome window trim, add a bit of metal there, then apply new molding that creates a shallow arch, through the middle and to the rear door ?
A perfectly understandable optical illusion, that the middle door window is actually sagging from straight, is the unfortunate result of the decision made, to use the front door window frame unmodified. The hearses, which don’t have the sedan window arch issue, look just grand . . .
In the mid-Atlantic region where I live, I see a lot of Chrysler minivans these days as hearses. Makes sense, really, it takes little to no alteration to do the job. See FWD Deville/DTS/XTS limos mostly. I’ve never seen a Lincoln in any funeral role around these parts, that I can recall.
Love that 3 car B-body lineup. I had the last one in the row for several years and enjoyed it thoroughly. But that red Caddy – I gots to have it, such a rare color!
I had a bad experience with a ’74 Caddy DeVille, and I vowed never to buy or work on a Caddy again. Being an Oldsmobile man, I wrote this…
When the Lord calls my number and it’s time to send me home
I thought I’d make my wishes clear and write them in this poem.
On my last day above the soil, having shuffled off this mortal coil
It is my wish that you abide, strictly on my final ride.
I’ll not have my last trip in anything long and black, so don’t ask them to take me in some rich man’s Cadillac.
And, by my thinking there’s no way I could go in some fancy Lincoln,
So when it comes time to lay me down, it should not offend the Lord
to roll my shiny casket into the long box of a Ford.
Or, on my way to meet the Lord you could trumpet my arrival by laying on an old Ram’s horn.
But one thing I’d like more upon my final day
is to take a little drive in a jacked up Chevrolet.
On the cemetery ride we could really make good time and push that big block Chevy just a smidge above redline.
And if there’s time enough, you’d really be a bud, to find some country backroad and take us through the mud.
The angels call me to my resting place just know I’ll grin ear to ear, if we run late and you get rubber in all four gears.
I’d be in luck to take a truck but it’d really make me squeal
to take me to my resting place in a hot-rod Oldsmobile.
So slide my corpse in a Vista-Cruiser wagon,
with a Tic-Toc-Tach and Posi-track and Ram-Air compilation.
The melodious exhaust note will announce my coming home
Not through ram horns, nay, these trumpets are made of chrome!
Before you lay me low, there is just one more thing I must ask:
The viewing must be made through the crystal Vista-Glass.
Just push my cheeks up to the windows so the world can kiss my ass!
The specific reason why almost all modern car-based hearses look ungainly and swollen, like the FWD DTS-based example above, is the end of what was called “commercial glass.” Up to about 1980, coachbuilders often used taller windshields, side glass and door frames (i.e. taller than on a stock sedan) to create hearses with higher roofs that still looked in proportion. Now they just slice off the roof and stick an upturned fiberglass boat on top, or at least that is what it looks like. It’s hard to imagine how commercial glass would work with today’s extremely raked windshields and A pillars.
Yup — that’s the problem: modern sedan greenhouse shaped differently.
The white Pacifica JP posted above has tall glass; the (re)designer decided to make an arc out of the sliding-door window frame, gratuitously ? Might as well move that landau iron a bit lower, and complete the implied curve all the way to the beltline . . . ?
GM won’t let Master Coachbuilders use commercial glass any more because of A-pillar airbags…can’t change the height or angle of the pillars of the airbags won’t work right. I suspect they would have to crash-test and recertify the airbags for 750 cars a year…just not worth it.
I don’t think that’s a Pacifica, it looks like a T&C. One of the coachbuilders in Amelia OH makes that, or something really similar…even uses Chrysler 300 taillamps as I recall.
“I don’t think that’s a Pacifica, it looks like a T&C. One of the coachbuilders in Amelia OH makes that, or something really similar…even uses Chrysler 300 taillamps as I recall.”
Correct you are, sir.
So with pillars and glass being a no-go area, sedans seem increasingly out of the question for hearse conversion. Nobody wants their last ride to be a Toyota Hiace, so I’m wondering why crossover platforms aren’t more popular, whether in stretched or unstretched form. They basically already provide the necessary height and often also the necessary length even without expensive modifications, and I dare to say that some of them actually look decently dignified. For example whenever I think ‘missed opportunity for a hearse’ I think Flex (minus the big lettering).
MK Coach is an offshoot of Eagle Coach…see the MK300 link for the stretched Town & Country…
http://www.mkcoaches.com/products/mk-300/
Isn’t that a late-model Pacifica?
It looks too “swoopy” to be a T&C, but it may be the work of the coachbuilder that is playing tricks with my eyes…
I haven’t seen a Pacifica conversion yet…The stretched quarters, side-hinged cargo door and 300 taillamps change the whole look of the van, but I’m sure it’s a T&C.
The whole professional car business is in flux, again. Accubuilt recently sold the S&S and Superior brands to the parent company of Armbruster Stageway, who also makes Federal Coaches, as I recall. So, effectively you have Eagle and the other offshoot operations in Amelia OH, and Armbruster’s brands, and that’s about it in the US.
Coaches have gotten SO expensive, and that drives smaller operators to either keep their old coach, use a dressed up minivan or SUV, or just use a rental coach as needed. Cremation families seem content with a dressed-up minivan, and some funeral directors don’t even use the urn alcove in the rear floor, they just buckle up the urn on the front passenger seat. Bigger operators just schedule their day to use their coaches on multiple services daily.
The US funeral business is changing dramatically, and the coach business with it. For that matter, Batesville Casket Co is down to one shift in their main operation, as more and more people choose cremation.
I’m going to ask for Jaguar XJ when the time comes. Many others here (and especially the limousines) are conversions of Aussie Ford Falcons.
Roger, those Jaguars are pretty. It’s nice to see something other than black paint too. I miss the days when local funeral homes all had recognizable livery…with very few exceptions everyone around here uses black cars.
The most noteworthy local exception to the “all black” rule is Thompson Hall & Jordan in Cincinnati…they are well known for gold coaches and limousines.
These were built by Eueka from 1995-96, called the Eureka Buick Brougham. As was already mentioned in the comments, most were sold to funeral homes associated to Service Corporation International (SCI). The 1994 Eureka Encore Brougham used the standard Roadmaster wagon back end.
Cool! I remember this article as a hearse and b-body fan. I think the First Posted date is wrong.
Definitely a time warp thing going on there! Even here on the other side of the International Date line – First posted tomorrow? 🙂
Ooops, the date is fixed now.
One thing I don’t get in many of these modern hearse designs: why do they have such an exaggerated raised headroom rear section? More than anything else it makes the end result look cartoonish. Slightly raised over a regular wagon I can understand, to make it easier for cleaning out the fallen debris from wreaths and such; that’s practical. But some of these ungainly things look like you could almost walk around back there.
As Americans get fatter by the decade, the size of the coffins do too. A hearse needs to accommodate whatever sized fare it will be hauling. The high roof might look foolish for 95 pound Aunt Mabel but there are a lot of 500 lb Frannie’s that will ride back there too. Would you like to Super-size that?
Wouldn’t an extended version of an Escalade or Navigator make more sense as a hearse? I imagine that a coffin could easily fit inside. They have a somber appearance in black. Plus they have a sturdy power train and high load rating. How long does the interior need to be?
Makes a lot of sense to use one of the Suburban variants. Body on frame I hear simplifies things considerably.
Further on that same vein, and while I think they’re declass, many do not, is a double cab pickup truck as a base point. Body on frame again, but would you even need to stretch it? With an 8′ bed as a starting point? Just replace/modify the existing bed to be enclosed, and doing sheetmetal work is what they do anyway.
Again, while I’m not enamored with pickups, regardless if it’s me that’s gone or you that’s gone, the gone-ee is going to be oblivious to it all. Smooth sheetmetal that matches, some big a** landau bars and I bet over half the population would be happy with it. Especially if you put Cad or Lincoln emblems on it.