Having run into this 1939 Studebaker hearse shot, it occurred to me that this is the first one I can remember seeing. This is a pre-war car, and it makes me wonder if any of the ambulance-hearse builder ever used post-war Studebaker chassis?
Vintage PR Shot: 1939 Bender-Studebaker Arlington Funeral Coach – The First Studebaker Hearse Picture I’ve Run Into
– Posted on March 13, 2022
Interesting topic — I don’t remember seeing pictures of Studebaker funeral vehicles either, but now that I’m looking, I see several examples of pre-war Studebakers – the one below, for instance, looks like it’s based on a mid-1930s Dictator.
But I can’t find any postwar examples at all. I’d love to see if other folks can come up with pictures of any.
A quick duck-duck-go image search yields many pre-war Studebaker hearses. The closest to a hearse were several post-war ambulances, based upon 60s models. One of the more memorable appearing was this one…
But nothing that was a dedicated hearse.
That looks to be Australian, where things were done a bit differently. They had very few options for BOF cars to base an ambulance on.
Quite likely, as another I found had Queensland plates on it. This picture in the search was labelled with Ssongyang but had no verbiage in the linked source below. Perhaps it is referring to something else.
This page is a rabbit hole of international hearses and ambulances, with some post-war Studebaker truck based hearses as well as one mid-50s Studebaker sedan hearse.
https://myntransportblog.wordpress.com/tag/ssangyong/
I think you mean SsangYong. They started out as building other makers’ designs at the end of the Korean war. They’ve built everything from AMC vehicles including Jeeps and also Mercedes. While the company goes back to 1954, the SsangYong name first appeared on vehicles the same year as the Seoul Olympics – 1988. I was based in Korea at the time. I can recall the older Dong-A busses being replaced with new busses of the same design labeled with the SsyangYong name rather then the Dong-A name. Bus routes serving Olympic venues got priority for the new busses. If SsangYong built Studebakers, it is unlikely they used the SsangYong name given the dates of Studebaker’s demise and SsangYong’s beginning. Of course, as a contract producer, nothing barred them from converting used vehicles.
The Champion they produced after the war only had a 170 C.I.D. engine, not likely any coachwork built for this.Donaldo
That’s a good question – I have seen a few pictures of prewar versions but never a postwar.
Here’s a 1919 hearse especially for child caskets. A reminder that our alleged “longer lives” are almost entirely due to preventing early mortality. After age 20, and especially after 60, things haven’t improved much.
The only picture I could come up with of any postwar Studebaker funeral vehicle was this 1949 flower car. Not a hearse, but… well, it’s close. I have no idea who the coachbuilder was.
I’ve looked through McCall’s and McPherson’s books and nothing comes up post-war. They do pop up as pre-war chassis, and Bender was the last builder to specialize on Studebaker.
The newest Studebaker hearse I found in my searching was a ’40 from Australia. Postwar Studes weren’t considered very fancy, from what I understand, and your last ride is supposed to be something fancy.