If you were unlucky enough to have to ride in a ’57 Mercury ambulance, at least you rode in style, as this one one of the very few wagons that only came in hardtop (pillarless) style. Even the two door. Just think how nice the views and the breeze would have been, with all those windows open as you were rushed to the hospital for an emergency. Oh, and that applied to Mercurys from ’57 all the way through 1960.
But I never saw any. Did you?
Never seen one and could never understand how they used station wagons as ambulances. Today’s ambulances are full of life-saving equipment.
Ambulances then didn’t have nearly as much life-saving equipment because there was a lot less life-saving going on in the back of that station wagon. It was mostly a You Call, We Haul operation.
Pre-hospital medicine advanced greatly from 1970’s to the 1990’s. Today, treatment you get on the 911 scene is mostly the same as the initial treatments in the hospital and there is a lot of equipment. In the 50’s, you were doing well if your ambulance had oxygen.
If fairness though, most emergency ambulances in 50s and 60s were modified hearses on extended chassis with raised roofs. I believe bone stock station wagons were the minority, though I wasn’t around then so I can’t say from experience!
“Scoop-and-run” was how I’d heard it described, and the station-wagon ambulance was a low cost solution either for a small town or as a backup, usually built from a base-trim Chevy, Ford or Plymouth to further reduce costs.
In our small town, the undertaker’s hearse doubled as the ambulance. We always used to speculate what might happen if an accident occurred while a funeral was in progress. Luckily it never happened.
Station Wagons were the default vehicle for ambulances for decades. many of the life saving devices we know today did not exist, then. The purpose of an ambulance was to stabilize a patient until arrival at the ER. Wat I would like to know is why there is a walkway. but no driveway. and why is the ambulance 90 degress to route of travel?
But why? Default vehicles should have been vans or transporters like GMC 100, Ford Econovan or the like. Instead they converted Cadillacs, even this Mercury. Unbelievable.
Those vans were for low cost transport, not fast, comfortable transport.
Compared to a typical commercial truck of the period, a converted Cadillac (acually not converted, but a dedicated commercial chassis, just like a truck-based chassis unit) was fast, powerful, smooth, compact, quiet and light with much better cornering. A much better basis for a light, fast transport, and much easier to drive (eg, Cadillac had synchro trans, then heavy duty automatics). Back in the day, a bigger car generally had a more powerful engine. For example, the smallest V8 in the Mercury line was bigger than the biggest Ford, and the 1958 Ford wagon was built on the smaller 116 inch standard Ford line, not the 118 inch Fairlane. (There is a 1958 Edsel Amblewagon on the show circuit; it has the 116 inch Ford wagon body with the 361 inch engine that was available to Edsel, not Ford.)
Remember also that pickup trucks weren’t the all purpose car substitutes that we know now. Cadillacs and similar big cars were the camper trailer towing vehicles of choice, too; quiet, powerful, fast, comfortable, smooth, etc. Not traits of pickup trucks and medium duties then.
Also, as noted elsewhere, rescue/ambulance units simply didn’t carry the equipment of modern ambulances, and there weren’t professionally trained EMTs to operate that equipment.
After looking at it, I’d say the pic of the car was added to the pic of the building. The shade under the front end doesn’t look right.
The building is interesting. Looks appropriate for the home office of an ambulance service, but the garage has been converted into a room. Maybe the company had a separate garage elsewhere on the property.
It looks to me like there might be a blacktop driveway under the Mercury. And maybe the house is on a corner lot with the sidewalk coming from one street and the driveway entrance on the intersecting street. That’s the best I’ve got.
I found the building – it’s the Wilson Funeral Home in the small town of Pond Creek, Oklahoma (clued in because the Mercury’s rear window says “Wilson” in faint letters).
The building still exists, and is visible on Google Street View – image below and the link is here:
https://goo.gl/maps/V6YV9gp4oUoZCBXk6
The building has been modified over time (particularly the roof), but it’s almost certainly the same place. So while some aspects of the photo may have been manipulated – given that this matches up to an actual funeral home, I’d say this is a legitimate picture.
Excellent sleuthing. And it’s still a funeral home, albeit a very modest one.
The question is why this photo was taken in the first place. Because it was the only wagon Mercury sold for this purpose in 1957?
Based on the ad below, it looks like the photo was taken by the funeral home itself for advertising purposes.
They’re advertising a new, air-conditioned ambulance “for the transportation of the sick and injured” – implying that the funeral home is now using a separate vehicle for undertaker transportation.
This is just a wild guess, but possibly this small town funeral home really wanted an air-conditioned ambulance, so they bought a Mercury wagon from dealer stock (probably easier to find an a/c-equipped Mercury than a Ford in ’57), and then shipped it to the Automotive Conversion Corporation (the Ford-specialists that Constellation notes below) to create an ambulance out of it. Again, just a guess, but I can see that happening.
There would also be a handful of Chrysler hardtop ambulances from the ’60-64 timeframe, perhaps ’60-61 Dodge Polaras as well. Here’s a link to a ’62 Chrysler: https://professionalcarsociety.org/threads/1962-chrysler-ambulance-id.22606/
I saw a ‘63 Chevy station wagon ambulance at an antique show once – that was it. Most of the ambulances I remember seeing as a kid were Ford, Chevy or Dodge van conversions – they’re much more specialized now but still based on a van chassis. Years ago, friends of my parents bought a ‘70’s Dodge van that had been used as an ambulance and converted it into a motor home. It still had the storage cupboards (which came in handy) and they basically just painted it and installed a new rear differential so it would perform better on the highway.
Could it be photo manipulation?
There is some wierd-ness going on with the front bumper.
Maybe damage on the driver’s side but it could be an
image or scanning issue.
Yup.
The Big A?
Not only have I never seen a Mercury wagon of this era used as an ambulance, I am not even sure I have ever seen a 4 door hardtop Mercury wagon in person.
I had a ‘58 back in the ‘70s. Not an ambulance, just a wagon. Mine had AC & crank windows so I rarely took advantage of the hardtop. Good AC too. One simple knob controlled both heat & AC. One of Ford’s first integrated AC units.
If you grew up in the 1950’s & 1960’s you’d remember mostly Cadillac ambulances with some Pontiac ‘Mephian’ military surplus ones .
This is simply a station wagon with the rear seat folded down, maybe for serious low budget uses .
Agreed, when they loaded someone into the back of an ambulance in 1965 you never knew if you’d see them alive again .
Thanx for the Professional Car link .
-Nate
Perhaps the most famous ambulance in history, the 1963 Pontiac Bonneville naval ambulance performing it’s solemn duty on November 22, 1963.
Yes Sir, CPJ.
We remember this ’63 Pontiac ambulance as clearly as the ’61 Continental convertible, the Secret Service agent climbing on the rear bumper, and Abraham Zapruder’s grassy knoll.
And its almost November 22.
A vivid memory for me was noticing how low the rear of the ambulance sank down when the coffin was placed in it. Apparently the only (suitable?) coffin available in Dallas was a very heavy bronze one.
So many memories from that day.
Given the year and the “Fordness” I wonder if the Mercury could be an Amblewagon, from Automotive Conversion Corporation.
Amblewagons were very simple ambulances that were really just a station wagon with a “barn door” instead of a traditional tailgate. I’ve often seen the Edsel Amblewagon in Wellington, Colorado. It is a ’58 and owned by the Wellington Fire Protection District.
An ad for the company illustrates both ’58 Ford and Edsel Amblewagons and further states “also available on Mercury”.
See: https://www.edsel.com/pages/special.htm
I’m a bit younger than most, I had a memorable ride in a Chevy van ambulance as a kid. Growing up in Holland the rumble of the v8 made quite an impression on me. I was quite sad when the last Express vans were replaced, marking the end of more than half a century of Chevrolet ambulances in use here.
While living in Senegal there was a Chevrolet K30 in use as ambulance there in the old center of Dakar with the 6.2 Detroit diesel engine in it. The majority of the Chevrolet C/K line there had that engine because they were the military CUCV variant, there were very few equipped with gasoline small block v8s. It had a large box on the back, I can’t imagine it getting anywhere fast but I have no doubt that it navigated the unpaved loose sand roads without any issues at all.
I wonder if they still use it, with the limited funds they have and the heavy duty parts I wouldn’t be suprised if its still being used as ambulance.
In 1970 or 71, when I was at university in southern Ontario, the ski club organized a cheap weekend bus trip to Mont-Sainte-Anne, which is about 50 km east of Quebec City.
On the first day I had a bad fall and dislocated my shoulder. After an exciting ride down the rest of the hill in a rescue toboggan, they took me into the first aid station. They decided that it was not critical and that I should go to emergency at the hospital in Quebec City for treatment. I was sent in an ambulance and I could tell that it was basically a station wagon, as I could easily touch the ceiling with my good arm. They actually fitted 2 of us in the back, each on our own stretcher. I guess it was really more of a medical transport than an ambulance, but it was definitely not roomy.
And to think that I bitch and complain if I have to work out of a Mercedes Sprinter ambulance instead of my normal F-350 cab/chassis ambulance because the Mercedes is “so small and cramped”. It’s got tons of head room though!
I was unconscious after 11:30 PM on Friday, August 15, 1958. Thus, I cannot tell you the make and model of the ambulance that took me to Fordham Hospital in The Bronx. However, on the Eighteenth of August in the evening, our neighbor, Mr. Arthur Goldman, had me transported in their 1957 Cadillac ambulance to Columbia Presbyterian medical Center. Mr. Goldman and his brother were had an ambulance service on Webster Avenue in The Bronx. The ride in the Cadillac I remember very well. It was outfitted with good illumination and the ride was smooth despite the streets of New York City. That’s what we had back then; conversions of automobiles.
A Tourniquet Cruiser.
robadr, Your comment just made my day!
As one of the original members of the Professional Car Society, I have seen many oddball Ambulances over the last 50 years, but I don’t remember seeing a 1958 Edsel ambulance. [Last I heard there was a 1959 Edsel ambulance in the PCS records.]
As mentioned above, one of the serious markets for a standard station wagon ambulance conversion was for small town use, where the fire departments were volunteer staffed. As it could take a long time to get fire equipment underway, the response rate was too long to provide speedy ambulance service. Hence the local towns often depended on the local funeral home, as most of the time the funeral home workers could react quickly when a call came in.
Another big market for these station wagon conversions was providing large manufacturing facilities with life-saving equipment. Up until OSHA started clamping down on workplace safety, it was fairly common for large companies to have their own ambulance service [and even fire departments] in house. Several employees would be trained in emergency rescue and transport.
In the late 1970s, when the big West Virginia Paper Co [WESVACO] closed one of it’s plants in western Maryland, they held a big auction of surplus equipment, including a 1958 Pontiac Superior high top ambulance. They had bought it as military surplus from the Navy, and it could hold up to four stretchers with patients. I was the high bidder for this running ambulance that had been in company service until recently, and I paid about $100 for it. I’m attaching a photo of the Pontiac ambulance when I had it for sale in front of my farmhouse in Silver Spring, MD about 1980.
Sadly, the company also tried to sell off 2 1920s American-LaFrance fire engines, but they didn’t sell. I don’t remember if they had an unmet reserve, or simply didn’t get bids, but about 10 years later I visited the facility, at that time it was a huge abandoned manufacturing plant. I observed that the fire department building’s roof had collapsed onto the fire engines, and whatever valuable pieces like grill emblems and fire fighting equipment, had been removed.