Cadillacs
that work for a living
The
story of Cadillac Professional Cars
as told to me by aficionado, Jim Crabtree
The name Cadillac has long been associated with luxury cars.
The word luxury implies cars built for the
leisure class. Indeed the vast majority of Cadillacs are not built with the intention of
being a utilitarian car. When Cadillac built the first cars with self starters, automatic
transmissions and other 'labor saving' features, the image that the Cadillac Motor
Division was selling was a car that allowed you to avoid work, not a vehicle that would be
used as an integral part of your work day. There is however an entire class of Cadillac
cars that were intended to become workhorses for people earning a wage and not carriages
for the wealthy. These are the so-called "commercial" Cadillacs and are best
known in their hearse and ambulance configurations but they also exist as the seldom
recognized and totally unappreciated "commercial" sedans and limousines produced
during the 1930s and 1940s.
At the time of Cadillac's founding (1902) there really were
no mechanized trucks. Horses and freight wagons still hauled the heavy loads in society.
The technology of horseless carriages was so primitive that just getting a vehicle to
carry passengers was considered miraculous. As mankind gained a better understanding of
harnessing the power of an internal combustion engine, industry worked to devise vehicles
that could carry heavier loads. Eventually large trucks were developed whose load ratings
could be measured in tons. During this time period, cars themselves also became larger as
the advantages of longer wheel bases, bigger interiors and more power engines were
recognized.
One industry however clung to horses as the preferred method
of carrying their payloads. This is the industry that specialized in moving a human body
in a recumbent position: the funeral and ambulance industry. Fashion was a big part
if this. Funeral directors in the early 1900s debated if it was appropriate to use an
automobile in a funeral at all. Was there any reason to go from the church to the cemetery
at a speed faster than the slow walk of a horse? The early 1900s was also a period of
doctors making house calls and doing surgery on the kitchen table. Hospitals did not offer access to many more
machines or medical advances than could be found in a typical home. In short there was
little need to rush patients to a hospital via a motorized ambulance.
By the late teens and twenties the advantages of using a
motorized vehicle to provide hearse and ambulance service won out over Victorian funeral traditions and also proved itself in
modern medical practice. These industries had a need for a motorized vehicle that could
carry a human body in a prone position accompanied by approximately 300-400 pounds of
accessories. (casket, flowers, gurney, treatment devices etc). Trucks of this time period
certainly had the load carrying capacity to do the job but their suspensions were too
rough for anything but cargo. Traditional
builders of horse drawn hearses and funeral equipment such as Cunningham, Crane &
Breed, Rock Falls and Sayers & Scovill (S&S) answered the need and began building
their own entire vehicles using standardized outsource parts such as motors, gears, axles
and electrical parts. These "coach builders" would also build the body and place
it on any automobile chassis chosen by the customer, but the focus was on selling a
complete car. This practice continued through into the late 1920s when coach builders such
as S&S, Meteor, A.J. Miller, Eureka and Superior led the industry in production of
hearses and ambulances.
It was eventually discovered by these coach builders that the
luxury car builders such as Cadillac and Packard produced a chassis that was strong,
reliable and prestigious enough that it made little sense to build a complete car.
Business models changed and the coach builders focused on building just the body and
leaving the mechanicals to somebody else.
Fortunately during this time (late 1920s into the 1930s)
luxury automobile manufactures routinely built and offered a bare chassis that was
designed to be the basis for a custom built body. Most car aficionados are familiar with
these types of vehicles. Formal and sport bodies created by Fleetwood, Derham, Murphy,
Brunn and many others. As technology advanced and car bodies became produced by using all
metal processes, it became too costly to produce custom made cars. This advance in
technology was also accompanied by a radical decrease in the number of potential customers
brought on by the changing economy and status symbols of the 1940s. There remained however
one industry with a continuing need for custom built bodies, the hearse and ambulance
business.
"Cadillac"
hearses and ambulances were never built
by the Cadillac Division of General Motors Corporation
There is a common misunderstanding among car buffs in general
and Cadillac enthusiasts in particular that hearses, ambulances, flower cars and the like
were built by the Cadillac Division of GM. This of course is a fallacy, propagated no
doubt by the lavish "Professional Car" catalogs published by the company each
year. In fact, only the chassis and mechanical components of these specialized vehicles
ever were built by Cadillac.
These vehicles are not "luxury cars" nor
"dream cars", in the accepted sense of the term, even though the compiler of
The (new) Cadillac Database ©
incorporated them, initially, in the "Dream Cars" section of that data resource,
mainly on account of their relative rarity. It became obvious, however, that vehicles of
this kind were deserving of a chapter of their own. It has befallen this writer to
creating a new Database section and to contribute his modest expertise to correcting the
occasional errors and omissions found in the "Dream Cars" section, insofar as it
related to "professional" or "commercial" cars.
From the 1940s to today, there has been a market for
approximately 2000-4000 new hearses and ambulances each year (Note: from about 1976 on,
all ambulances have been built on truck and van chassis). They were built on luxury car
chassis because these chassis offered the heavy duty components that could stand up to the
rigors of hard daily use. The names Cadillac and Packard etc. did add to the prestige and
social standing of the mortuary that operated one.
The guaranteed sales of 2000-4000 vehicles a year was
attractive enough for Cadillac to continue building a "commercial chassis" from
the 1940s well into the 1970s for the sole purpose of acting as the base for a new hearse
or ambulance body (Packard stopped building a commercial chassis in 1954 and Lincoln did
not offer a "commercial chassis", as such, until the 1980s).
Cadillac hearses
and ambulances prior to 1984 are NOT
mounted on "stretched" Cadillac chassis, NOR
are they "conversions" of any existing Cadillac model
A commercial chassis was just that, an incomplete car. A long
wheelbase frame built to have a body added to it. A frame and engine that was not operable
on the street in the form that it was delivered to the coach builders. Please study the
photos of the commercial chassis as they were delivered to coach builders. Fenders, hoods,
dashboards, door skins and trim were boxed and shipped along with the "kit" to
the coach builders and so these parts generally interchange with standard Cadillacs.
However, coach builders purchased parts from other sources,
which means that restoration of a hearse or ambulance that is missing parts is 100 times
more difficult than for any standard Cadillac. In some years even the windshield is unique
to professional cars and does not interchange with any standard Cadillac. For example,
owing to the wide rear door of hearses and ambulances, the dual, horizontal tail
light pods designed for the regular 1961 Cadillac models don't fit these commercial cars;
they have their own, unique tail lights.
After 1984, the "commercial chassis" delivered to
coach builders was more of a stripped down production car. This is particularly true for
the stretched limousines of the 1980s onward. In
1985 a stripped Coupe DeVille was used as a "commercial body".
Even literature for these cars is different. Virtually every
year Cadillac produced a brochure describing the attributes and advantages of their
commercial chassis. Authored by the commercial chassis division of Cadillac, this brochure
is one of the rarest brochures for any given year. Many collectors are not even aware of
its existence.
Cadillac professional cars were not luxury cars in a typical
Cadillac sense, to understand them they should be seen as trucks and business vehicles.
The goal for the business owner was a long maintenance free, economical service life. It
should be understood that these Professional Cars formed a depreciating business
"asset". Their service life was calculated and replacement cycles were
established by the buyers long before their initial purchase. The costs associated with
operation was optimized throughout the car's useful life cycle.
This is why hearses and ambulances were almost never built
using Cadillac's most complex mechanical components. V-8 engines were the norm, V-12 and
V-16s are virtually non-existent in professional cars. Even as late as1952 and 1953
standard shift transmissions were not at all unusual in hearses and ambulances. At that
late date, many operators of these business vehicles still felt that a stick shift was
more cost effective when operating the vehicle for a business. Manual steering was the
norm, radio deletion plates are common (even as late as 1976!) and there even exists a
1974 Miller-Meteor ambulance built and sold without air conditioning! Power windows did
exist in some hearses and ambulances, but crank windows are found on 90% or more of
commercial chassis vehicles. Luxury features do not become common in hearses or ambulances
until the year that GM made them standard equipment for all Cadillacs.
This brings up the subject of a very unusual car, a Fleetwood
75 "business" sedan or limousine. A Cadillac limousine (or 7 passenger sedan if
there was no divider window) was always a costly car. Low volume production of this body
style and the use of the finest appointments preclude any price advantages that could be
gained through economies of scale. A funeral director needs a limousine or large sedan in
his work. However every dollar paid out in the initial price for one of these cars is
money that cannot be realized as profit.
In an effort to gain sales in this specialized market,
Cadillac offered what they referred to as "business" cars. To see one of these
cars you would identify them as a Fleetwood 75 limousine (or sedan). However, if your look
closely you will see that these business cars were cheapened versions of the standard Cad.
The use of cheaper (more durable) cloths, a lack of polished woods and other interior trim
allowed for lowered initial prices.
Automotive historians have yet to fully document these
interesting cars. Many otherwise
knowledgeable collectors are not even aware of their existence. Cadillac offered these
cars in their line up from 1935 until 1951. In most years, production was below 25 cars,
in some years and variations Cadillac created only enough to be counted on both hands.
Recognizing one today would generally require identifying it
through its unique serial and body numbers. These are cars that are due for much more
study and documentation.
All hearses and ambulances are rare vehicles. From just
before WW2 to the 1970s, there were only a few coach builders who built on the Cadillac
chassis; S&S (aka Hess and Eisenhardt), Superior, A.J. Miller, Meteor (later
Miller-Meteor) and Eureka. One look at Cadillac's production figures shows that they
produced approximately 2000 commercial chassis each year. Divide this figure between the
3-4 coach builders and then divide that figure again between the many variations of
funeral cars and ambulances and for any variation of hearse or ambulance the production
figures drop quickly into the three digit range. In many cases fewer than 100 of a
particular vehicle design were ever created (e.g.: flower cars were rarely produced in
numbers exceeding 50 units).
It is unfortunate that for years so many of these custom
coach-built vehicles were either ignored by collectors or destroyed as parts cars by the
ignorant and unappreciative. It has been recognized that some people are even scared about
being around vehicles that played a role in the funeral industry. Rest assured that nobody
has ever found a haunted hearse or ambulance.
As today's collectors search out Rare cars (Rare with a
capital "R"!) many of these unique vehicles are finally finding caring homes and
places at prestigious car shows. Becoming an expert in professional cars is more difficult
than for any other type of collector car. As a Cadillac fan reading this Database you may
already know the difference between a 1961 and 1962 Cadillac and you may even be able to
recognize the subtle differences between a Series 62 and a Coupe de Ville, but becoming
expert enough to be able to differentiate between a Superior and a Miller-Meteor hearse
from across a parking lot will take some study. The fact that you are reading this
Database is a good start. It is beyond its scope to explore the many differences and
features of each coach builder; for this information the reader is directed to search the
web using the key words 'professional car' or using the name of the coach builder you wish
to learn more about.
© 2002, Jim Crabtree
