New,with excited questions.

[Honey_Badger]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Cadil...12d14d&vxp=mtr

Some of their pics aren't coming up, but I beleive this is a combo.

Negatory..... Last car based ambulance was built in 1978. In 1973, the federal government instituted an Act that stated all ambulances / combos were to be obsolete within 5 years and all new service units were to be truck / van based modular units. Yes, many years passed before the end of car ambulances but it did happen. In 1979 ALL car based units were excluded from ambulatory service.

So in 1980 if you were not running "national standard" equipment. You were just left to haul bodies and close up shop on ambulance service.

[Shawn of the MPCC]

Car from ebay is a combo. You can see the flip seat in the one picture, that of course isnt available. I seen this coach discussed elsewhere and all said it was a combo. Almost bought a 80 S&S combo myself a couple years ago. Newest I seen in person was one of those 87 Bayliff Packards, also saw an 82 Suuperior combo in person too. From what I always understood, none of these were used as actual emergency ambulance, but as patient transport ambulances.

[Eldervampire]

Ryan, thanks for clearing that up. The actual driving / parking for me won't be an issue, but I hadn't considered vandals and others of the chicken-shit ass-hat variety, appreciate it bro. I hope that anyone who tries anything understands what hydrostatic shock is, heh-heh. On the matter of the combo, I'm not thrilled about the looks of them. However, i haven't seen any in person, nor have I seen many flattering photos. Perhaps a few nice folks here would be willing to help out in that area......

[Honey_Badger]

Car from ebay is a combo. You can see the flip seat in the one picture, that of course isnt available. I seen this coach discussed elsewhere and all said it was a combo. Almost bought a 80 S&S combo myself a couple years ago. Newest I seen in person was one of those 87 Bayliff Packards, also saw an 82 Suuperior combo in person too. From what I always understood, none of these were used as actual emergency ambulance, but as patient transport ambulances.

The only post 80 coaches that I have ever seen with jump seats in person were state owned or state contracted funeral homes. State owned as in penitentiary that had a death house. The jump seats were used for additional riders as for the state guarded dead needed to be watched? lol

A funeral home that I used to work with had a combo car from Nashville that had jump seats and what was seemingly a large O-2 bottle rack under the floor. However it was stainless bottomed and was used for shovels. Upon research, the coach was ordered and primarily used for pauper's grave service. 1 car and enough help to do the work quickly.

As for the thought of live patient transport.

Starting in the mid 60's, insurance companies paid as they do today for transport. Key deal with insurance to pay for services, the company providing service must be within all federal guidelines to be eligible to receive payment. So for a private company to have a combo car to provide live transport service would be asinine unless they still offered in city transport for the $60 run.

If it is a live transport combo, I would love to know the backstory on it and how they managed to beat the odds to afford one in fleet.

[Haroldfromhell]

The EMS act of 1974 was enacted in 1978 ending using car chassis as ambulances, but some were still built for export in the 1980's, this car could have found its way back to the good ol' USA, or be a non-emergency transport.

[Otto Baron]

I'm not so sure combos were illegal, just their use as emergency transport. I'm not sure that it would be illegal to install jump seats in a funeral coach to this day. I wish their had been better pictures of the 80 Superior's casket compartment, as it's hard for me to see from the one tiny thumbnail photo, if there are jump seats back there.

[Eldervampire]

Okay, there have been some developments, both positive & negative. Firstly, on Monday I lost my job. I have been doing work at a factory and the group of ex-cons that were both my peers and supervisors managed to get me canned. Let me make it perfectly clear that I have no issues with people who have been incarcerated and now live a different life. But the reverse is rarely true. This won't affect the project very much as I don't anticipate being unemployed for very long. However, after explaining to the wife that either car would carry the same amount of people until the Hearse could be modified. And showing her that Hearses out number flower cars 10 to 1, she agreed that if I could find a flower car that fits the bill that could be purchased first. So, although I can't buy it right this moment, please keep your eyes peeled for one. Same deal, 80's Caddy or Buick, in this case please make sure it's RWD. Looks are not a factor, mechanical condition needs to be solid, as well as the floor and roof.

And FWIW, I love reading the posts here, everything from decent grown-up conversations to those degrading to the "Uh-UH" , "YEAH-HUH" variety. Nice.

[Shawn of the MPCC]

The only post 80 coaches that I have ever seen with jump seats in person were state owned or state contracted funeral homes. State owned as in penitentiary that had a death house. The jump seats were used for additional riders as for the state guarded dead needed to be watched? lol

A funeral home that I used to work with had a combo car from Nashville that had jump seats and what was seemingly a large O-2 bottle rack under the floor. However it was stainless bottomed and was used for shovels. Upon research, the coach was ordered and primarily used for pauper's grave service. 1 car and enough help to do the work quickly.

As for the thought of live patient transport.

Starting in the mid 60's, insurance companies paid as they do today for transport. Key deal with insurance to pay for services, the company providing service must be within all federal guidelines to be eligible to receive payment. So for a private company to have a combo car to provide live transport service would be asinine unless they still offered in city transport for the $60 run.

If it is a live transport combo, I would love to know the backstory on it and how they managed to beat the odds to afford one in fleet.

Just going by what I read here and there. There were 80s and up coaches built as combos, like the one in the ad here and the 2 I have seen in person. But I cant say what they were used for or not. Only read in one spot about the patient transfer, dont remember perfectly but it was something along the lines of for a Veterans hospital or something could be wrong though.

[sgath92]

I was wondering if either flower cars or hearses built in the early to mid 80's could seat 3 on the bench.

They should fit three on the bench, with a lap belt for the center.

But, if you get in a severe accident the person riding in the center is probably done for. Their head is going to go straight into that dashboard, which really isn't that padded.

In my car 3 abreast in the front is a tight fit, some people might find it uncomfortable.

[Otto Baron]

3 people could ride in the front seat of my Combo, but my daughter has always rode in one of the rear jump seats becuase it's a lot less comfortable (especially on a long trip) for all three to ride on that bench seat.

[60Crown]

And showing her that Hearses out number flower cars 10 to 1, she agreed that if I could find a flower car that fits the bill that could be purchased first.

Those are great odds. Truth is more inline with 40-50 to 1. Reasonably confident that the bulk of commercial chassis '80s flower cars were FWD as well. Superior built exactly 1 '81 flower car - their last - which was RWD. (And it survives.) McPherson Eureka flower cars were popular and sold well. Don't recall ever seeing a RWD Eureka fc however. Not saying they were not made, merely far less. Other than these two coach builders, I can't think of any others with commercial chassis offerings.

Had been refraining from responding while on vacation.

[Eldervampire]

Hey Atti,
Thanks for dropping in, I've read a variety of posts with your name in them. Anyway, I have been doing a shload of research on this, here's the poop. Superior offered FCs on a commercial chassis until 1984, and here's the thing. They built flower cars on the same commercial chassis that they built the hearses on. So if Cadillac used the RWD chassis for the hearse, the FC would be RWD as well as the Limos. In my mucking about, I ran into an interesting story about a home brew Flower car. I was gathering up info on parlors active or closed, that may have a vehicle for sale. I got in touch with an old timer who was selling a FC for a few hundred bucks to clear the space. When we talked the coach had been gone for weeks. He asked me why not just build one, and then told me about one he knew of. Apparently, his uncle was a body man in the 80's and was approached by a Funeral Director who had lost their FC and the retired hearse to a fire in the storage building. They had replaced the hearse just before the fire and the insurance wouldn't cover the vehicles. Sothey bought a Buick Electra and had him make a "Chicago Style"flower car. I had to look that up, I'm a Chicagoan, and had no idea what that was. "Chicago typewriter" yes, "Chicago Flower Car" no. Anyway,he said that his uncle used a Station wagon rear door, chopped off the rear window and part of the roof, then welded in a flat steel bed. Anyone ever heard of something like this? It's giving me horrible ideas........

[60Crown]

Major pet peeve when seeing/hearing cliché "The thing is" or "Here's the thing". Inevitably (and by default) whatever follows is never "the thing", so from that point forward my mind completely zones out taking a break saving brain cells. This time I actually tried for your sake.

Book smart and real world smarts.

Sure, this vintage of Superior flower cars is mentioned on page 403 of Superior: The Complete History. According to it one '81, nine '82, three '83, and two '84s were made. I'll concede that the '81 my friends owns may have been slightly off base believing it is the last Superior flower produced - but it was still the only '81.

So rather than argue points, I merely called noted procar historian Tom McPherson (who also happens to have authored above book and owned Eureka in the '80s). According to Tom, figures in Superior book are more than likely correct. He also added that Eureka was the only other company producing long wheelbase flower cars. Tom estimates that no more than 50 Eureka flower cars were made throughout and that the bulk of them were indeed FWD.

Indulge in a numbers game:

Let's just say 20 '81-'89 RWD Eureka flower cars (which were not limited to Cadillac) total for argument's sake. Add remaining 14 RWD '81-'84 Superior flower cars (15 actually but that '81 is simply NFS). On the high end, there *might* be 34 RWD flower cars in your desired year range ever made (verses thousands of hearses).

Conservatively, 50% might still survive out there. And this doesn't even begin to factor your specific condition requirements. Or location. You are literally looking for 1-2 possible units once everything is considered.

A needle in a haystack.

[Eldervampire]

Okay, lets talk about that last post. First, what I said was to my wife to give her an operational idea of the gap in production numbers. The comment was not meant to reflect actual production numbers. Your rebuttal, didn't do anything but prove you read McPherson's book, book smarts, and have his phone number. The fact is in 1980 they re-launched the Eureka brand and produced RWD Hearses & Flower cars on the GM commercial chassis, which was only available in RWD. In 1985 S&S did FWD only Hearses and it flopped. In 1986 Eureka introduced FWD Hearses along with RWD Hearses so as to not alienate the FDs who wanted them. In 1987 Eureka introduced a companion FWD flower car. Those are the facts about how the FWD Flower cars went down. But I won't stop there, GM only offered 1 commercial chassis, regardless of what brand the body was, that same chassis was used by all three types of coaches. All of them RWD, until 1985. Then coach builders had the option of which to use. At no time did I say one type was more numerous than another. I pointed out that Superior made FCs up into 1984 and that they built them on the same chassis as a Hearse. ALL of those were RWD. Then we move on to the rest of your post. You made several assumptions there, I'd like to correct those.
First, I never mentioned "long wheelbase" anything. The GM commercial chassis wasn't any longer, it just received various up-grades to the suspension based on what it would be. The coach builders stretched the frame.
Next, I don't care if the 81 you mentioned was the only on in that year. I only pointed out that there were more after it. So don't prop yourself up on "It was the only '81". It's moot at that point.
Also, you "merely" calling this gentleman doesn't impress me, and here's why. "More than likely" is a speculative term. A history with speculation, is no longer a history. I don't know if he put it like that, or if you did, but it was a bad choice of words.
And your remark about book smarts vs real world smarts. The implication is that I am somehow inferior to you in this area. Allow me to point out that you cited a book and it's author to validate a point. I did research to obtain hard data. Real world indeed. Twelve out of the last Fifteen years of my life was spent investigating bad people, doing bad things in bad places. I believe that qualifies as having both types of "smarts".

[Guest]

my, my, this is getting interesting.