Customized Professional Cars

Customized Professional Cars

By Louis C. Farah

While the classic car world will always have those pristine factory stock and original cars as the foundation of the hobby, there is a completely different segment of collectible vehicle hobby that is just as strong as ever. In fact, it is this segment that receives just as much attention at car shows and events as vintage classics get at auctions across the country.

Customized vehicles.

Custom cars have been a mainstay of enthusiasts since the early 1950’s. Race tracks across the country featuring customized Ford and Chevrolet’s in various configurations. Customizers such as George Barris were “frenching” tail-lights, modifying engines and adding bumpers, grills and other body pieces from a variety of cars to produce some pretty stunning vehicles.

As a teenager in the 1960’s, just about all of my friends in high school were modifying their cars. It didn’t take much. The standard coupe with a V-8 engine would get a four barrel carburetor, a dual exhaust system with a pair of glass pack mufflers and a set of shiny Cragar mag wheels to produce your very own hot rod. By the late 1960’s, an 8-track tape player blaring-out the latest Jimi Hendrix rocker would firming place you on the map with the babes.

Weekend nights would finds me and my friends cruising down the world famous strip known as Van Nuys Blvd., the epitome of the California car culture. Whether to see, or be seen, the San Fernando Valley thoroughfare was the place where you could rev your engine, lay a little rubber on the pavement and show off your pride and joy.

Not much as changed since those pubescent years of my high school days. My love of cars still stands as a priority in my life, and more so when it comes to professional cars. Just like the cars of yesterday, the customization that is being done to vintage hearses today very elaborate, highly detailed and just plain amazing. Even more compelling is the fact that customized hearses have found their way onto such television shows as “Pimp My Ride” and “Monster Garage”.

The purest professional car enthusiast would probably find themselves aghast over any modification of a hearse. To many funeral directors, modifying a hearse would border on blasphemy. However, most do not realize that the vast number of hearses that are customized were basket cases on their way to the crusher. Many a vintage hearse that was too far gone to be restored served as the platform of the many customized cars that we see today. Rather than lose that car forever to scrap metal, someone saved that car and reincarnated it to be back on the street and shown in all of it’s glory.

As with any modification of a car, it can be mild or a full-blown chop job that barely resembles the car’s former life. In the cast of a mild restoration, changes can be as subtle as a different paint job, lowering of the vehicle, chrome wheels or changes to the interior. The appearance of the car still shows as a hearse, albeit a non-stock looking hearse that perhaps would not be utilized for an actual funeral service.

The other end of the spectrum would be an all-out customization of a hearse. Chopping the body, a wild paint scheme and detailed interior changes takes a vehicle to a new level. The possibilities are endless, which allows a vehicle owner to exercise their freedom of self-expression. As in the case of any classic car, the owner is certainly free to do whatever they want to their car without being harassed or belittled. Although this doesn’t appear to be a problem in the conventional classic car world, it certainly is a reality in certain circles of the professional car arena.

Much has been written on website message boards, chapter newsletters and national publications regarding the disdain for anyone that would even consider modifying a hearse from it’s factory original state. Yet a number of those that find hearse modification distasteful fail to realize that the vast majority of customized hearses were, in fact, headed to the junk-yard and eventually the crusher to be turned into scrap. With vintage parts as rare as hens teeth, what does one do with a car that can’t be restored to factory original condition? They turn the car into something else.

The unusualness of a hearse is what makes the body so inviting to modify. Just about everyone has seen a classic muscle car modified in some way, shape or form. Few have seen a hearse customized in the same fashion. Perhaps the most well-known modified cars having to do with funerals are the cars used on the television series “The Munsters”.  Grandpa’s “Dragula” and Herman’s “Munster Koach” are perhaps the most famous modified funeral cars of them all. The Dragula is based on an actual casket that has been placed on a high-performance Ford chassis and a full-blown V-8 developing 400 horse-power. The car was featured on numerous episodes of the show with Al Lewis (playing the character of Grandpa on the show) behind the wheel. The Munster Koach was also the brainchild of George Barris, who at the time was know as the “customizer to the stars”. Both vehicles are currently on display at Barris Kustom City, located on Riverside Drive in North Hollywood.

Shown below is another Barris creation called the “Kargoyle”, which has been seen at many of our shows. Built using a 1967 Miller-Meteor Cadillac hearse, the car is a magnificent example of a total customization effort complete with a chopped and lowered body, side pipes, custom paint, drag strip motor, mag wheels and a fully detailed interior complete with casket. Bret Barris premiered this car at our World’s Longest Hearse Procession in 2005 and continues to display this fascinating vehicle at our shows and events.

The word “customize” means a lot of different things to different people. To some, a simple set of chrome wheels gives a completely different look to a vehicle. I attended a professional car show about ten years ago and remember seeing an absolutely beautiful and original Cadillac hearse that was on display during a Concour d’ Elegance show where the cars were being judged. The owner couldn’t afford the factory white-walled tires that came with the car, so he had a set of new white lettered tires in stalled. The chief judge of the show knocked so many points off of the car that it didn’t come close to winning a trophy, even though it was the best car in it’s class. The chief judge decided that the car was “modified”, and therefore had lost it’s historical significance. Yet I saw another hearse that had major changes in it’s interior where the owner had turned the car into a combination car from a hearse. It was definitely more modified than the disqualified hearse, yet it won a trophy! Go figure.

A number of people have asked me about display rules at PCI shows and what is allowed. PCI has no rules nor restrictions regarding the display vehicles. All cars are welcome, regardless of condition, style or modifications. What good is a professional car show if you can’t bring your professional car? I have found that most people that attend our events are eager to learn as much about these cars as possible. They shop around for parts, seek advice on restoration and realize that there aren’t a lot of people out there that own and/or know a lot about these unique vehicles. With resources as rare as they are, we should be serving as stewards for folks that are new to the hobby or are searching for much needed advice or services.

Modified professional cars are some of the most recognizable and valuable cars in the world today. Perhaps the most recognized professional cars are the Ghostbusters cars, otherwise known as Ecto-1 and Ecto-1a. Built on a 1959 Miller-Meteor Cadillac ambulance chassis, both of these cars were recently completely restored for Sony Picture by PCI member Ray Claridge, owner of Cinema Vehicle Services. Their shops in North Hollywood contain a complete vehicle restoration facility on the premises that can literally take a car down to the frame and rebuild it from the ground-up.

Are these cars modified or customized? Absolutely. Yet they still retain the looks that say “ambulance”. Regardless of how much equipment is attached to the roof and the plethora of warning lights flashing as it barrels down the street, it still has the heart of am ambulance beating inside.

There is also a segment of professional car enthusiasts that believe that any modification to a hearse is ghoulish. To me, I don’t believe that this is necessarily due to the fact that the modifications are what made the car ghoulish. The primary reason is the fact that a hearse is used as the base vehicle. It’s tough to argue that nearly everyone out there knows a hearse is designed and used to transport a dead body. The very sight of a hearse brings up the notion of death. While in normal use in the funeral industry, a hearse should be dignified and understated. After it comes out of service and lands in the hands of a car enthusiast, all bets are off. The new owner is free to do whatever they want to do.

As I stated earlier, most of the customized hearses that I have seen in the past were cars rescued from the crusher.  There was little chance that these cars would be restored back to their factory original condition. Whether rust had eaten away most of the car, or it had been picked clean for parts, the cost to restore the vehicle would have far-exceeded it’s value. Although these vehicles were not fit to be restored, they have been reincarnated into their new lives in pretty spectacular fashions. Perhaps one of my favorites is a customized hearse owned by Zach Helm, who lives in Colorado. His car was a rust bucket headed for the junkyard when he rescued it for a few bucks. Using a little ingenuity and a lot of labor, he converted the car into an armor-plated gothic assault vehicle, complete with a set of functional flame throwers coming out of the roof. Talk about an attention getter!

Although the vast majority of professional cars are stock and original, the modified segment of the hobby continues to grow. That’s a good thing. When one considers the fact that there isn’t a lot of vintage professional cars left on the road these days, preservation of any classic ambulance or hearse is of utmost importance. Buying a professional car of any type can only be expected of someone that actually appreciates these vehicles. There just aren’t that many people that actively participate in our hobby, and each time a professional car is junked or scraped, another nail goes into the proverbial coffin.

Rather than discourage people that do not share our ideas on preservation and restoration, let’s take the time to realize that they are saving that car from a certain death. Modified cars can be restored back to their original condition, but only when the time comes where the price of restoration does not exceed the ultimate value of the car. Today’s cast-off just might be tomorrow’s treasure. I would rather see a classic professional car preserved and displayed at our events than watch it crushed into little bitty pieces!

Reprinted with permission from the February 2010 Issue of the “Professional Car Collector” magazine.  The official publication of Professional Cars International.  PCI Club Information can be found HERE.

Discuss this article in our Forums HERE.

Custom Built One At A Time

Custom Built One At A Time

By Louis C. Farah.

It’s amazing how many people look at a vintage professional car and assume that they were factory-built cars that came off of an assembly line somewhere in Detroit. It’s easy to understand why people would believe that considering the master craftsmanship that went into the construction of each car that rolled out of the doors of such well-known manufacturers as Miller, Meteor, Flxible, Superior and Eureka. That expertise and innovation becomes even more evident when we look at the smaller builders such as National, Cotner/Bevington and Seibert.

However, if one were to visit the hearse builders of today (there are no manufacturers of ambulances on a passenger car chassis in America anymore) they would definitely see an assembly line operation where standardized bodies are mated with a stripped-down Cadillac or Lincoln chassis to make a funeral car. A lot has changed in the past 30 years with the demise of the passenger car-based ambulance.

Gone are the days of custom-built bodies that made professional cars appear as if they were standard automotive bodies that were altered by the manufacturers. What most people don’t realize is the fact that those that designed and constructed these cars intentionally built these vehicles to resemble ordinary factory- build cars that the public bought themselves. The same flowing lines as those cars appearing in the showrooms of Cadillac dealers were no accident. Rather than produce a car with a strange and bulky looking style that left no doubt that this was nothing more than a ‘butcher job” on a luxury car, master craftsmen made professional cars a thing of beauty and dignity. Gone were the days of the horse and buggy. By the 1930’s, professional cars were stately and offered a high degree of integrity and prestige to the funeral director or ambulance operator.

The bodies were custom-built based on the customer’s exacting standards and specific order. These were not cookie-cutter vehicles by any means. Interior appointments, emergency lighting, sirens, casket table specifications, curtains, window treatments and virtually every part of the car was custom built from scratch depending on what the customer ordered. When one looks in the gallery at the gorgeous examples of the cars that were built by the the coachbuilders of the past, it’s easy to see why people thought these cars were built in a Cadillac factory instead of the independent professional car builders of the time. The flowing lines of the car were perfectly matched to the custom bodies that were built. Using the same chrome trim, fender styles, tail lights and other parts provided the perfect blend of design and practicality.

Unfortunately, professional cars built today (primarily hearses) are cookie cutter vehicles that no longer emulate custom- build bodies that match traditional passenger car styling of a particular year or vehicle make. For the past 30 years, manufactured bodies that have been used on a variety of chassis such as Cadillac, Buick and Chevrolet are the same with little or no variance in style. The art of master craftsmen has been lost, especially with the consolidation of Eureka, Miller-Meteor, S&S and Superior under the banner of Accubuilt.

Although the professional cars of today are certainly more quality built and technologically advanced from their predecessors, the progression of design and construction has resulted in a loss of style and uniqueness that perhaps may be lost forever. You would be hard pressed to tell the difference between most professional cars, especially in determining what year a particular car is. The price of progress appears to have been the loss of uniqueness.

As far as vintage cars club are concerned, it is our responsibility as those that have chosen the field of professional cars to do our best to acquire these unique vehicles and protect their historical value. Although we certainly accept any and all professional cars in PCI, the many would agree that the most collectible cars are those from the 1930’s through the 1970’s. Believe it or not, in a mechanical sense, these are perhaps the easiest to restore and maintain. Most of the parts can be found at such auto parts outlets as Pep Boys, Trak Auto, Auto Zone and NAPA stores. If you’re looking for fuel pumps, carburetors, wiper blades, water pumps, spark plugs and other bolt-on parts, most can be purchased for under $40.

However, beware of simply buying a part for your particular year and make of vehicle. Professional cars were not built nor assembled by the chassis distributor. Cadillac did not build these cars: Miller- Meteor, Superior, Cotner/Bevington and S&S built them. There are vast differences in the suspension, braking and drive train components as compared to the everyday cars that were delivered from Detroit. That’s another reason for the camaraderie among professional car enthusiasts: Getting accurate restoration information from someone that knows your car and has been there before.

The only daunting task regarding these older cars is body work. Body parts for vehicles from the 1960’s and 1970’s are still readily available on the West Coast and Southwest areas of the country due to the low instance of rust. However, the older the car, and the closer to the East Coast that one travels, the less likely you will be able to find a rust-free fender, chrome piece or other external body part.

Master craftsmen may have built these cars, but it is now up to us to restore and maintain these special vehicles. That’s just as important in the professional car hobby as owning the car!

Reprinted with permission from the July 2009 Issue of the “Professional Car Collector” magazine.  The official publication of Professional Cars International.  PCI Club Information can be found HERE.

Discuss this article in our Forums HERE.

Too many trailers.

The classic car hobby seems to be divided into two very distinct groups of people. And while this is a fairly sweeping generalization. Take a look around at the next car show and see for yourself.

We have Trailer people and the Non-Trailer people.

You can tell just by looking at the vehicles there. Trailer people have cars that are beyond perfect. The 20 miles a year sorts of cars whose only real use is a micro trip from the garage to a local show and back. And never in bad weather. The non-trailer people have cars that are not quite perfect. Still very nice looking vehicles, but not quite possessing the better than new perfection of the pampered vehicles. I’m a Non-trailer kind of person and my coach was restored to be a driver, but I do understand where the trailer folks are coming from. Some collector vehicles really are too valuable to drive. That being said, I’m not sure that any of our vintage coaches fall into that category. We aren’t talking about Million Dollar Hemi Cuda’s or Multi-Million dollar Duesenbergs. I firmly believe that when you get a vehicle that becomes that valuable, it’s no longer really a vehicle. It’s more a piece of art, or an investment. But it’s really not a car anymore as you just can’t really drive and enjoy it as it was designed to be. That being said, we drive old ambulances and hearses and limousines. These were working vehicles when they were new. They were used when they were needed. These vehicles saw rain and horrible roads, and long drives and in some cases a good deal of abuse. And while most were well cared for because they needed to be reliable and dependable, they were not really pampered showpieces when they were new.

Anyone that has restored one of these old coaches can tell you that the fit and finish on these coaches was not always the best. The paintwork was reflective of the era in which it was built, and was usually far from perfect. And at their very core, these vehicles were just transportation. Specialized transportation to be sure, but at their core they are all just working vehicles. And before folks get upset with that, please know that I say that with a great deal of love for these cars. These coaches were built to do a very specific task. Move the injured or deceased or the wealthy. (In the case of Limousines.) These vehicles were built to do a job. They often made a statement about the owner in the process, but they were built for their utility.

Fast forward to the present day. We have collectors that love and admire these vehicles, and sometimes I wonder if, as a hobby, we are not assigning too much importance to the perceived value of these vehicles. We look at low production numbers as a sign of high value, when in fact, those two items are not always directly linked. Low production numbers do not always make a vehicle valuable. It’s the “eBay effect”. if you browse eBay, you will notice that a large number of listings use the word “RARE” in the title or the description. People think that if an item is “rare” then it will bring top dollar, so almost everything is listed as being rare these days. We have somehow been led to believe that Rare=Valuable, and that is just not always the case. Sometimes rare just means that not a lot were made. The lack of perfection that our cars were built with is a tailor made excuse to get out there and drive them and enjoy them. They were not perfect when they were new, so are we really preserving them if we are restoring them to better than new and not actually driving them? How can we say that we really appreciate these cars if all we do is display them in a static setting?

I drive my collector cars. ALL of them. I don’t even own a trailer capable of holding any of my coaches. So if I want to enjoy them and share them, I have to drive them. If I want to do an event outside my home city, I drive my coach there. Shortly after finishing the new paint job on my 1960 Ambulance, we loaded all of our stuff in the back and drove 650 miles to Denver Colorado for a show. Was it a perfect trip? Absolutely not. Less than 60 miles from home, the A/C in the ambulance stopped working. So what did we do? We rolled the windows down and kept going. This trip happened in the middle of the summer and we started in Arizona. The temperature was over 100 degrees when we left. And with the windows down at 75mph on the freeway, it wasn’t as bad as everyone thought it would be. That was an interesting trip to say the least. We encountered bad road surfaces, blowing dust, torrential rain, horrible drivers, and some pretty frightening roads in general. And we also met some of the friendliest and nicest people along the way. We realized that getting there was MORE than half of the fun. Gas stops always provided an opportunity to talk to someone about the car, and what it was and what it represented and why we collected them. To see the smiles and the wonderment as we passed folks on the freeway was just amazing. It’s an experience that I think a lot of folks in our hobby are missing out on by tucking their coaches away in trailers and hiding them on the trip there.

Of course it comes at a price. You have to learn how to fix little things that go wrong out on the road. You may have to take some parts and tools with you when you travel. You may have to suffer without your leather seats and A/C and your cup-holders and your satellite radios for a few days. You have to stop worrying about everything on the car being flawless because roads are dirty places. You can’t worry about some bug splatters on the car, or some small rock chips, or even weather. You have to be ready to be an ambassador for the hobby because you will be attracting a huge amount of attention. And you have to be willing to talk to people, because you will get questions. (And you will get the same sorts of questions at every gas stop.) But in return, I can almost guarantee that you will meet amazing people along the way. You will get a new appreciation for these vehicles and their capabilities. And most of the time, you will have a hard time wiping the smile off of your face when you arrive. These things are actually fun to drive. And isn’t that why we collect them to begin with? Isn’t the enjoyment and the fun the whole reason we collect these coaches?

Click here to discuss this in our forums.

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Meet the Clubs: LasRyds Hearse Club

Hi there.

I’m the founder/president of the LasRyds Hearse Club which boasts and international membership of over 700 members. LasRyds started out in April 1993 as an accident if you ask me…I posted a simple webpage showcasing my personal hearses and I started receiving e-mails from people asking how they can join the club.

We are having our next annual meet “The 3rd Annual Greatest Show Unearthed” on Saturday, August 14th 2010 at the Ashbary Coffee House, 8695 S. Archer Ave., Willow Springs, IL from 10am-6pm. We JUST finished up our 2nd Annual (actually the club’s 10th annual meet, but 2nd with the Greatest Show Unearthed theme) this past Saturday at the same location.

www.lasryds.com is our website and we also have a yahoo chat group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lasryds

Both groups are free and the only club income is the sales of t-shirts and the annual meets which we charge $10/hearse and have lots of raffles.

The Ugly Duckling, Part 1.

The Ugly Duckling.  A restoration adventure.

By Dean Newman

It all started in September of 2004.  I was browsing eBay and looking through the vehicles listed for sale.   I wasn’t actually looking for anything new, I just enjoy surfing the listings.  I had a small fleet of ‘59 Cadillac’s in the garage already in varying states of restoration and I really had no specific need for another coach.  I figured I was doing fairly well, I had gone through a hearse search and a limo search, and even managed to breeze through a ‘59 Cadillac search without finding anything that I couldn’t live without.  I figured I’d finish up my searching with an ambulance search and then move on to other projects.  That last search started me on a journey that I’m still enjoying.  And it all started with a teeny little photo.  Tucked down at the very end of the search page on eBay motors there was a listing for an ambulance.  It was listed only as a “1960 Chevrolet Station Wagon.”  And the listing had just gone up as it had 10 days left to go.  From the tiny photo that was next to the listing, it was tough to tell what the car really looked like, so I clicked into the listing.  The description in the listing had the car listed as a “Chevy Ambulance, NOT impala or Bel Air.”  The top of the description stated that the car would make a great “old school custom car, hot rod, or rat rod”  It went on to list the basics of the car, which at a first glance looked promising.  51,000 miles, 350 motor, new tires, stretcher included, owner’s manual included, currently licensed and registered.  And best of all it was listed as a great road car.  The seller claimed that it had been driven several hundred miles and it was “Great at 70+” and assured everyone that it had been serviced and could be driven home.  And the little notation that I found most interesting was they mentioned it was built by “Cotner-Bevington” of Blytheville, Ark.

The seller also listed some of the “minor” issues that the car had that would need to be attended to as well:

• Radio didn’t work.
• brakes pulsed when you used them
• “some” rust in the drivers floor pan
• Cracked windshield
• Cracked right rear door glass
• Carb had a flat spot off idle
• Transmission dripped when left sitting.

All in all none of those issues were that major in my opinion, so I scrolled down to get a better look at this car.  My first thought was that based on the photos in the listing, the car was pretty homely looking.    Now the photos were not the greatest, and they weren’t very big.  But the car didn’t look too horrible.  The body looked fairly straight, if not a little ungainly.  The roof line was definitely modified, and the transition where the coach work met the factory body work was interesting to say the least.  From the front ¾ view the car was not too bad looking if you squinted a little.  From the rear ¾ view the roof and the rear door was huge and just didn’t seem proportioned correctly.  The whole car just didn’t seem to flow together well.  It looked very much like a Frankenstein sort of vehicle.  You could see that it was not a backyard project, it did have professional coachwork.  But it was also apparently that it was not really a regular production coach built car.  It just didn’t have the polish and the lines of the major coaches of the era.  The paint it was wearing didn’t help show it off much either, it was an oxidized and faded fire engine red with an equally crusty refrigerator white roof.  The color split down the side of the car was horrible and didn’t work well on the car; it was jarring and threw your eye off, making the car look top heavy and not balanced well.  It also had about 6 different shades of primer on it, and someone had painted big white iron crosses on the doors and then apparently sanded them partly off again.  It seemed as if someone was already working on turning it into a rat rod of sorts.  Overall the effect was a bit on the ugly side.  I remember calling my wife in to show her a “homely” looking ambulance.  My comment at the time was that I wanted to show her the photos as I figured the odds of finding another ambulance that was this homely looking were fairly slim.  Having had a good laugh about the car, I closed my browser and went on with my day.

And I just could not get that car out of my head.  It haunted me.

Over the next several days I found myself going back to the auction listing and staring at the photos.  By day 5 of the auction, I had it on my watch list and was keeping tabs on the bidding.  By day 7 I had decided that I wanted to bring her home.  I told my wife at dinner that night that I was going to bid on the Chevy Ambulance on eBay.  She asked if it was the ugly one I’d shown her earlier in the week.  I told her it was.  To her credit, she did not laugh.  She did not look at me like I was insane.  And she did not run out of the room in a panic.  She told me that if I wanted it, then bid on it.  She also pointed out that if it was in fact a Cotner-Bevingtion, it would probably be a pretty rare car.  And she mentioned that being a Chevy might make it easier to get parts for. By the end of dinner, we were in agreement that I was going to win that car and bring it home.

I watched that auction like a hawk.  I jumped into the bidding and kept it low to not give away my plan.  And I planned on waiting until the last minute to submit my final bid.  And then real life interfered.  I was called into work to cover a shift that would pull me away from the computer when the auction ended.  By this point, I wanted the car so badly I could taste it.  I just had to hope that things worked out for me.  I entered a fairly aggressive bid right before I left for work and headed out for one exceptionally long and stressful day at work.  Returning home, the first stop was to check the computer.  And there is was.  “Sorry, you were outbid”.  Another bidder had won it for $100 more than my max bid.  I was crushed.  In a last ditch “hail mary” play, I sent a note to the winner congratulating them on the win, and letting them know that if they ever wanted to sell it in the future, to please keep me in mind.  I mentioned that I was an ambulance collection, and I had been hoping to restore the car if I had won it.  I congratulated them again on the win, and sent the note off into the wilds.  I figured it was over.  I tried to put it out of my mind.  I tried to let it go.

Several weeks passed, and I figured that the car was long gone, and it was just not meant to be.  And then out of the blue, I received a response from the winner.  I stared at that mail in my box, afraid to open it for fear the winner would be gloating or worse telling me about cutting it up and turning it into a hot rod or a rat rod.  When I finally mustered the nerve to actually read the mail, I was stunned.  The mail was short and polite and it was an offer to sell me the car if I was still interested in it.  I crafted my response as carefully as I could so as not to appear too eager.  I was concerned that if the winner figured out how much I wanted the car, the price would go way up.  Amazingly it did not.  His asking price was exceptionally fair, and when he offered to deliver the car to me, the asking price ended up being almost exactly what it would have cost me if I had won the car to begin with.

I overnighted him the deposit, and started counting the days until it was scheduled to arrive.

Delivery day was the 1^st of October, and he arrived with the car shortly after dark.  It looked pretty decent on the trailer.  It was a little rough in spots, but the body looked to be solid and straight for the most part.  So we unloaded her and rolled her into the garage for the night.  The following morning I was able to get a really good look at what I had just added to the collection.

• The body was pretty solid and straight. No major damage or rust issues there which was a plus.
• There were small dings and dents here and there, but nothing really serious in terms of body damage.
• The rust in the floor pans was slightly more than “some”. It looked like we’d need to replace both front floor pans and the driver’s side rear floor pan, but those were available so no major issue there. On the bright side, there was enough of an opening in the floor to be able to drop and anchor through for supplemental braking power.
• The windshield and the side windows glass were indeed broken. But those pieces are available as well. No major issue there.
• The brakes did more than pulse. They chattered and bucked, and did a bunch of other unnerving things. They also leaked. What they did not do is stop the car properly.
• The transmission was a little less pristine than suggested as well. Aside from the “small leak” it also had a major clunk, and some grinding when the car was moving. And after a quick spin around the block, I was doubtful that it would do 70 easily on the freeway.
• The flat spot in the carb was present off idle. There was also a flat spot in the carb when the car was revving as well. On the bright side, it was a consistent issue, and I was fairly confident we could fix that easily.

Even with the additional issues that I noticed the first day, I still felt that I got a pretty nice coach.  It was just going to take a little more work than I had initially planned.  So instead of having a “driver” that I could play with, I’d just do a little work on it, and then drive it for a while.  As these projects tend to do, it ended up growing beyond the initial plans.   We have gone through and rebuilt, replaced, or updated almost every piece of the car.  Along the way we have learned a lot about how coachbuilt cars were actually built in the early ’60s.  We have found some cool artifacts from the cars history, and we have had a ton of fun doing it.  From new floor pans, to paint to what seemed like miles of wiring; it’s been a learning process every step of the way.  A process that I’d like to share in words and pictures over the next few issues.  Since we purchased this coach, it’s been to Denver, Colorado.  Los Angeles, California.  And we have driven it around and through most of Arizona.  It’s a fantastic road car.   It’s a great way to start a conversation about professional cars, and it’s a ton of fun to drive.  We built the car to be a driver, and we’ve learned a ton along the way.  We have also made a pile of friends on the highways and rest stops of the west coast.  Nothing attracts new friends like an old ambulance.  It’s something I recommend to everyone.  If you aren’t driving them, you are missing half of the fun!

In the next installment of our restoration journey, I’ll delve into welding for dummies, what not to do with POR 15 rust inhibitor, and how to wire a car up without setting yourself on fire or melting anything.

History: Vintage Medical Devices

Did Those Old Medical Devices Really Work?
by
Louis Farah

Many years ago I attended a Los Angeles County paramedic update class. These are a part of my yearly continuing education that introduces new medical procedures for field use and/or any changes to county protocols.
Sitting with a bunch of old salts like myself that have been playing the paramedic game since the 1970’s, we marveled at the number of changes we’ve seen in medical care throughout the years.

At one time my paramedic unit carried five different pain medications, each used for something different; Demerol for muscle pain, Morphine for chest pain, Valium and Phenobarbital for seizures and Talwin for fractures.
We carried five different IV solutions and a variety of drugs used for drips. Paramedic units in Los Angeles County were stocked with virtually everything found in an emergency room because our paramedic program was still considered a “pilot program” that allowed emergency room physicians the latitude to order any medical procedure they felt was necessary to save a patient’s life.

The Wedworth-Townsend Act opened the door for paramedic programs throughout California. Unfortunately there were no standardized protocols for treatment. Each county had the ability to design and develop their own programs, and as a result, paramedic field treatment was as varied as the number of counties with paramedics.

However, one aspect of paramedic care was constant: The equipment we used.

Long before the advent of paramedics, ambulance services were using virtually the same emergency equipment made by a handful of manufacturers.

Early Resuscitators

Perhaps the most advanced piece of equipment in the early days of EMS was the use and delivery of supplemental oxygen via the resuscitator. Vintage equipment such as the old Emerson units used large and heavy tanks to power a device that forced air into the lungs of a patient. The standard procedure for anyone having breathing difficulties was the practice of putting a mask on their face with a tight seal to inflate the lungs.
Unfortunately, few of these people survived because the underlying cause of the medical emergency wasn’t alleviated by simply forcing oxygen into the lungs. However, for drowning victims and those overcome by smoke, the benefits far outweighed the negatives, so these units found a home on ambulances across the nation.

These resuscitators definitely had their limitations: They were big, heavy and bulky; It took two strong men to transport the unit from the ambulance to the patient; and they “cycled”.

Cycling was a design built into the system. To prevent damage to the lungs from over-inflation, once the resuscitator reached 40 pounds per-square-inch in pressure, the unit stopped pumping oxygen.
For those that suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, 40 pounds of pressure wasn’t enough to fill the lungs with air. As a result, for those patients with any type of obstructive lung disease, the Emerson resuscitator did more harm than good.

By the 1950’s, the theory of rescue breathing was making huge advancements. Although CPR had yet to be applied in a field setting, the medical community was starting to embrace the practice by numerous methods of rescue breathing including the use of the old arm-lift method, and eventually mouth-to-mouth rescue breathing.

With the evolution of the manual resuscitator, one of the most famous and well-known pieces of oxygen equipment came into vogue:
The green-cased E&J “Lifeport” oxygen resuscitator.

The good old E&J became the standard of the industry. Both the Los Angeles City and County Fire Departments used it as standard equipment on all of their apparatus, as did most other fire departments across the country. It too operated much like the Emerson unit, but it was much smaller and utilized lightweight “D” sized oxygen cylinders.

Both the Emerson and E&J resuscitators depended on the patient’s ability to breath in the oxygen in order to be beneficial. With the limitation of the cycling feature, those needing rescue breathing benefited little from the devices.

Perhaps the greatest advancement in the delivery of oxygen was the demand valve. At the press of a button, high-flow oxygen could be forced into the lungs without the worry of the device cycling, and thus, discontinuing the flow of oxygen into the lungs.

For rescue breathing on the go, the formidable ambu-bag was introduced in the 1960’s to ventilate a patient in distress. With the advent of cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, two rescuers could perform chest compressions and provide adequate oxygenation to a person with reasonable success.
The ambu-bag is used today as the primary mode of delivering rescue breathing to a patient outside of the hospital emergency room. The most widely used in-house device remains the ventilator, which can deliver a variety of oxygen concentrations and ventilation pressures and settings. The 1980’s saw the discontinuance of the demand valve resuscitator because of concerns associated with possible over-inflation of the lungs. Without a “pop-off” valve to prevent inflation pressure of above 40 pounds per-square-inch, the medical community seems to be more at ease with the ambu-bag that has that capability.

Even with the advancements of airway control with such devices as the endotracheal tube, the ambu-bag has undergone design changes to improve the delivery of oxygen into the lungs. Today’s ambu-bags have long connecting reservoir tubes to ensure 100% oxygen concentrations in the bag prior to deflation; New snap-on filters have color indicators to confirm the exchange of inhaled oxygen and exhaled carbon dioxide.

Although the old Emerson and E&J resuscitators are a huge part of EMS history and are standard props in our professional vehicles, their usefulness in today’s modern world of medicine has fallen by the wayside. However, before the advancement of emergency medical care, they were the standard of the industry.

Suction Devices

Just as important as delivering oxygen to a patient’s lungs was the establishment of a clear airway to facilitate the delivery of the oxygen to a patient’s lungs.

Perhaps the earliest device for clearing an airway was the simple bulb syringe. In fact, the bulb syringe is used today to clear the airway of an infant during delivery and a larger syringe can be used to clear fluids from the mouth and throat from most adults. However, when a larger volume of debris needs to be removed, the mighty Rico suction unit has become standard equipment in nearly all ambulances operating in this country.

The Rico suction unit gained popularity in the 1960’s because of the pressure generated by the suction unit and the large canister used to collect the secretions provided a much improved way of clearing a patient’s airway in an emergency. Whether the obstruction was blood or vomit, the Rico unit had the power and the capacity to handle the job.

There have been two units used in the field. The first was powered by manual suction created from the engine manifold of the ambulance being used. A hose was connected to the intake manifold and routed to the suction unit itself. Using the suction power of the engine, debris could be suctioned up into the catch canister. The power of the suction depended on the amount of suction generated by the ambulance’s intake manifold, which varied from ambulance to ambulance.

However, the cost of the suction unit was relatively cheap because early models did not have an independent motor that powered the unit. The mechanics were simple: Hook one end of the suction hose to the ambulance’s engine, hook the other end of the hose to the suction unit, and you were in business.

The modern Rico suction unit did away with the use of the engine’s manifold as the main source of suction in favor of a new unit that featured it’s own suction motor. The pressure generated by the motor was more consistent and could be regulated to meet the needs of individual patient requirements. Today, a suction unit is standard equipment in every ambulance manufactured in America.

As time went on, other companies entered the market with lighter and more compact devices. The Laedal Company produced a fine line of portable suction units that were powered by rechargeable batteries. Soon they became a standard as well. With the vast acceptance of the Laedal units, Rico soon concentrated their efforts on vehicle-based suction units while Laedal took over the portable market.

Entering the Modern Age of Paramedics

Basic life support devices such as oxygen tanks, resuscitators, ambu-bags and suction units have changed little prior to 1969. Yes, some improvements were made to make them more efficient. But the most significant evolution in the field of emergency medical services was the development of the paramedic.

No longer would citizens have to depend on a fast ride at break-neck speed to the nearest hospital to receive comprehensive emergency medical care. That advanced level of medical care would be brought to the scene of an emergency and the same high tech equipment used in the hospital would be used as well.

Perhaps the two most important tools were the portable heart monitor/defibrillator developed by the Datascope Corporation and the portable radio designed by Biocom.

Together, these two pieces of equipment brought those who had died back to life, or prevented one from dying.

Those experiencing cardiac arrest outside of an emergency room were doomed to a virtual death sentence. Without quick defibrillation, they would pass from “clinical death” to “biological death” with no possible chance for survival.

The use of the Datascope heart monitor/defibrillator, coupled with the proper cardiac drugs and the delivery of a counter-shock in a timely manner could convert a fatal heart rhythm into a normal heartbeat and save countless lives.

The use of the heart monitor/defibrillator with the patient’s electrocardiogram being transmitted to the hospital via the Biocom radio put a paramedic in direct contact with an emergency room physician. The physician could see the heart rhythm the paramedic was seeing in the field, and timely treatment was initiated to prevent a potentially-fatal heart rhythms from occurring.

The impact was immediate.

Prior to the introduction of paramedics, nearly 90% of all cardiac cases never made it to the hospital alive. A heart attack outside of a hospital meant certain death. Today, over 90% of all heart related patients not only make it to the hospital alive, but they survive and go on to live productive lives.

Most cardiac monitor/defibrillators today are standard tools in treating a variety of cardiac emergencies. Developments during the last thirty years include the use of twelve leads to view the entire heart from front to back, and heart pacing capabilities for those patients in acute heart failure. Some units, such as the Life Pack 12, even record voice conversation at the scene of the emergency for documentation at a later time.

Perhaps the most important piece of equipment was (and still is) the radio used by the paramedic base station hospital that receives the assessment and report from the paramedics and relays back medical treatment to the paramedics in the field.

The base station radio not only receives voice transmissions from paramedic crews, but receives the patient’s EKG rhythm as well. Advanced life support treatment is much more sophisticated than ever before and current protocols require much more documentation of medical conditions before and after treating the patient.

At the time of their use, these medical devices were considered state-of-the-art and were widely used. Just as the ambulance has improved in performance, style and convenience, medical devices have steadily improved to meet the new protocols of emergency medical care in a pre-hospital setting.

For those of us that have been involved in the field of emergency medical services since the 1970’s, the changes have been astonishing. We are doing medical procedures and using equipment that is even more advanced than ever before.

As to the question of did these devices actually work?

Yes, indeed they did!

Louis Farah is a professional car collector and historian as well as being an active Paramedic in the Los Angeles area.

Federal Electronic Sirens

Federal’s ‘Director’ and ‘Interceptor’ Electronic Sirens

By: Leslie Erlich

So you found a 1970 Superior/Cadillac 54′ high headroom ambulance that is rusting away and you want to restore it to the way it was when it was new.   The beacon and siren are long gone but you have a idea of what type of warning equipment it had when it was first put into service.   Beacons are fairly easy to find – either a Federal 17 series or 184 series will do.  But what about the siren?  Should you go mechanical or electronic?  According to the 1970 Superior catalogue, there were three mechanical siren options: A Federal Q, a Federal C6, or a B&M Super Chief.   As far as electronic sirens go, only the siren speakers are illustrated in the catalogue: a Federal CP25, CJ24, SA24, and CJ184 speaker/light. But if the speakers were Federal, chances are the siren would have been a Federal Director or Interceptor.

If you choose to go with an electronic siren, the Director and Interceptor models are by far the most recognizable among the old Federal electronics, particularly the ‘brown face’ Director and the ‘blue face’ Interceptor.  The brown face and blue face versions were in production for about twenty years, and on the surface they look pretty much the same regardless of when they were made.   To the uneducated observer, a siren is a siren is a siren.  But I will argue that surface appearance alone is not a valid indicator of period correctness.  The Director and Interceptor sirens underwent several design changes throughout the course of production, and in my research I have found that the sound of the siren is the best indicator of period correctness.

PA5 and PA10

The very first Director and Interceptor sirens were the PA5 and PA10, and they only vaguely resembled their brown and blue faced cousins.  The Director was intended to be the ‘economy’ model while the Interceptor would be the ‘deluxe’ model.   The most significant features about both sirens are that the Director has a wired-in microphone and screw terminals for power/speaker/radio connection, while the Interceptor has an optional detachable microphone and multi-pin plug connectors for the radio, speakers, and power supply.   The PA5 (Director) and PA10 (Interceptor) had black control panels and grey plastic knobs, and they were both capable of producing the standard wail and yelp tones that are still featured on electronic sirens today.  But the one thing that really set the PA5 and PA10 apart from later Federal electronic sirens is that these models were designed to simulate the sound of a mechanical siren.  I’ve heard a PA5, and the ‘wail’ tone sounds much like a Q2b mechanical siren.   The PA5 and PA10 were in production from about 1960 to 1962, and either one in working condition would be a rare find.

PA5 sound sample: pa5

PA15 and PA20

The brown face / blue face era began with the PA15 and PA20 around 1962.  What sets these sirens apart from later versions of the Director and Interceptor is that both models have wail, yelp, and ‘alert’ tones.  The ‘alert’ tone is just a steady tone that plays at constant pitch – it doesn’t rise or fall.   Federal abandoned the simulated mechanical tone in favor of a more rounded synthesizer-like tone when the PA15 and PA20 were introduced. The sound of these sirens is much deeper and lower-pitched than what we are accustomed to hearing nowadays.  I’ve never heard a PA15 or PA20 in use on a ‘real life’ emergency vehicle, but I have heard the PA15/PA20 sounds on many TV shows and movies that were produced from the late 1960s right on up to the early 1980s.   For example, the siren sounds that were dubbed in for Squad 51 of Emergency and the patrol car on Adam-12 were a recording of a PA15 or PA20 running in ‘manual’ mode.  Or the dual siren tones of the police cars on Hawaii Five-O were overdubs of  PA15 / PA20 wails and yelps.  Over the course of production the PA15 and PA20 underwent several minor internal design changes, but the circuit board layout remained roughly the same until the end of production.  Letters at the end of the serial numbers indicated revisions to the circuitry, such a F1, E1, F1A, E1A, F1B, E1B, etc.  PA15 serial numbers began with ‘F’ and PA20 serial numbers began with ‘E’. Production of the PA15 and PA20 ended in 1966.

PA15 / PA20 sound sample: pa15pa20

Early PA15A and PA20A

The PA15 and PA20 were replaced by the PA15A and PA20A in 1967.  The PA15A has wail and yelp tones only while the PA20A has wail, yelp, and hi-lo tones.  The hi-lo tone is an electronic simulation of the hi-lo horn sirens that were used on European ambulances.  With the change in the control panel layout came a complete change in the design of the siren oscillator circuits. The early PA15A and PA20A models also had deep low-pitched tones, but the wail and yelp tones rose and fell a little differently than those of the PA15 and PA20.   The wail tone rose more slowly, and the yelp had a distinctive throaty ‘wah-yu wah-yu wah-yu’ sound, almost like a human voice.   PA15A serial numbers began with the number ‘1′, while the PA20A serial numbers began with the number ‘2′. The first number was followed by a letter – A, B, C, or D, and the letter indicated that there were changes to the circuitry.  I’ve never seen an A series unit, so I’m assuming that it was either a prototype or demonstrator that never made it to full scale production.  There are service manuals for the B, C, and D series however.  The early PA15A and PA20A sirens were in production from 1967 to about 1970, although there seems to be a lot more 1D and 2D series units around than the earlier versions.

Early PA15 / PA20A sound sample: early15a20a

PA15A series 1E and PA20A series 2E

The Director and Interceptor siren oscillator circuits would undergo one last major change in the early 1970s. These units have the letter ‘E’ in their serial numbers. The circuit boards in the E series units are completely different from the earlier PA15A and PA20A units. The new models, PA15A series 1E and PA20A series 2E, would have high-pitched wail and yelp tones much like the electronic sirens we hear nowadays. Sometimes I have to listen closely to tell the difference between a Federal PA15A 1E or PA20A 2E and a Carson/SVP SA450! One possible reason for going to the higher pitched sounds was that more compact speakers were coming into use, and smaller speakers reproduce higher frequency sounds better than low frequency sounds.  Federal’s TS100 speaker, the same speaker that is used in the TwinSonic light bar, is one such example.    I first heard the high-pitched E series PA15A/PA20A sounds around 1973, although someone told me that the circuit was introduced in 1970.   In any case, the PA15A series 1E and PA20A series 2E were in production throughout most of the 1970s and ended in the early 1980s. The 1E and 2E use 2N2925 transistors in the siren oscillator circuit, and the 2N2925 circuit was also used in the PA150, PA200, and PA1000 sirens. Besides the high-pitched wails and yelps, the other thing that makes the 2N2925 circuit unique is that goofy ‘in-between tones’ can be heard simply by turning the selector knob between wail and yelp or yelp and hi-lo.  The E series are by far the most common version of the Director and Interceptor, but remember that they are 1970s models and were in production when many ambulance companies were switching to van-based units.

PA15A 1E / PA20A 2E sound sample: highpitch

Chassis covers

In terms of outward appearance, the chassis cover is the most distinguishable feature when comparing the PA15 / PA20, early PA15A / PA20A, and PA15A 1E / PA20A 2E.  The PA15 and PA20 have a short chassis cover, the early PA15A and PA20A have a long chassis cover with small ‘grille’ at the back, and the PA15A 1E and PA20A 2E typically have rows of holes on the back half of the chassis cover for ventilation.  The latter two chassis covers are interchangeable, so a cover is not a reliable indicator of period correctness.  I have a PA20A 2D with a 2E chassis cover, and on the surface it does look like a 1970s PA20A.

Circuits

The circuit board is the most important part of the siren.  This is where the wails and yelps com from, and the sounds of the sirens changed along with the circuitry.  I have the three basic variations of the blue face Interceptor siren: a PA20, an early PA20A, and a PA20A series 2E.  The circuit boards of all three sirens are entirely different, and they sound different too! The PA20 circuit board is brown, the early PA20A circuit board is a cream colour with a set of wires running over top, and the PA20A 2E board has all wires running underneath.

Identification labels

The serial number is stamped into a metal plate on the bottom of the PA15 and PA20, while the PA15A and PA20A have a silver-grey label on the bottom.  There are at least nine different versions of the PA15 and PA20 and five different versions of the PA15A and PA20A.   So for example if you have a PA20A with the serial number E1C, then you need to get a PA20 series E1C owner’s manual with the component location and schematic diagrams.  Or if you have a PA15A series 1B, you need a PA15A 1B manual.  A 1E manual won’t help because the board layout and components of a 1E are entirely different compared to the 1B.

So, returning to that 1970 Superior 54” high-top ambulance restoration – which siren to install?  Either a PA15A series 1D or a PA20A series 2D.   A 1B or 1C or a 2B or 2C would also be period correct.  All of these variations have the deep low-pitched slow rising wail and yelp tones.   Even a PA15 or PA20 would work, although they are much older sirens.   And if you can’t find any of the above, a mechanical siren will do.

Leslie Ehrlich

Leslie Ehrlich is a self proclaimed  ‘armchair pro-car ambulance enthusiast and a siren fanatic’.  We would like to thank him for sharing his extensive knowledge of the history of electronic sirens and warning equipment.

History: Funeral directors & Ambulance Service

Why Did The Funeral Director Quit The Ambulance Business?

By: Jim Crabtree

Why exactly did the funeral director quit the ambulance business?  This is a question that I have wondered about for a long time.  The old adages about the lack of care or lack of interest and training do not hold-up to the fact that the funeral director was in the ambulance business for 50 years before he abandoned it to the rescue squads and fire departments.

In The Beginning

Let’s begin our search by looking at why he got into it in the first place.  Before the Civil War ambulances were pretty much unknown.  In the 1800’s and earlier when civilians became sick or injured, the doctor came to them in the form of house calls.  Medical technology had not progressed beyond equipping the doctor with any more items than he could carry in the classical “little black bag”.  At the time of the Civil War the equivalent of a hospital pharmacy could be carried easily on a horse’s back.  There was no need to bring the patient to the hospital, because the hospital could just as easily come to them.  The prescription for disease and disability at that time was generally simple bed rest anyway, and this could just as easily be arranged for at the home.

There were some large cities (generally European) that maintained wagons to transport the sick but they might just as well be used to pick-up the dead as to transport the living.  Little actual curing went on in hospitals before medical science discovered such important concepts as bacteria and antibiotics, and abandoned such treatments as bloodletting.  Hospitals at the beginning of the 19th Century were little better than the streets as a place to die while being cared for by nurses whom might as well have been prostitutes and doctors who would today be considered charlatans and butchers.

Wartime Advances

The need to efficiently provide some care for massive numbers of casualties at central locations during wartime led to the production of ambulance wagons.  Before the American Civil War, the battlefield wounded might lay on the field for days before being removed to a designated treatment area.  Soldiers used to pray that they would be killed quickly in combat rather than becoming wounded.  There were few disabled veterans from the Revolutionary War:  You either came through unscathed, or died on the field.  Caring for the wounded took a lot of resources that were viewed as being better spent on people who could still fight.  Specific surgical procedures and medical treatments that were aimed at recovery did not begin until Florence Nightingale worked during the Crimea War, and battlefield evacuations as a routine procedure did not start until the Civil War.

After every war the increases in medical knowledge (usually trauma care) find their way into the civilian world.  Battlefield trauma management has probably done more than anything else to prove the value of surgical intervention.  Surgeons were not allowed to experimentally cut the bodies during peacetime.  But during war they were allowed to perfect their techniques and show that under the right conditions their “cutting” could “cure”.  These conditions existed in a hospital operating room.  As the world’s surgeons became more skilled, the reasons to bring patients to the hospital increased.  And who in town had a vehicle that could transport a sick person in a lying position?  Why, the undertaker, of course!

Ambulance service began as an outgrowth of the need to transport human bodies supine.  As an added advantage, operating the ambulance service helped to improve the public image of the local mortician, and could result in business tips and referrals about who was dying and who was already dead.  There are numerous anecdotes about a funeral director’s ambulance headed for the hospital until the patient died, then they would “conveniently” continue on to the funeral home.  And guess who got the job of burial?

The Ambulance Part of the Funeral Business

Funeral directors continued this arrangement well into the 1950’s.  They used their ambulance service to desensitize the morbid aspects of their business.  They would pass out telephone stickers that listed the name of their mortuary under “emergency ambulance”.  People wouldn’t keep the name or advertising from an undertaker in their home but they would proudly display the same phone number on their list of people to call in an emergency!

What did it cost the funeral director to operate an ambulance?  I don’t think most funeral directors really knew.  My studies of the funeral industry in postwar America shows that the morticians of that time were generally very nice people, but horrible businessmen.  They managed to operate mortuaries on caseloads of less than 100 per year, sometimes as low as 50-60 cases per year.  Imagine making a profit on a little more than one funeral a week, AND operating the ambulance.  Postwar America was a prosperous time and funeral directors were often building impressive structures and chapels.  They were buying new automotive equipment frequently in an effort to keep up with the funeral home down the street.  But did they know how to pay for all of this expansion and acquisition?  In 1959, there was an article in Mortuary Management magazine explaining how to depreciate the value of a professional car against business income to insure that there would be enough capital in the business to replace that car 4 or 5 years hence.  Imagine needing to explain this basic accounting concept to people who should have been shrewd businessmen.  Where were their accountants???

(Hobby note:  This practice of repetitive purchases has actually benefited us today as it managed to keep 5 or more professional car manufacturers setting continual sales records and left us today with a legacy of automotive art to collect).

Funeral Directors and Accounts Receivable

Funeral Directors were too often nice guys about collecting their debts.  They frequently allowed their bills to be paid out of estates. This meant that they would perform a funeral service (including giving cash up-front to clergy, cemeteries, and government recording offices), then wait six months to a year or longer for probate to be settled before they got paid.  Think what this did to their cash flow!  Because of the screwy things that happen in probate, they might never get paid.  Consider the following true story:

A man is in the middle of a divorce.  He lives near his parents in a town away from his wife.  When he dies, his parents arrange for the funeral, and the mortician allows to have his bill to be paid out of the estate.  Because he was not actually divorced yet, the wife now inherits all of his assets.  And because the parents arranged the funeral (not the wife), she is found not to be responsible for the debt.  The undertaker forgot to get the parents to guarantee the funeral contract.  This case actually made it up to the Supreme Court, and the funeral director lost.  He was out the entire expense of the funeral.

Not very smart from a business sense, but illustrates how trusting funeral home directors were.  In the funeral literature there is no end to the number of free funerals that the industry gave away.  It seemed that whenever there was a disaster involving multiple deaths of the very poor (such as a tenement fire or a mass murder) some funeral director would step forward and perform the service for free, including the caskets!  Sometimes the caskets would be donated by a casket manufacturer.

The funeral industry cash flow became such a crisis that in August of 1961, the Casket Manufacturers Association officially voted to stop the shipment of units to funeral homes that were more than 90 days delinquent in their purchases.

By inference this meant that 60 day overdue accounts were so routine as to be normal, and accounts overdue greater than 90 days were common as well.  (Try getting your mortgage bank to go for that one!)

By 1965, advertisements were commonly being run in funeral trade journals by companies that would buy “uncollected debt” offering 90% of the total accounts from zero to 90 days graduating down to 1% for accounts that were five years old.  I do not see how anyone can run a business while holding on to and not collecting 5 year old accounts.

In his defense, the funeral director did not always work as hard as he could to collect accounts receivable because he was commonly owed money by the people that he lived with.

He knew that the local widow did not have the any funds since he husband passed away, and he didn’t want to be seen as the nasty greedy money collector taking somebody’s last dime, ESPECIALLY after they had just suffered “a death in the family”.  So how did he stay in business?  Creative accounting.  He charged enough from the people who could pay that the business managed to show some kind of profit at the end of the year.  He was also aided by the fact that it was a family-run business, and the labor costs of family members were considered negligible because salaries would be drawn only during good times.

Economics of an Ambulance Service

Mixed into this crazy business environment was the ambulance service.  This side of the business required 24 hour labor coverage, increased vehicle maintenance on a coach that was sure to be driven hard and the job of trying to calculate the cost and inventory of supplies used per run that even today baffles modern computer systems.  Training wasn’t much.  A Red Cross Advanced First Aid card was the most that was required and renewal wasn’t much of a problem.  Many of the persons transported, of course, did not pay any part of the presented bill, so their costs would be added to the inter-facility transport bills that did pay.  In the end it was much easier to conceal this hidden overhead in a funeral service than in an ambulance run.  This is how most funeral home ambulance services were operated until the late 1950’s or early 1960’s.

The Ambulance Tackles Technology

During the late 1950’s technology began to catch-up with the ambulance.  Supplemental oxygen became the standard of care.  Resuscitators, inhalators and Rico suction units became necessities.  In order to operate these devices, additional training was required.  Basic CPR training led to the Emergency Medical Technician curriculum we have today.  All of this training costs something, and the increased costs were often hidden in the price of funerals, not the ambulance runs.

To be fair, it would not be unusual for the allowable charges of ambulance service to be regulated by local laws that might tie the hands of the funeral director as to how much he could charge for his services.  The U.S. has a history of feeling that all EMS work should be free, or next to it.

The first reference that I find to funeral directors screaming “uncle” came in January of 1960.  It was then that a letter of inquiry was published in Mortuary Management from a funeral home asking for suggestions from readers on how to dump their ambulance business and not lose the goodwill that had been built-up in their town over the years.  (How not to be seen as the person who left the community without emergency medical transport.)  Most of the respondents said that they too had tried, but eliminating the ambulance service could not be done.  Another entered into an agreement with his competitor that if they both dropped out of the service, the town would have to pick-up the slack.  At the eleventh hour the competition re-established service in a coup to take over.  It worked.

Enter Jessica Midford

In 1963, Jessica Midford published a book entitled The American Way of Death.  Jessica was an average woman who found herself having to arrange her mother’s funeral.  She entered into the funeral industry at the height of their “creative accounting” phase.  She found that she could not compare prices between funeral homes because they did not give-out pricing information over the phone.  She could not compare costs and services between competing homes because all of their services were rolled into the price of the casket.

She could not adjust the price of a funeral by declining services that she did not want (i.e., use of chapel, use of limo, embalming, etc.) because funeral homes routinely rolled everything into one package deal.  Her entire book spotlighted on these unethical (today illegal) practices that some (most) funeral homes engaged in at that time.  This book changed an industry probably more than any book has changed an industry in history.

The result were laws being passed forcing (sometimes strongly encouraging) funeral homes to compete on a price basis, disclose the costs of all services and refrain from selling any unwanted or non-required services.  Because the funeral side of the industry now had to stand on its own economically, the costs of the ambulance service could no longer be hidden in the price of the funerals.

The 1966 ICC Ruling

In 1966, the Federal government in the form of the Interstate Commerce Commission made a significant change to the ambulance industry.  The ICC is the governing body that among other things, creates the rules that long-haul truckers must follow.

Generally these rules are in the spirit of public safety.  Rules that govern safe operation of trucks, including how long a driver can be behind the wheel, make the roads safer for everyone.  In 1966 the ICC stated that because ambulance services conducted business on Federal highways, they fell under the jurisdiction of their rules and those of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Because most ambulance drivers do not actually drive longer than the maximum hours required, that provision wasn’t a problem.  However, the problem arose out of the fact that minimum hourly wages and benefits had to be paid to ambulance personnel whenever they were employed.  This included all stand-by and sleep time.  This was most likely the fatal economic blow to funeral-based ambulance services.  They could no longer hide their salaries by employing family members or other funeral home workers as stand-by attendants.

The White Paper Report

Also in 1966, the National Academy of Science published a “White Paper” report entitled Accidental Death and Disability:  The Neglected Disease of Modern Society.  This report outlined how poor automobile design, poor design of both highway surfaces and accessories (light posts, sign posts, etc.), and the lack of adequate training of ambulance attendants caused increased morbidity and mortality.  Out of this came the Highway Safety Act and the DOT curriculum for the Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) program.

This was the final straw.  It would not be possible for funeral home employees to remain current in their primary profession (embalming and funeral directing) while also training and retraining as EMTs.  The funeral director now had a perfect justification for relinquishing emergency care to people who wanted to provide it, and more importantly, encouragement from the community to practice their primary profession of funerals while suffering no ill will from the community from leaving them abandoned.  In the end, it was the community requesting the funeral director to give-up the ambulance service.

Jim Crabtree is a noted Professional Car Historian and has been an integral part of the EMS and Disaster training programs in Los Angeles County.

Electronic Sirens – A discussion.

Electronic Sirens on Emergency Vehicles
ANOTHER “FAILED EXPERIMENT” FROM THE SIXTIES?
By
Kevin O’Connell

Are you still wearing corduroy bell bottoms? Nehru jackets? Beatle boots? Shag haircuts? Paisley shirts? Ben Franklin sunglasses?

Do you still refer to a raincoat and wading boots as turnouts? Do people still ride your tailboards with impunity?

Listening to “Boss Hits” on your 4 track? Driving a “really groovy” VW bus with tie-dyed curtains?

Hopefully your answers to these questions are all emphatically negative. Thankfully many of you are too young to remember the embarrassing things people did twenty five to thirty years ago (as if you could care – you’re too busy tattooing and piercing yourselves so you’ll have something to be embarrassed about in the future).

Why then, do many agencies still cling to another bad idea from the sixties; the electronic siren? After all, they seem to do a better job of instilling false confidence than actually warning other drivers. The answers and excuses I’ve heard over the years are numerous and nearly always rooted in myth or ignorance. In the interest of brevity, let’s just debunk the three most common notions:

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