Owners Pride – Sarah Snook

Welcome to the brand new “Owners Pride” feature here at Professionalcar.org. We want to give give Professional car owners an opportunity to share their unique stories with the world. We all love these cars. Here is your chance to tell us why!

Sarah Snook
Ohio
1966 Miller Meteor Cadillac Duplex
“Patty Hearse”

Ever since I was a kid, I loved unique types of transportation – everything from the classic cars and vintage boats that I’d see at car and boat shows with my parents, to the giant Terex earthmoving trucks that I got to see regularly at the Terex factory that was down the street from where I grew up. I even was fascinated by the moving hallways that would drive up to the airplanes to connect them to the gates at the airport.

Because of that, it only made sense that when I was getting ready to turn 16 years old, that I decided that I wanted to get the most unique car that I could find. I always loved old Cadillacs, so my first thought was to get one. When I would be at classic car shows, I’d always see a few of those around though, so I decided that wasn’t unique enough. I needed something more rare.

One night I was looking online at some classified ads and I found a black hearse that was for sale. “Now that’s the rarest Cadillac I’ve ever seen,” I thought to myself. Until then, the possibility of owning a professional car had never crossed my mind. The thought didn’t bother me or creep me out. When growing up, I lived across the street from the main gates of one of Cleveland’s largest cemeteries. I’d watch the processions drive in there almost daily and I’d admire the cars. There weren’t any playgrounds in my neighborhood, so when the weather was nice my mom and I would go play in the cemetery because it was more like a beautiful park to us. Though somber moments took place there, it was full of life too. The more I thought about it, the idea of having a retired funeral car didn’t bother me at all.

So that night after finding the online ad for the hearse for sale, I started doing more research. I found out that there were actually people out there that drove classic professional cars – they even had their own clubs. I researched as much about them as I could. I looked at countless pictures from their meets, and read all of the classic sales literature that I could find online. I started to figure out how to tell the differences between the different coachbuilders and years, and I began to meet other professional car owners and enthusiasts online that were in my area.

The more that I got involved in the professional car culture, the more I realized that owning a black hearse isn’t as unique as I had previously thought. Lots of people all over the world have them. So my quest changed. I then decided that I needed to find a professional car in the most unique color scheme that I could find. By then I had thrown a few other qualifiers into the mix too. I found that I really liked the styling of the mid-sixties Miller-Meteors and I had also decided that a combination hearse/ambulance coach would probably be the best choice for me because I wanted jump seats in the back so I could carry my friends around too.

As you may know though, finding mid-sixties Miller-Meteor combos in weird colors isn’t the easiest thing to look for. So for a long time I looked everywhere for one. I’d read the classifieds online regularly, I’d ask around with the procar people that I knew, and I’d ask around on some of the procar message boards too. My search for the perfect car took years. Then one day, a friend of mine at high school mentioned that he had to go to a local music shop to get some guitar strings and that the owner had pictures of classic ambulances and hearses all over the store. I decided to check the place out. What I found was that the music store was owned by Dave McCamey, a longtime member of the Professional Car Society. He had a 1986 Hess and Eisenhart limo, a 1973 M-M Lifeliner ambulance, a 1957 M-M Futura ambulance, and a 1966 M-M combination coach. Jackpot. I found a new friend out of it and got to check out some really neat cars too.

Dave had picked up the ’66 combo a few years before at an auto auction. He noticed it at the auction and remembered that it was originally owned my Capitol Ambulance in Cleveland. It was used as one of their transport ambulances going between Deaconess and Metro Hospitals. Dave was more of an ambulance guy, but when he heard a potential bidder saying that they planned to cut the roof off of the combo and turn it into a truck, Dave decided he needed to outbid them and save the car. In the end, Dave was the highest bidder, so the car came home with him. He named it Patty Hearse because she was such a bank robber. He took it to an international PCS meet soon after he got it, but other than that, the car sat. The first time I ever saw it, I decided that it was the ugliest car I had ever seen. It was five different shades of green, ranging from an icy metallic silver green, to a flat aquamarine, and all the way to a partly metallic yellowish green that was one step away from looking like an avocado colored refrigerator from the 1970s. Add some peeling adhesive boat trim that was added years ago to the car because a previous owner had gotten rid of the metal beltline trim and some rusted through quarter panels, and it was quite a sorry sight to see. Still, there was something about it though. As ugly as the car was, technically it was exactly what I had been looking for, and I couldn’t get it out of my mind.

As time passed, I brought up to Dave the idea of me buying it a few times. My problem always was storage for it. As I was also into classic boats. I owned a 1954 14.5′ Lyman runabout. I had storage for it, but not for a car too. One day Dave and I were talking and out of the blue he mentioned that he’d always wanted a classic Lyman. I mentioned my boat to him and we soon started discussing a possible trade – the Lyman for the combo. His wife liked the combo though and didn’t want to get rid of it, so the deal was soon off. A few years passed and one night he called me to let me know that he was moving and had to get rid of a car. The trade deal became back on, and on April 13, 2001, Patty Hearse came to live with me.

Until that day, I had actually never driven a professional car. I was hooked from the start though. There’s just something about looking in the rearview mirror and only seeing car. It’s just the coolest thing ever.

I decided that I wanted to restore Patty to her original glory. She had a lot of potential hiding under all of that boat trim and those weird shades of green paint. I didn’t have enough money to afford to paint her right away, so until I did, she became my daily driver. I was in college at the time and I had a blast driving her around town and campus. After six months, I finally found an affordable paint and body shop that was willing to work on her and not cut any corners. Getting Patty’s work done was interesting and a little scary. Because she was so many shades of green, I didn’t even know which color was original. I hoped that the icy silver green was the original, but I didn’t know for sure until the body shop checked the paint codes.

The shop did a fabulous job on Patty. I saw some of their completed work beforehand and talked to a local PCS member that had multiple cars done by them. I knew what to expect in regards to their quality of work, but I still was surprised to see just how good Patty looked when she was done. The shop had her for 11 months, and during that time they sanded her down to bare metal, replaced all of the rusted panels with new metal, sealed all of the metal with epoxy so it wouldn’t rust again, painted it, put on the bumper that I had gotten, and installed the correct beltline trim that a friend had donated to the cause. They also rebuilt the engine for me. Three days after I got her back from the shop, I was already taking her to big procar meets to show her off.

I’ve had Patty Hearse for eight years now. I continue taking her to local classic car shows and to regional and national professional car meets every summer. I still plan on fixing a few small things on her, like redoing the linoleum in the back, but even so, I am really happy with her. I love driving her and sharing a bit of procar history with all those that we meet.

Would you like to see your coach featured here? If so, just drop us a note at webmaster AT professionalcar.org. And we can get you all the proper information.