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.

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February 11, 2010 | Filed Under Featured Items | Leave a Comment

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.