The first hearses were horse-drawn platforms, gradually evolving toward ever more ornate carriages. In 1909, the first motorized hearse was built. Rough and weather-beaten roads kept the horse in business for another decade or so, but by the 1920s, Old Dobbin was mostly retired. Coach builders – Superior, Meteor, Crane, Sayers & Scovill, and others – jumped into the market. Innovations like Eureka’s side-load hearse kept makers on their proverbial toes. This old Meteor funeral car is a rare survivor from the earliest days of motorized funeral cars. It’s available here on facebook Marketplace for $23,000. It “ran very good a couple years ago”, so most likely the new owner will need to tow it home from Chattanooga, Tennessee. Thanks to Zappenduster for coffin up this tip!
Meteor built its funeral cars on its own chassis, powered by a six-cylinder Continental engine backed by a heavy-duty three-speed manual transmission. By 1926, the engine’s output was about 70 hp, versus a curb weight in the 4000-5000 lb area. Performance was stately, not scintillating. The car was equipped with beefy springs, Watson stabilizer shocks, and Lockheed drums all around. The seller claims this Meteor has travelled 35,874 original miles. Recently, the carb was rebuilt, and the fuel pump and tires were replaced.
This hearse retains its casket rollers, skid bars, and beneath the windows, nameplate brackets. Meteor typically offered two body styles: a panel coach with landau bars or a fully-windowed coach, like this one. The windows could be ordered plain, frosted, or leaded.
The interior featured a glass separator isolating the driver from the rear compartment. Up front, leather upholstery covered the seat; colors were kept on the somber side.
This model features two doors on each side, and a rear door to ease loading. The roof is losing its leatherette, but the body is straight, and rust seems to be minimal. A certain niche of collectors appreciates professional cars, and most likely, those individuals have heard of or belong to the Professional Car Society, the grandaddy of suitable clubs. Meanwhile, values hinge on condition and make. This Meteor has been on the market for three months, so if you’re interested, I’ll bet the seller will entertain a discount off his ask.
While in college my ’48 Cadillac hearse turned into a sin bin with a couch in back and a casket in the middle with ice and booze in it. Great for going on spring break or football games. Even today this old guy could liven up a college event.
So instead of end-of-life activities you were into beginning of life activities.
Was up to my gills in life activities already. Told my crew chief when I asked her to marry me that it wouldn’t be dull. Boy have I lived up to that one!
Hey, you’re not in Denver are you? I sold a 1948 hearse to Denver years ago. It was the White Sulphur Springs Montana hearse.
No. Mine was light grey over black. Had a line waiting for me to graduate so sold it to the first one with money
Michelle wrote up a vehicle that folks will by “Dying” to comment on….. ( Insert rimshot for bad Dad joke here).
Ok, seriously, this hearse is in remarkable, solid, original condition. The interior carpet with the casket rollers is impressive, and that it’s still intact, and looks pretty good. I didn’t know Meteor built their early vehicles on their own frames, using Continental engines. It would be really nice to see this one at the very least preserved, if not restored. As always, Michelle did some serious homework on this one ( as always) and I appreciate it. This may be one of the oldest hearses featured here. Vehicles like these really need to be saved and preserved for the next generation.
Tis I, Digby O’Dell, here to say it looks like a well maintained vehicle, no one wants to be stranded on their last ride, although I’m always the last one to let you down. I’d better be shoveling off.
Hi Jim Randall,
Thanks for the puns Digger!
My uncle the undertaker/funeral director had a dog named Digger. Very apropos in several different ways.
Michelle’s write-up is clever, and your comment is funny as hell, Jim. This response of mine, however, may draw disapproval for its use of the simile “funny as hell.” So I checked with heaven before I composed it. Unfortunately, the good souls up there offer no competitive idiom.
Never liked hearses. Why not just a non descript car or truck? I also feel it is disrespectful to rod it. Maybe I am an old fuddy duddy, but many my age feel like this.
Okay, this thing oozes cool. But
what would you actually do with it? A funeral director could use this coach to carry the dearly departed in style on their last ride. There are funeral homes that do use vintage hearses for such
duties at the family’s request. But my main question would be how could you keep a body from
decomposing while you drive it to
the cemetery? Before the days of
air conditioning, many old hearses had the smell of death still in them when they were sold
off to private citizens to use them
for whatever use you could find for them. My Dad worked part time at the Big Rig Truck Stop in
Normal and they had an old ’50
Cadillac hearse they used as a parts chaser and try as they might, they just couldn’t get that
death smell out of that car! I seem to recall that the stench was really bad on a hot summer day. Used to hear Dad complain
that the stench would make him
sick after driving it awhile. Hey
Bob Hess, how’d you deal with that smell in your ’48 Cadillac sin bin? The only other use I could
think of would be an equipment
hauler for a rock band. There was a local band called the Cobblestones who did indeed use
a hearse like this one to haul their
gear from town to town back then. I recall they yanked the original engine and tranny and
swapped in a 327 Chevy V-8 and
Powerglide tranny so they could
drive it on the Interstate. It also
had a set of Astro mags with wide oval tires too. Yeah, it was a
spooky looking rig but cool at the same time. I only saw it a few times, but it sure left quite an impression on my 12 year old self
back in ’67. I think if I could find
just the shell of this same car, I’d
restomod it and use it in the cadaver transport business. It would run at least a 400 cube GM
V-8 mated to a beefed up T 400
tranny. And yes, mine would have
A/C too. Great survivor car that’s
waaay too nice to cut up.
Only smell I had was all that leather.
Another use would be food delivery. Chicken In A Casket?
Did Meteor not end up as a coachbuilder for funeral conversions and the like?
They did. The merged with Miller
Coachworks and became Miller Meteor in the ’50s. After that, they stopped using their own frames and engines and just built
bodies for Pontiac, Buick, Oldsmobile, and if course Cadillac. When I was a kid, you could go and see a lot of hearses,
ambulances, and other specialty
cars at Farm Bureau Field just east of Bloomington. That’s where you went if you were looking for a retired professional
car. Ever see a ’56 Olds Ambulance? I saw three of them
one time. They were retired BFD
rescue squads that had the 324
cube V-8 with tri power mated to
3-speed sticks. Most of the retired stuff was bought up by
small town fire departments that
couldn’t afford to buy new units
like the big cities did every year.
That’s how a friend of mine ‘s father started AAA Ambulance Service there in Bloomington in the late ’60s. As far as I know, they’re still in business today. One day, Mr. Belcher sent my friend and his brother to Chicago
to pick up a body headed for Bloomington. Bill drove to Chicago while his brother Noah
took a nap in the back of the hearse so that he could drive home after the pick up. Well, bill
gets hungry and he pulls into a
McDonald’s just outside Chicago
and orders a meal to go. About
that time, Noah sits up in the back of the hearse and says “I’ll
have what he’s having!” Bill told
me later that they scared the 💩
out of the person at the drive through! Last time I saw Bill was
at my neighbor’s house maybe 40
years ago sleeping off a bender
while his ’78 Ford LTD hearse sat
parked in my neighbor’s driveway.
Good times back then.
Cool car, historical, like many cars of this vintage. Sad that the vast majority will never be restored.
Having driven several “funeral coaches” I never noticed a bad smell. By the middle ’60s, most cadaver were hauled in vans that could be hosed out. In the 2000s I sold commercial vehicles and had a consortium of funeral homes for customers. I forget how they classify the deceased bodies. (Distance and condition) But generally long distance transports happened in refrigerated/rear cargo area closed off standard sized vans.Also remember that “body bags” have come a long way over the years. So that “smell of death” no longer surrounds you! (Ooo,ooo that smell!)
Here’s your useless trivia for the day…the Crane & Breed families, the Sayers & Scovill families and some of both the Hess & Eisenhardt families are all interred at Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati. Some of the 1960s-70s advertising for S&S coaches was shot at the Memorial Mausoleum at Spring Grove too.
David, you are correct about useless. But, still interesting!
I have to agree with you, Pinto, hot rodding, slamming, customizing or cutting the roof down on a hearse is sacrilege. They should remain original to the profession. IMO, which as Pinto mentions, makes us old fuddy duddys
Hi Angel! I’d still like to build a replica of this one for use in the cadaver transport business. And yeah, it would have at least a big
block GM V-8, beefed T 400 tranny, and a 12 bolt posi rear out
back. Otherwise, it would look stock until you started looking at
it. Until vans became affordable
to young musicians like me, a hearse was the cheapest thing you could get to carry all your stuff and MAYBE your band mates too. Both the Cobblestones and “Hard luck”
Harry Hinthorne were the only
two musicians that actually used
them. We gave Harry that nickname because he was always having some kind of bad luck while he was out there playing. Even Sam The Sham and
Neil Young used hearses for touring back before converted school buses and Flexible coaches. Other than this car, the
most unusual hearse I’d ever seen was the ’78 Ford LTD coach
that belonged to my friend Bill Belcher, who was passed out on
my neighbor’s couch after he got
💩 faced at my neighbor’s house
one night. Come to find out he had a body in the back at the time! WTF!!! I’ll bet Louella (his
Mom) chewed his ass out when he got back to the shop!
…And yeah, my BIL were talking about getting a hearse, painting it
Camouflage, and setting it on a GM 4X4 chassis to cater to the
redneck crowd. My SIL put the kibosh to that. She said she wouldn’t drive it because she was
afraid that the body in the back would come back to life, turn into
a zombie, and eat her brain! She’s watched too many zombie movies and too much Walking Dead.
I drove a former step Brothers 1958 Pontiac (Star Chief, I think) Hearse (built by Superior, I think, in Lima, Ohio) for several years in college in the mid-70s. Always drove with the headlights ON and we (frat brothers of SPE) used to do Chinese fire drills in the middle of Defiance, Ohio. Great car & fun to drive. Had a bed in the back and my mom even made new curtains for it. One comment about the stench in any car, an ozone generator will get rid of that nasty smell – I use it in both of my old collector cars, works great!
I have to say it’s not the kind of car that I’m dying to have. Especially at the price there asking. I’m sure someone will dig this enough to scoop it up.