Ambulance Project: 1958 Pontiac Bonneville
Superior Coach Company (and its successors) was in the business of building hearses, ambulances, limousines, and other “professional cars” for much of the 20th Century. Along with various Cadillac products, Pontiac’s Bonneville’s would also serve as donors for the transformation from luxury car to specialized transport. This 1958 Bonneville is one of those vehicles, which became a high-top rescue ambulance. It has been waiting for at least 15 years for a restoration that the seller realizes will not happen on his watch. From Hesperia, California, this project is available here on eBay once the reserve has been met. So far, the bids are holding at $3,250. Thanks for this unusual tip, Larry D!
Before being converted into hearses or ambulances, these automobiles would have started as station wagons or sedans and sometimes even chassis. Superior Coach began performing their magic as early as 1923 and – after several mergers and sales – some form of the business is still around today. According to the seller, Superior built 344 Pontiac-based specialty vehicles like this one in 1958. They ranged from hearses in both limo and landau style, along with standard headroom and “high headroom” ambulances like the seller’s offering.
The seller bought this ’58 Bonneville around 2007 with plans to restore it. Too many projects will prevent that from happening, so another caretaker will have the opportunity. History before the seller is sketchy but he (let’s assume “he”) thinks the ambulance may have provided service to the military given some of its markings. The motor and transmission were out of the vehicle when he bought the Pontiac and will come with the deal, but they’ve yet to be rebuilt, so the buyer will have to handle that, too. Most of the parts needed to make it happen are here except for the starter, rocker arms, and some assorted nuts and bolts.
In 1958, Pontiac vehicles were powered by a 370 cubic inch V8 and this one is properly dated-coded. Though most of Superior’s products came with a single 4-barrel carburetor, this one is Tri-Power, i.e., triple 2-barrel carbs. The body has its share of dents and dings, and many of its chrome pieces are not attached but still in the vicinity. The front floor pans have patches and are the only areas mentioned where rust must have been a problem at one point.
The ”passenger compartment” is where a lot of Superior’s work comes into play, besides the extended roofline. The interior features fold-away jump seats and the seller has come up with enough parts and pieces to create a divider. The ambulance’s siren is still there and works (guess he tested it out!). The emergency lights have been removed due to broken lenses. Because the vehicle has been off the road so long, it comes with a non-operational California registration and a clear title.
Vintage hearses have always been popular as prop pieces for Halloween events and ghost tours, but if you had a running ambulance like this – restored or otherwise – what would you use it for? As a display piece for a lawyer’s office or a Ghostbusters tribute for the next movie installment? “Who you gonna call?”
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Comments
What military markings? Doesn’t look at all military to me.
As to use, first you call it a custom built over-sized station wagon and drop any reference to ambulance. Then you remove the ambulance components in the “passenger area” and and use like a minivan with no seats, just a hauler. There is the question of whether it will fit in your, however.
The seller’s view that it may have some military (or other US Government agency) history is probably due to the data plate attached to the fire wall. Hard to see all the markings, but it does appear to include “US Property” on the plate. Unfortunately, the picture isn’t clear enough to make out the rest.
It was original green, and I assume it was ex-army.
It has a gov data plate. Have a good pic of it but the link I had with my post did not show up in my post?
It does look like the Navy ambulance that picked up JFK’s casket at Andrews AFB after he was assassinated in Dallas.
Please drag this behemoth out into the light of day and get some wiiide pictures of this creature.
I have one almost exactly like it. WILL be at ducktails car show, Gas City In. in September for sale. 58 Pontiac hearse / superior coach.
Driving one of these huge “professional vehicles” is a whole different experience and level of proficiency. Both the hearses and ambulances share the same very dangerous driving characteristics. I know as I spent twenty years in the funeral business. During my experience as a California State licensed funeral director/embalmer our firm totaled three hearses to careless driving. However the errant staff members were even given detailed driving instructions and were even checked out during behind the wheel road tests. These elongated chassis and bodies are very rear end heavy. At highway speeds these vehicles can easily be spun off the roadway with any sudden turns, right or left that normally would not bother a standard sedan that much. Stopping distances are longer than a standard automobile. New hearse or ambulance drivers never realize that. These service cars are also especially vulnerable to strong cross winds. Another problem is extremely slow acceleration and very poor gas mileage. In California, older ambulances cannot be registered with any emergency lights or sirens still on the vehicle.
I have a 75 high-top ambulance and still has every piece of emergency equipment on it, lights sirens. Registered in Ca, not illegal to have light sirens etc. on old emergency equipment, cop cars etc. If you go down the road with everything on than you will have a talk with law enforcement. And maybe a trip to a tow yard.
Well darn it………….I was sure give wrong information by a local recently retired California highway patrolman. Thanks for the correction!
Please for the love of all that’s holy no more Ghostbuster tribute cars. I think 35-40% of the remaining pre-1990 hearses and ambulances are now Ghostbuster tribute cars. Just make it stop. Please God.
Ghostbusters Whatever.
An engine disassembled is soon missing parts.
Now where did I put that?!! I just saw it last week. Or was it last year?
Tow a vintage race car on an open trailer like they did in the day.
Iam sure you will need ghost busters to rid of all the ghosts hanging on to it. I had a chance to buy a 60 olds funeral coach. My wife said no way she would ride it, to freakin creepy.
James Martin,
Back in the mid 1970s I bought a 1952 Henney-Packard hearse, and parked it out in front of the family home in a suburban housing development. One weekend my grandparents decided to come over. My father, not wanting to upset my ailing grandma, told me to park it down the road.
My grandparents all knew I loved Packards, and my grandma quickly asked me if I had seen the hearse down the road. I proudly said, yes, it’s mine. She saw the look of evil my father had just given me, so she decided to ask me for a ride in it!
From that point on it remained parked out front when they visited.
I had one like this. This is actually a Star Chief, not a Bonneville. Superior was low bidder for the 1958 US military ambulance order that included Army, Navy and Air Force ambulances [and a few hearses]. The reason for the raised roof over the back area was because the Mil-Spec required all ambulances have room for up to 4 Medic cots, 2 on the floor, 2 hanging from the roof. This example was not equipped with the upper cot brackets.
Getting the US DOD contract was accomplished by lowering the overall vehicle cost, substituting Star Chief for Bonneville parts, this resulted in a 2 barrel carb engine, single exhaust, no Power Steering, and a cheaper interior. This is why the owner says it had a 2 barrel carb in the beginning. If the next owner rebuilds the engine to the 2 barrel specs, but adds the Tri-power setup, all that will do is give even worse fuel economy if the 2 additional carbs are used.
Because Superior also offered this vehicle to the public as a Bonneville [with custom made chrome plated cast bronze Bonneville side trim], and it would cost more money to create and cast Star Chief side moldings, Superior simply used the Bonneville moldings. Because it was sold by Pontiac to Superior as a basic ambulance/hearse chassis, it does not have the GM Fisher body ID plate, hence today’s confusion between Bonneville and Star Chief. One of the other give-aways that it’s a military vehicle is the large roof vent specific to US military vehicles, found on the front roof area.
If memory serves me right, the next 2 big DOD ambulance and hearse bid requests were issued in 1961 and again in 1964 with the ramp-up of the Viet Nam situation. As various military vehicle rotations came due, these 1958 vehicles were sold off as surplus, often purchased very cheap by local governments for their own fire departments and rescue squads.
And an interesting aside . . .
I sold my 1958 Hi-Top Superior Air Force ambulance in 1978. I had bought it in 1973 at a military surplus auction at Bolling Air Force base, and it still had it’s Bolling AFB markings. Hoping to sell it to a local fire department, I painted it red but ended up using it to haul antique car parts to various flea markets. A decade later I was researching the various motor pool records for local military facilities here in the Washington, DC area, and discovered Bolling had only one 1958 Pontiac Hi-Top ambulance, and the vehicle President Kennedy’s body rode in after his arrival at Bolling AFB was a 1958 Pontiac Hi-Top. While I never was able to numbers match my ’58 Superior to the Kennedy example, it seems logical to conclude they were probably one and the same.
I sold the ambulance to a collector in Massachusetts who drove it all the way home without a problem, except that as he made the right turn into his driveway, up over the curb, the body flexed enough to pinch the wiring harness between the body and frame, frying the entire harness! He called me to say at least he made it all the way home, sort of!
Respectfully, my recollection is that President Kennedy’s body arrived at Andrews AFB from Dallas, and was transferred to a 1963 Pontiac Bonneville-based Navy ambulance.
And I’m nearly positive that the car is known to have been crushed years ago
NHDave & Bone,
Thanks for the jolt of reality, I checked my records and you are correct. Too many years between what I knew then and what I remembered now!
It looks a bit like the ghostbusters car, but fold that was an Cadillac and not an Pontiac.