Combination Coach or Combo- In many small towns and rural areas, there just wasn't enough business to justify both a hearse and an ambulance. The Combination Coach easily converts from ambulance to hearse in a few minutes. The combination would usually be configured as an ambulance- ready for an emergency call at a moment's notice. If a funeral was scheduled the attendant seats would be folded flat, the flipover casket rollers put in their rolling position, and the roof beacon might be removed.

Combos sometimes have a reputation for being beat-up from being driven at 100+ mph over railroad tracks and other hard use, but that's not always the case. Some funeral directors ordered combinations even though they had no intention of providing ambulance service- the trade-in value was much higher, because when you need an ambulance you don't care if it has dents or rust spots! Even though a lot of combos were made, they're getting rarer by the day. And I can personally confirm that having a big mechanical siren on your hearse is a wonderfully fun feature!

Commercial Chassis- A heavy-duty long-wheelbase chassis produced especially for professional cars. This allowed builders to offer a long wheelbase hearse without having to stretch an amateur car chassis. While current car manufacturers don't offer commercial long-wheelbase chassis, some do supply coach builders special "delete packages", omitting parts that would go to waste, like the trunk lid.

Cadillac offered commercial chassis them from 1935 to 1976. Lincoln discontinued production of them in 1937. Packard produced them from 1938-1954, eventually negotiating an exclusive contract with Henney.

Meteor began building commercial chassis around 1913 for sale to coach builders. In 1915, they began buying coach bodies from A.J. Miller. Eventually the two companies merged, known to you as Miller-Meteor. ...and now you know the rest of the story!

Flower Car- in the "old days", the flowers from the funeral home display would be hauled out to the cemetery with the casket for the funeral ceremony. After the burial, the flowers would usually be heaped over the grave for a few days. If there weren't too many flowers, they might fit in the hearse around the casket. Otherwise, they could be hauled out to the cemetery ahead of time with a panel truck or station wagon. But where's the style in that?

Obviously what was needed was a distinctive special-purpose vehicle to be part of the funeral procession and display those flowers out in the open where they could be seen and admired! The Flower Car looks a bit like a hearse-sized El Camino or Ranchero pickup, with a big showy stainless steel flower deck covering the pickup bed. The deck is hinged at the back, and can be lowered hydraulically in the front, so the flowers could be protected from the wind. Under the flower deck, there were usually casket rollers, so you could transport a casket as well. (Though using a Flower Car as a service vehicle would be a bit like wearing a tuxedo to buy a cheap 6-pack of beer!)

Flower Cars are very rare. In their heyday of the 60's, probably no more than 50 were built per year, and the survival rate has been even worse than for hearses. My 1966 Superior was one of 30 that were built in that year, and we think that it's one of 5 that survive. The Superior trade name for a Flower Car was Coupe de Fleur.

Today, most cemeteries don't want to clean up the flowers, so they don't want them brought out with the casket. Flower Cars are still being made to order today, mostly used in the South, or for important "family" funerals in big cities. A recent PCS Indiana cemetery trip spotted one in use in Indianapolis!

Service Car- If the Hearse, Flower Car, and Funeral Limousine get the "glory" jobs at the funeral home, the service car gets the lowly dirty work. Someone needs to pick up empty coffins, pick up "customers" from the hospital and nursing home, haul folding chairs out to the cemetery, take empty embalming fluid bottles to the recycle center. Sigh! A service car's work is never done! This drudgery is often assigned to a station wagon, beat-up semi-retired hearse, or nowadays a mini van. After all, you don't want your shiny new hearse to get beat up doing all that.

However, if you've got a big, classy fleet, you don't use a dumpy junker to do dignified customer pick-ups! A specialized service car looks like a station wagon, usually without side windows in the back. Instead of the Landau Bar decoration you'd expect on a hearse, it sometimes sports a chrome semicircular wreath.

They're not common. If you want to creep out your friend that just got a used minivan, I'm sure you could spot some distinctive clue that would "prove" it used to be a service car. Jolly fun, what?