I’m relatively sure everyone who reads this knows me, so this isn’t exaclty a shock, but I have more than one landship. No, the guy never called me back about the ’68, but I’m definitely keeping that model and year in mind in case I go looking for a replacement RV.
No, the 2nd landship is really my 1st. My hearse, Lily. She’s a 1973 Cadillac Fleetwood 75 Endloader by Superior to be precise. If you’re not familiar with hearses, or hearses from before approxiamtely 1989 or so, they are very different beasts from the fiberglass camper cap plopped onto a stretched stock car that you see on the road today. Before they got all fuel-efficient and front wheel drive, hearses were custom built tanks with funeral home specific decoration and specs. Based on Cadillac’s professional car base (which included ambulances, hearses and limos, essentially a front clip and a chassis), they went to one of only a handful of custom coach builders for final assembly. Most often, the rear compartment was a set of steel ribs clad in whatever finish the funeral home wanted along with several different window/door configurations. Regional traditions and preferences shaped most coaches, with limousine-style windows all around being popular on both coasts and the more sedate solid sided landau style prevelant in the center of the US. Some coaches did double duty as both ambulance and hearse, generally referred to as a combination. All hearses have the disctinctive back door for acess to the rear, and side rear doors in much the same locations as you would expect the doors of a 4-door sedan, but the setup inside can be one of two ways. The most common is the endloader. A fixed table (or extending in more rare cases) equipped with hard rubber rollers allowed for easy insertion and removal of a burial container. The other option was referred to as a 3-way. The table was not fixed but could be swung to either side. 3-ways typically have suicide doors in the rear and no partition between the rear compartment and the cab area. Coaches are also usually stretched between 18-24″ longer than the stock car they are based on.
Lily is pretty standard for our part of the country. She has the fixed endloading table and regular rear side doors. Some of the things that set her apart are largely based on the year she was built. A Cadillac Fleetwood in 1973 was a very large car to begin with. Raise the roof 3-6″, stretch the body and you have an enormous vehicle. Mobsters would drool at my trunk space, put it that way. Seriously, my coach is about the same length as my RV. With a big square profile and cushy seating in the front, interior clad in black-on-black brocade and rather than the normal swoop, an angled landua bar with cog-like finial caps… she’s definitely a product of the bigger-is-better extravagance of the early 70s. It also makes her a joy to drive, like riding on a cushion of air or cuddled on your favorite couch. Of course her 472 engine is nothing to sneeze at either. When I had her in decent shape I could actually get scratch off the line. In a 7000 lb car. Of course I had to pull in to the next gas station to fill her 26 gallon tank back up pretty much immediately, but ahh what a rush.
This has really all been a preface to her story, which will be ongoing at the same time as Tinker’s. Since I suck at regular posting, I decided to just add her notes here as well for anyone that might find it interesting. She’s been parked for 3, no almost 4 years now, waiting for me to be able to fund some relatively major engine work, but the ball is rolling and my goal is to have her under way for the PineBox Derby at the end of the month. More info about the casket races can be found at dallastrocars.org
I promise pictures next post!
