Me and the Professional Car

[JOE FULTON <piper_pa20@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Others have explained what is a flower car.  They came
into use because, except for maybe, south of the
Mason-Dixon line, a funeral director wouldn't want to
haul flowers, and other hardware to the cemetary in a
pickup truck.

This is slightly off-topic, but somewhat related.  My
past experience with another professional car was
good.  In 1968 as we were preparing to graduate from
college and lose our II-S draft status, my college
roommate and I decided we wanted to take a driving
tour through the western U.S. from Indiana.  He owned
a Rambler Classic station wagon (hey, Tom J.) and I
had a 56 Chevy Bel Air.  We decided we wanted to try
to find a hearse or ambulance for the trip since it
should be comfortable to drive and would provide all
the room we would need, e.g, no tent on the ground at
night and few motel bills.)

I ended up buying a 1955 Pontiac ambulance from a
professional car dealer in Indianapolis.  I paid $250
for the car. It was made by Superior Coach.  It had
only 17,000 miles on it and ran so smoothly that you
had to watch the engine gauges to make sure it was
actually running.  We put 6,000 miles on that car in
the two weeks of our trip.  We drove all the way to
Washington state and turned south, later ending up on 
U.S. 1.  The siren and the bubble gum machine red
light on the roof had been removed as had the flashing
red "fog" lights in the grille.  The latter had been
replaced with amber lenses.  On the CA coast we turned
on these amber fog lamps and cars began pulling over
in front of us, thinking we were an ambulance on an
emergency run.  It was a great trip and a great car. 
Haight-Asbury in a vintage Pontiac ambulance in 1968
was an experience.  

Joe Fulton
Salinas, CA