Miller Meteor Build Question(s)

I am attempting to have a better understanding of how procars were built. And as usual this is the place to go...

1. How can I determine how many 1973 Cadillac commercial chassis were built?

2. Is there a way to tell how many ambulances M/M built in 1973? and more specifically how many were Lifeliners?

3. Bill Leverett did a great job documenting this car from the time he acquired it to now, is there anyway to figure out what M/M distributor sold this car originally?

What other information do you have documented on your cars that I might also want to track down?

Thank you for the assistance...
Dave

Cadillac delivered 2,212 Series 75 commercial chassis to the coachbuilders in 1973. Of these, 1,060 went to the Superior Coach Company,with approximately 957 going to Miller-Meteor and 195 to S&S. Of the 1,060 Cadillac chassis received at Superior in 1973, 20.9% or 222 were used for ambulances. Using the same percentages, that would indicate that of the 957 chassis delivered to Miller-Meteor, approximately 191 would have been ambulances and....of these a smaller percentage would have been Lifeliners. While we have production data from Superior, without the actual production and delivery records from Miller-Meteor, this is as close as we can come. I hope that this in some way helps to clarify the situation for you.

If one studies the service configuration production breakdown within the professional vehicle industry in the early Seventies, you will find that the bulk of any coachbuilders annual production consisted of combination cars and ambulances. As an example, in 1970 Superior sold, produced and delivered 1,506 Cadillac and Pontiac-based vehicles. Of these, 60% (59.694%) were ambulances and combination cars (899 units) and the remaining 40% (607 units) were funeral cars of various types (end-loaders, three-ways or flower cars). This was fairly consistent throughout the years that Cadillac, Pontiac, Oldsmobile and other such chassis could be used for ambulance service. When the rules changed in the late Seventies and passenger car-based ambulances were banned, the manufacturers lost approximately 60% of their annual production - which made survival for each of them difficult. This specialized industry instantly got substantially smaller and much more competitive. Then, you had the down-sizing of 1977. Ergo, the demise of Miller-Meteor and later the closure of the massive Superior operation in Lima and sale of the funeral car portion of its business to Earnhart. And... a few years later, the sale of Hess & Eisenhardt (S&S) to Earnhart's Superior Coaches.

Thanks, very helpful