74 Chevrolet Impala Ambulance

Gérard Zenklusen-Ott

Gérard Zenklusen-Ott

PCS Member
Hello !

I saw here in Switzerland this 74 Chevrolet Ambulance. It was in service in the town of Genève for the Ambulance Service Odier.
The Chevrolet is now for sale.










Greetings from Switzerland Gérard
 
I like it too! Wagons have lots of appeal to me and then it is an ambulance, now we are really talking! Truthfully though, it is difficult to imagine using that clamshell door for emergency purposes. Not that I ever saw one break, but just imagine the horror of an ambulance rollong up to an emergency and the door doesn't open!
 
I like it, i owned a 1975 impala wagon, my family also had a 1976 Pontiac Catalina wgn don't see many around .
 
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clamshell tailgate

Bill,
The other side of that clamshell gate not opening would be it not closing after you loaded you patient.
Mike
 
1974 Chevorlet Impala Ambulance

Worked at an Funeral Home that had a 1972 Pontiac station wagon with a clam shell tailgate. Used for invalid coach, back up ambulance, removels and flower car. Never had a problem with the tailgate but would have been interesting if we had
 
We old medics will advise you, lock de-icer and a screwdriver was standard gear with our old binders,have had to side load many a stretcher,now they just call for another unit..
 
Neat car, how much?

We, too, owned a clamshell wagon ('73 Buick Estate), and though I was a kid, I do remember us once having a problem where it didn't close correctly and had to get that fixed. I think it was the bottom tailgate that closed partially crooked.

Talk about the window open? Our Studebaker Ambulet is very small, and the end of the cot just about contacts the tailgate (all manual, unlikely to fail). The guy who used to drive it back in the day told me they did have apatient who was too tall to fit or to bend his legs, and they did once ride to the hospital with the tailgate window open and his feet sticking out the back. :smiley3:
 
Bill Marcy said:
I like it too! Wagons have lots of appeal to me and then it is an ambulance, now we are really talking! Truthfully though, it is difficult to imagine using that clamshell door for emergency purposes. Not that I ever saw one break, but just imagine the horror of an ambulance rollong up to an emergency and the door doesn't open!
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The door drops down manually; the window is electric.
 
Rick Franklin said:
The door drops down manually; the window is electric.
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looking at the pic of the above the white ambulance that appears to be a pwr tailgate you turn the key right or left to lower the tailgate and do the reverse to open the glass only. there are 2 toggle switches that are marked window and tail gate. on the dash if its a pwr version located above the ash tray they are the inside controls. if it is a manual version there would be a grip in the middle of the tail gate and 1 switch on the dash showing only window. it is hard to see on the white one if it is a pwr window and tailgate.
 
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Andrew G. Zajkowski said:
looking at the pic of the above the white ambulance that appears to be a pwr tailgate you turn the key right or left to lower the tailgate and do the reverse to open the glass only. there are 2 toggle switches that are marked window and tail gate. on the dash if its a pwr version located above the ash tray they are the inside controls...
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That's the way our clamshell Buick was, both sections of the tailgate were electric. There was no manual lowering mechanism.
 
What memories a picture can bring back. I had a 74 Buick Estate wagon with an electric clam shell tailgate, split seat and window screens straight from the big green Kelco catalog. It had a #28 behind the grill like the coach and a #17 beacon ray. In the back was a one man cot and an oxygen bottle. It flew like the wind, looked sharp with the beige and woodgrain polished and was air conditioned. As most of you know, every funeral home's calling card in those days was "air conditioned & oxygen equipped ambulance service." I dare say we lost less patients by snatch and run than the present service operating in our town today but NO, I would never go back to ambulance service. A part of history that should remain just that, history.
 
Rick Franklin said:
I like it! My dad bought a 72 Chevy Kingswood wagon new. I love the clamshell wagons!
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A late friend of mine who ran the ambulance service in the small town of Lamesa, TX, had a '72 Chevy "clamshell" wagon like that. He also had a '65 snub-nosed Chevy van that he used if he had to transport a pt. with an IV. But for fast runs up to Lubbock, he took the wagon. I had my small standby ambulance service running in Lubbock and would occasionaly drop down to Lamesa and help the guy out. One Saturday he had made an emergency transfer to Lubbock, and the car stopped dead at a busy intersection. He had asked the city dispatch to call me, but instead they called the contract ambulance co. Fortunately I happened to be mobile at the time and just caught part of the radio traffic and got to the scene just as the private ambulance was loading. I found from my friend that the alternator had gone, and that it had happened before. I inquired about what sized alternator he had, and it was just the standard 35-amp. Chevy alternator. He was sputting a tremendous load on that car, as he had a Federal VisiBar on top, an electronic siren and a 100-watt lowband two-way radio. I had him have the car taken to an auto electric shop that we used and they put a 65-amp alternator on the car for him, and he never had problems again. What scared him when the car stopped suddenly was that w/o power that clamshell tailgate wouldn't go down. A passing car stopped and tried to jump the car off but the battery was too far gone, but it had enough "juice" to lower the tailgate to get the patient out!
 
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