That 1963 Lincoln "Continental Memorial Coach" has quite a story behind it, and has been the subject of a pro-car mystery for a couple decades. While I can not guarantee that the story is true, I can relate what I have heard about the car.
Alledgedly as many as six were built, all for the Ehret Funeral Home of Goshen, Indiana. Mr. Ehret had a "thing" for Lincolns, and for being different, and this car certainly fills that bill nicely. The advertisement was run simply to see if there was any interest in this concept, and apparently there wasn't.
Midwestern pro-car fans have known about this car(s) for awhile, and several people have contacted Ehret over the years inquiring about them. Ehret claims that all six cars were stored in the same building when it caught fire, and that all six were destroyed.
But, the story doesn't end there! Ehret later had a one-off hearse built from a 1977 Lincoln, and I can guarantee that that car does still exist, because I own it. But, I did not buy it direct from Ehret, it passed thru a couple other hands before it came into mine.
Supposedly, when Ehret retired the 1977, they put it up for live auction. The purchaser was not a pro-car fan, he just recognized an unusual car when he saw one, and figured he could flip it for a quick buck. The story goes that when he went to Ehret's storage building to pick up the 77, he noticed a few other oddball hearses there. When a midwestern PCS member (not me) talked to him about it, its claimed that he described the Continental Memorial Coach pretty accurately.
Again, I'm just repeating a story I've heard. I have no first-hand information to back this up. But therein lies the mystery. Were the Continental Memorial Coaches destroyed in a fire, or is that just a story Ehret tells people hoping they will stop being bothered about them?
