Pontiac procar pics

Attila Bethlenfalvy said:
From Wikipedia. I actually considered Photoshopping into 94-49196 just to gauge reaction time. :D

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Larger: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/de/US_Navy_Ambulance_1971.jpg
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Very, very nice. Back in the early '80s I ran across a nice, clean, well-running '63 ex-Navy Pontiac ambulance.All the Navy markings had been removed, so I have no idea where it served. Rather than the single beacons like you see on most military coach-type ambulances, this one had stacked Superior bullet lights front and rear, and the car was standard shift. I got to drive the car, and it drove like a dream. I could've gotten the car for $400, and that was my intention; but by the time I came up with the money a couple of days later, some school kids had beat me to the car. I saw it a few days later. Rather than having simply removed the bullet lights if they had perceived a legal problem, they broke all the red lenses off the car, making it look terrible. What a travesity.
 
Posted on HAMB for sale yesterday. Lasted 1 day, already sold.

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http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=819431

Location: Lubbock, TX Price: 1600

I've had this Pontiac ambulance for eight years and haven't gotten to it yet, so, rather than have it sit any longer, I'm gonna let someone else do something with it.

The car is quite rare. Of the 110,316 Bonnevilles produced in 1963, only 777 were sent to professional coachbuilders. This chassis was purchased by Superior Coach and is one of only 123 of the combination car (ambulance/hearse) known as the Consort built by Superior in 1963.

This is not an extended-wheelbase ambulance. The Consort was based on the Safari station wagon platform, with a heightened dome roof added by Superior.

I have the Pontiac Historical Services report for the Bonneville. The build sheet identifies the car right down to the key numbers.

The engine is the police-version 303 HP 389, linked to a cast-iron Super Hydramatic transmission. The front brakes were the ultra-rare Super Duty versions with finned aluminum drums. That system remains in place on only one side. I will provide with the car the appropriate brake components to complete the conversion to conventional drum brakes.

Steering and brakes are power-assisted, and factory air conditioning is in place. Strangely, there is no factory radio, just the factory radio block-off plate. I suppose the theory was that an ambulance driver didn't need to be listening to any tunes while transporting a patient.

The underside of the car is sound other than a small hole in the driver floorpan near the accelerator. There are some rust problems in the rear quarters at the line where the metal body and fiberglas roof were joined.

The exterior has three paint layers - red over white over the original black. The interior remains the original black vinyl with white inserts, aged and weathered but not destroyed.

The engine will crank, but won't fire. I'm certain the points are a lost cause.

The ambulance, if not revived in its present form, is a treasure trove of '63 Pontiac B-body parts.

$1,600 as is, where is, "cash and carry" with clear title. I'll help load it on your trailer.

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1967 Superior Pontiac, Middle River, MD.

Slide scan by Warren Gleitsman, unknown photographer.

(A friend of mine scanned several hundred vintage slides of fire apparatus and ambulances from the Baltimore area, and he asked me to identify the coachbuilders, in exchange for him sharing the photos. I can live with that deal.)
 

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Attila Bethlenfalvy said:
Posted on HAMB for sale yesterday. Lasted 1 day, already sold.

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http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=819431

Location: Lubbock, TX Price: 1600

I've had this Pontiac ambulance for eight years and haven't gotten to it yet, so, rather than have it sit any longer, I'm gonna let someone else do something with it.

The car is quite rare. Of the 110,316 Bonnevilles produced in 1963, only 777 were sent to professional coachbuilders. This chassis was purchased by Superior Coach and is one of only 123 of the combination car (ambulance/hearse) known as the Consort built by Superior in 1963.

This is not an extended-wheelbase ambulance. The Consort was based on the Safari station wagon platform, with a heightened dome roof added by Superior.

I have the Pontiac Historical Services report for the Bonneville. The build sheet identifies the car right down to the key numbers.

The engine is the police-version 303 HP 389, linked to a cast-iron Super Hydramatic transmission. The front brakes were the ultra-rare Super Duty versions with finned aluminum drums. That system remains in place on only one side. I will provide with the car the appropriate brake components to complete the conversion to conventional drum brakes.

Steering and brakes are power-assisted, and factory air conditioning is in place. Strangely, there is no factory radio, just the factory radio block-off plate. I suppose the theory was that an ambulance driver didn't need to be listening to any tunes while transporting a patient.

The underside of the car is sound other than a small hole in the driver floorpan near the accelerator. There are some rust problems in the rear quarters at the line where the metal body and fiberglas roof were joined.

The exterior has three paint layers - red over white over the original black. The interior remains the original black vinyl with white inserts, aged and weathered but not destroyed.

The engine will crank, but won't fire. I'm certain the points are a lost cause.

The ambulance, if not revived in its present form, is a treasure trove of '63 Pontiac B-body parts.

$1,600 as is, where is, "cash and carry" with clear title. I'll help load it on your trailer.

16883_10151740561288221_1192770472_n.jpg

21464_10151740561283221_2114033274_n.jpg

1000117_10151740561343221_1241037512_n.jpg

999818_10151740561363221_1518681695_n.jpg

164453_10151740561278221_278151353_n.jpg

1005329_10151740562858221_301991322_n.jpg

18973_10151740563183221_503764014_n.jpg

1014184_10151740563198221_2045273288_n.jpg

552623_10151740563783221_1267471479_n.jpg
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I now Mr. Morgan quite well, as well as this car. This car served a small motorcross track in Clyde, TX, a small town east of Abilene. The original owner Kerry Walker never put it in service. It sat next to the race track property with the transmission out. Because he couldn't get an ambulance from his area to cover his racing programs, we went from Lubbock to Clyde twice a month in the spring for several years, until Kerry eventually closed the track in the late '80s. It was a decent old rig back then and we tried several times to buy it, but he wouldn't sell it because of the bad tranny. But I don't believe this car was a combo, but a straight ambulance.

I talked to Bill a while back when I spotted the Pontiac on another site. Glad he was able to find a buyer so quickly.
 
Thanks fellas. The car will be used to revive my other two 63 pro cars (limo and almost identical ambulance). Basically the rear quarters from this car will go on my ambulance and the front clip will replace the one on the limousine. I will start a thread when those restorations are started, have one non- procar build to finish first. -Will
 
Will Peterson said:
Thanks fellas. The car will be used to revive my other two 63 pro cars (limo and almost identical ambulance). Basically the rear quarters from this car will go on my ambulance and the front clip will replace the one on the limousine. I will start a thread when those restorations are started, have one non- procar build to finish first. -Will
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Congrats on the find, Will. Another Texas member of this board had been looking at this car and I was almost sure he was the one who got it. You'll like Lubbock when you get there. It gets almost as cold as what you see in Canada in the winter! Is your other ambulance also a Consort? My first ambulance was a '63 Consort ambulance, too. You'll have to send us some pix when you get the other car restored.
 
Just sent to me the other day, pic of a '69 Superior Pontiac from Arbutus, MD. A Q and Sola-Rays to the front, nothing but the best back then in Arbutus.
 

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Skip Goulet said:
As always, you're the one who would notice the difference. Even I hadn't noticed it until you pointed it out!

If the producers used numerous units in filming the movie, I'd bet that Schaefer made a good bit off that, especially the ones that saw some damage.

Joe Ortiz, who leases emergency and specialty vehicles to the movie studios in California, has a steady business in leasing some of his vintage and current firetrucks and ambulances. Since he and I are the same age, it's obvious that he was much too young when this film was made to have been doing that sort of thing.
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If this has already been discussed, my apologies. But I did a web search, and was shocked to see that Schaefer's is still in business! I'm assuming that prior to the 80s or so, they were probably a bona fide emergency ambulance service where you could call for an emergency ambulance, and Schaefer's would respond code 3. But looking at their website, it looks like they mainly just do hospital transports, stand-by services, they have an air ambulance, and they do inter hospital critical care transports but it looks like they no longer respond to 911 EMS calls. I'm surprised they haven't been acquired by the likes of AMR like every other private ambulance service in urban areas seems to have been over the last decade or so. I'll bet AMR keeps making them offers though!
 
Tony Blair said:
They are the exclusive 911 transport provider for area 3 in LA County. They also do 911 transports in El Centro, CA.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gBPMM2FnFo
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Thanks for the video, Tony. I can't imagine Shaeffer not running emergency service."Papa Walt" Shaeffer would roll over if he were to find out that they had quit running emergency calls.

AMR has moved in on a lot of their territory, but I don't see them selling out since it is still a family-operated business.

AMR has a few places here in Texas, I understand, but they haven't made the inroads that they would like to.
 
It's like we have Alzheimers' around here sometimes, we forget what we're talking about. :rolleyes: So, to return us to the topic of Pontiac pro-car photos...:

Here's the previous unit to the one I posted before, from Arbutus, MD. This is a '67. Sorry the photo is so dark, a friend is copying these from slides and that's how this turned out. Also well-equipped for the time.
 

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To once again return us to Pontiac ambulances and not the sale of ambulance services in CA - since I don't have any other new Pontiacs to post right now, here is my '64.
 

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