What got you interested in Professional Cars, and how did you learn about the PCS?

Josh Gentry

Josh Gentry

And now for my next question. What was it that got you interested in Professional Cars, and how did you learn about the PCS?

I'll go first. I'm not sure exactly what it was that made me love Professional Cars, all I know is I have ben obsessed with them sence I was a very small chiled. As far back as I can remember I've always loved Hearses, Limos, and anything with flashing lights. Ambulances, Fire Trucks, Police Cars, and even Wreckers. The first toy cars I ever remember having, was a fire truck, a wrecker, and a limo. Who ever it was that bought me those, maybe I can blame it on them.

As far as learning about the PCS, Well I've told this one before, but here is the short version. I beleave it was the summer of 01. I was at a local car show with my custom low rider truck I had at the time, I was wiping the truck down and geting it ready for judging, and I glance down the row of cars beside me, and saw the back end of a dark blue hearse. Well I dropped what I was doing and had to go check it out. I get down there, and this dark blue hearse turns out to be a 1973 Miller-Meteor Duplex Combination owned by none other than Jeremy D. Ledford. He told me all about the PCS, and gave me an application. And that there was the day I joined the PCS, and made just about the best friend a guy could ever have. This was perfect timing to, as I was in the prosssess of trying to get my first Pro-Car, my 71 Superior Combo.

I'll stop boring you now, and let you tell your stories.

Josh
 
Ive been interested in all sorts of cars since I was a small child. I had the biggest collection of Matchbox cars in the neighborhood. I remember on several occassions the Cadillac ambulances showing up at our house to take my grandmother, mom or dad to the hospital. I vividly remember the 64 Cadilla Fleetwood Series 75 that the funeral home picked us up in and drove us home in for my moms funeral when I was 9 yrs old. I never really thought about owning a hearse but loved BIG American Luxury cars. In 1989, I started my fascination with Lincolns. In the mid 80s, I drove a lil Ranger pick up and would rent a Town Car on weekends for special trips. In 2003, I was looking for a Fleetwood 75 and stumbled upon a certain blue 86 Lincoln S&S Hearse. It was love at first sight! I sold my 57 Lincoln Premiere and bought the hearse, knowing nothing about professional cars. I called Accubuilt trying to find some parts; they referred me to CW Coach and Carl told me about the PCS. And thats my story!
 
I guess what got me interested in hearses was building Johan models when I was a kid.

I built the heavenly hearse in the stock version and still have it today over 30 years later ! I took it to the Flint Micro Meet this year as well.

I built the haulin hearse too. I entered a model contest with that one and won second place. When I went back for my model, I got the trophy and a bunch of broken model parts. Someone had busted up my model to get the two engines that were in it. Everything was smashed and both engines were missing. I was happy and very sad at the same time. I still have the trophy but no model.

I couldn't find another Haulin Hearse but I did find the ambulance and built it up with some of the Haulin Hearse parts to make a replica drag car.
I still have this one too !!!
Never brought it to the micro meet as I didn't want to park it in a parking lot all by itself.


How I heard about the PCS was through Tom McPherson. I was at a car cruise on a Tuesday night in Brampton (about a 1/2 hour from Toronto) with my 1968 MM Cadillac Citation. He came up to me and told me about the PCS and the meet that was happening in Chatham in 1993.

I showed up in Chatham, met some outstanding people who I still consider fantastic friends today and saw some cars that blew me away.

Paul C, Carlton H, Tom H, Rick S, Dave S, Len L, Walt M, Tom M, Lile S, George H and too many others to list them all.

Tom H and Rick S '60 Cadillacs stood out big time for me and inspired my lastest purchase of a '60 Cadillac S/S Victoria 3way.

I still look forward to every PCS meet to see these people and the cars.

Hard to believe that almost everyone I met 18 years ago still show up at the meets ! The people are more important than the cars are to me.
Cars a very close second.

Since that first meet I have met so many more people who are like brothers and sisters to me.


Gotta love the PCS family and their cars !
Darren
 
Always loved them!

Ever since I can remember, I was interested in ambulances. :specool:

Got my first ride in the '64 MM inow own, when I was 11 years old. At 15 and 16 (during the summers) I was a "bedpan jockey" in the Emergency Department at a BIG Pittsburgh Hospital. My dad worked there and got me the job!

I loved seeing all the pro-cars coming and going and developed this predeliiction/ "fetish" at a very formtive age.

I must assume that most of us got "the bug" in a similar manner!

Thanks!

Rick
 
It is Weird

When I was small, 4 or 5 I remember hearing the sound of that 28 roaring down the street and running to the front of the house to seem em go! They scared the hell out of me but I loved to watch them. Friends of my parents had a son who was a funeral director and the home ran ambulance. When he would be at his mom and dad's many times he had the combo. I was too afraid to get inside but I was mesmerized by those cars. I remember going with my parents to calling hours and trying to see in the FH garage windows to see if I could see their ambulance.
Every toy I had was somehow modified to an ambulance. I had all of the Matchbox and Hot Wheels ambulances. My radio flyer wagon was an ambulance whenever my Flexible Flyer sled (the cot) was loaded in the back.
As I grew into adolescence, EMERGENCY! premiered and come hell or high water I was going to be a paramedic. And I did, of course the money making proposition of that field was not there yet in the 70s in Ohio so I morphed into a cop instead, but my heart is still in the back of a ambulance. A REAL ambulance not these cheesy U Hauls they drive today.
 
well for me.....I first wanted a hearse when I was about 18 (35 years ago) years old while driving my 1966 Mustang north of Toronto, I came across a couple of old coaches in a field, after that...kept telling myself that I wanted one.

but It wasn't until last year that I really started looking. I didn't even know what a Pro-car was. My dad died last july and he told me to spend his money on something I have always wanted..not to pay bills ( he said you will always have bills )..when I told him what I wanted to buy, he said go for it and have fun. I saw a few coaches at a car show last year, they told me about Glen Hogel and Hourglass Dist. got a hold of Glen and as they say.....the rest is history.

I found out about the PCS on the web...best $25 spent !!!

The Coach will be ready for the road in a few days...can't wait !
its going to be a bit different driving a hearse as I'm use to driving my Austin Mini.....no more full out into a corner !! yikes !!!!!!!!!!!


Mike
 
Me, same as darren had several johan kit's then my first job fell through so i got hired at a local limo service and several other's then a coach builder. 1 day at a detroit ambulance service ask russ d. about that one. long story but ever since i was young i always liked hearse's limousine and ambulances + it helped out with my status in highschool while everyone else was working at a fastfood place or a grocery store i was driving a stretch limousine my senior year. my neighbors hated it beacuse i would leave with my car and come back with a different stretch limousine almost everyother day. finding the pcs well i knew of the web site way back . watched it, then jump to 2009 found out that a international meet was going to be in flint so i went the first member i met was dale cole then bill wright, kim m, richard v , dan h. paul, john r , matt t, sarah s, patrick m, darren b. and russ d. jeremy, leeann, ed r and a handful more , it was bill wright that made me decide to join.
 
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When I was a kid, and stil to this day, every time I went to a Funeral Home for a funeral or visitation, I would always sneak off and try to see what kind of cars the FH had. I remember going to a Funeral Home in West Virginia in the mid 90's for the funeral of a family member, and sneaking out of the visitation and walking around back of the FH, and seeing a black erly 90's Ford Explorer hearse, I remember looking that thing over and over cause I had never seen a SUV hearse before. The next day when we came back for the funeral, there sat a 71 or 72 black M&M landau hearse, and a 71 or 72 black Fleetwood. I can't remember if it was a Fleetwood 75, or just a regular Fleetwood.

Somewhere in the same year I had a cousin pass away, and when we pulled up at the FH for the Funeral, there sat a 1977 Sovereign Gold M&M landau hearse. This car is now owned by Jeremy Ledford. I never thought I would ever see that car again, as that was the first and only time I have ever ben to that town.

Sorry, Ron made me think of those stories. Back to the original topic now.

Josh
 
For reasons unknown, I was a kid that always went "oooooh" and pointed whenever I saw a hearse drive by, and had to check out the hearse whenever I was at a funeral. I just never grew out of that!

That childhood fascination became a full-fledged interest in my early 20s, when I was at a car show, and there was a 1951-1954 (I forget what year exactly it was) Henney Packard flower car there, and at the time, I didn't know what it was. I thought it was someone's custom idea of a Packard El Camino, but the stainless steel deck and the Henney nameplate puzzled me.

Trying to find out what it was I had seen, I went to my local library, and looked through a couple Packard books they had. One book mentioned Henney as being a company that built Packard hearses and ambulances, so at least now I knew what Henney on the car meant.

I then visited the library in a neighboring town, and they had a copy of American Funeral Cars & Ambulances since 1900. I checked it out and read it cover to cover. It was reading that book that I learned what a flower car was, and that I learned alot more about coachbuilding and coachbuilders than I had ever imagined.

Coincidentally, around the same time I was learning about professional cars, my car at the time decided it was on its last wheels, and I began looking for a replacement. I figured since I had to go car shopping, I might as well get something interesting. I did a simple internet search for "hearse for sale", and the PCS website turned up in my search. Like alot of people I suppose when they learn about PCS for the first time, my reaction was "There's other people into these cars too?!"

It only took a couple days to decide to join, and amoung the other items that my internet search turned up was a 1980 Superior Cadillac hearse just a few towns down the road from me. It truly was a just-out-of-service car, but I didn't buy it right away, as there were a couple other cars that I was also considering. About a month went by, and that Superior ended up being the car that was dominating my thoughts, so I figured that must be the one I want, and I went back and bought it.

The rest, as they say, is history!
 
What and how

I have had an EMS license since 1987 another victim of the "Emergency" television series. Our local ambulance service had just retired an old suburban ambulance just before I started. I sure wish I could have gotten ahold of that one. At some point a Cadillac high top showed up at the local salvage yard. Another one I would have liked to have gotten ahold of. After working in police fire and EMS over the years I have always kept my eye open for some type of emergency vehicle. Finally, this year I was able to purchase one. Birthday present to myself. As for the PCS, I had found the site while looking for old ambulances. I really have enjoyed the site.
 
I actually bought my first professional car in college. In 1982 my roommate and I bought a 1971 Cadillac Fleetwood 75 sedan [black painted top, white bottom] with 66,000 miles on it. We used to drive it around Ball State University in Muncie, IN with a keg in the back and plenty of passengers. I later moved to Florida and kept the car until 1986 when I sold it to a friend of my dad's in Orlando. I first heard about the PCS in a magazine somewhere. I remember writing PCS?? with a P.O. Box number on the outside of a police notebook but never wrote to the P.O. Box. I transferred that info from notebook to notebook for probably 3 or 4 years and then I finally contacted the PCS by mail. John Rabold, who was the Indiana Chapter president at the time, called me on the phone and invited me to the Bell Block Party in Indianapolis. He couldn't have been nicer and the people at the meet were very nice as well. I didn't own a pro-car at the time so I showed up in my Bentley which was well received by people at the meet. I loved all the pro-cars and the people and I was hooked. Next came a series of limousines and I said goodbye to the Bentley. But I said hello to many good friends and continue to enjoy going to PCS events. The End.
 
It started when my parents would drive me by CW Coach when I was in preschool. I always enjoyed looking at the older card with the fins and wild styling. I found the PCS when I began searching for my first hearse.
 
What got me started into liking professional cars is. When i was little I would go on runs with my great aunts son which had his own funeral home here in utah we would take the older hearse on runs to hospitals and the morgue and i fell in love with it i was about 9 at the time I also had a big collection of matchbox and hotwheels cars i had everything. My cousin would let me help with the maintnence of the hearse and limos since then i knew what i wanted to be. thats what led me to my '75 Superior Coach. Thats my story
 
I have always like to be different and things that were different. When I was 12 years old my uncle took me and my brother walking to see a historical marker on the corner of his property. There is a funeral home not far down the road, that you can see from the marker. I told my uncle, when I start license I want a hearse. It only took another 12 years, but 5 days before my 24 birthday I bought my hearse from a car lot.
I found the PCS looking for hearse info on the internet and have meet some of the nicest people since and have learned a lot about pro-cars.
 
1st real exposure to pro cars was when my oldest sister had some college friends in 1963 driving around in a 1950? S and S endloader. They had broken off the letters on the window sign which now read "FUN COACH". Rode in the back one time on a pizza run...very cool for a 10 year old motorhead.
Aquired the Studebaker Ambulet because it was an unusual Studebaker. Not too long after that George Hamlin commanded me to join the Professional Car Society.
 
I used to rent old "Friday the 13th" movie when I was a teenager. I always was amazed by these old Cadillac and pontiac ambulances with only one door in the back used in these movies (think about Part 4, 5 and 7). My mother is a nurse since 1973 so she told me her first trip with a sick kid between North Chicoutimi and Quebec city on the attendant seat of the 1968 Superior high top of the local funeral home. A trip of 6 hours driving at 35 mph during the biggest snow storm of the year 1974... but that's another story!!

I started collect stuff like Corgi models and pictures on the web since 2000, I went to my first International meet as a member, I was 19!
 
Somehow, I was going to reply to this thread earlier and I guess I forgot.

What got me interested? This did (photo below). When I was old enough to remember anything going on around me, about 3 or 4 (really!), our house was at the entrance of a housing development. From time to time, I would hear a siren and look out, and there it was, one of Wheaton Rescue Squad's ambulances. It would go past my house, and I could watch it go down the road for about a mile or so until it would disappear behind a hill or turn off. It was amazing to me. I decided I wanted to be an ambulance driver (really). But I also had a dream that I had my own ambulance (really) and kept it in the basement of my school. Really!

When I was 8, my dad fell at the ice skating rink, and I got to ride with him in the '71 Lifeliner ambulance. The same year, this TV show came on, and I went from wanting to be an "ambulance driver" to being a "Paramedic". And I still wanted my own ambulance. By 13, I was providing first aid at that very same ice skating rink (really).

Then my Dad found the book - THE BOOK - about ambulances, and some hearses, too. I really loved that black book.

Eventually, we bought an ambulance or 4, and I was hooked. Then, in early '86, Dad found a copy of a magazine called "The Professional Car", and I met a local guy in PCS (Steve Loftin, when I lived in Oklahoma), and it all sounded good.

And the rest, as they say, is history. Really.
 

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