Your First Pro Car?

Josh Gentry

Josh Gentry

Just wondering what your first Pro Car was, and do you still own it? I still own my first, a 1971 Superior Sovereign Combination, that came from a local Funeral Home here in Lebanon. Would love to see some pics if you have them.:D

Josh
 
first and only

Josh,
My first and only procar (so far) is a 61 Miller-Meteor combination. It came to the family in Oct 1974. We still have it and don't plan on it going anywhere. We have had it so long now it is part of the family. I will have to learn how to post pictures here after I get back from my Hershey trip.
Mike
 
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Mike Stevens said:
Josh,
My first and only procar (so far) is a 61 Miller-Meteor combination. It came to the family in Oct 1974. We still have it and don't plan on it going anywhere. We have had it so long now it is part of the family. I will have to learn how to post pictures here after I get back from my Hershey trip.
Mike
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Mike, I think we both know your 61 is one of my favorite Pro Cars. It is a beautiful car.:D

Josh
 
My first procar was a '68 Miller Meteor Duplex in Chestnut brown. Other than the fact that I would have liked almost any other color, it was a very nice, low mileage and well kept car. At the time, I had bought it for resale, so I did not have it long. I wonder if I had known about the PCS at that time, if maybe I would have it a bit longer. I also wonder what became of that car, but do I really want to know?
 
my first...and so far only...procar is my 86 Lincoln S&S Landau hearse that I bought 6 1/2 years ago. My next will probably be a limousine.
 
My first car was a 1964 M-M Classic Duplex (combination) that I bought in May 1977 from Superior Sales in Columbia, SC. I paid $500.00 for it and sold it about a year and a half later for 550.00! It was a nice solid car with about 64k on it. The black paint was still presentable but had a couple of flaking areas. The transmission had a slight leak, but the transmission shop I took it to must have realized I was a kid on a tight budget and said :"Just keep a pan under it when you're parked and keep it full of fluid, that's a lot cheaper than rebuilding it" The only major work I had done on it was replacing the upper control arm bushings. I had decided nearly a year earlier that I wanted an old hearse. I recall seeing some great cars at both of the dealers then in Columbia when I started looking. I think my dad wanted me to look a while to decide if that was really the kind of car I wanted! Interestingly the M-M dealer had a '64 Superior combo at the same time the Superior guy had the '64 M-M. The M-M was in better shape so I bought it. I was so excited the following Friday after school to get it that I made my dad run a yellow light in Columbia (about 95 miles from home) as we neared the dealership. Immediately we heard a siren roll over as we got pulled by a Columbia cop. Fortunately he gave my dad a warning instead of a ticket! After becoming knowledgeable about sirens and lights I later realized that at that time the Columbia Police were running twin Federal beacons on a bar with a hammertone painted Federal 28 in the middle! Not much later they made the switch to electronic sirens. Anyway, that '64 M-M was certainly memorable both as my first car and for the many comments it generated! If I rack my brain a bit I can probably remember most of the interesting inventory those Columbia dealers had on my first visit in 1976. I'll start a separate thread for that. P.S. Oh the reason I sold it was that I'd bought a '75 Plymouth Gran Fury ex-highway patrol car at a state sale in August 1978! I couldn't afford two cars at the time.
 
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'64 S&S Park Row that Sarah Snook tried to buy from me when she was still 14!

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Eventually sold in '01 to finance the purchase of '60 Crown in Utah that didn't materialize.
 
1964 Superior 3 way purchased in 1986 from Shannon Funeral Home in Bradenton Florida. Nice 40k car with a burgundy mohair interior. I sold the car a year later and to this day have no idea where it is now. It was the car that helped me get inspired to start the Florida Chapter in 87. It was the car that also inspired the long line of ones that followed it over the next 11 years before I moved to the Smoky Mountains.

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And yes I knew the landaus were upside down.

And thanks to Google Street views you can see Shannon Funeral Home, gotta love vintage funeral homes too :)

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My first procar is still my only procar. After looking for years (and trying to buy Atti's '64 when I was 15), I got my '66 M-M combo from Dave McCamey in the spring of 2001. I traded my 1954 Lyman 14.5' runabout to get her.

Here's a pic that Dave took of Patty and me on the day that I brought her home:


and a pic that I took of Dave on the same day with my old Lyman:
 
In 1971 I purchased a 1957 Miller-Meteor Cadillac Futura lowtop ambulance with front and rear molded tunnel lights and a fender mounted B&M Super Chief siren. Despite it being a 14 year old car, it had recently been in service. I returned it to service with my ambulance company, where it served as a reserve rig.
 
I only have one, for now. My 1973 MM Landau hearse. I got Her Nov. 20 2004, five days before my birthday. I got Her from a car lot, but was very lucky that my friend moved in across the street from the previous owner. I have talked to him and he worked for the funeral home where She came from. I talked to funeral home and he told me he bought Her from a hearse dealer in Ga. and all he knew was She was from Alabama, but don't know exactly where. I hope to find out one day.
 
My first one was a 1968 Superior Cadillac 51" ambulance that my dad and I bought together when I was 14. This car was purchased new by the F-M Ambulance Service (Fargo, ND - Moorhead, MN) and then used by the Ellendale, (ND) Community Ambulance Service. It was retired in 1985, returned to Fargo, and stored until we bought it (on Ash Wednesday) in 1986. Due to the winter conditions, we weren't able to bring it home until Good Friday morning! Having been raised Catholic, my mom insisted that I attend Good Friday Mass with her that afternoon. As any of you who are Catholic know, Masses run longer during Holy Week so this was pure torture to me because I wanted to get back home and work on the ambulance!

Dad sold his interest to me the following year and we did an exterior restoration on this car, including new red & white paint. I traded it to a fellow PCS member in 1989 for a very nice 1968 M-M combination. I wasn't planning to sell or trade the ambulance, but this fellow just "had to have" it. In hindsight, this is one car I wish I'd kept. While the car disappeared from radar for several years, it resurfaced about 10 years ago and was purchased by PCS member Kevin Lynch of Venice, FL who performed a marvelous restoration. I believe the car is now being preserved as a collector piece by an ambulance service in New York state.
 

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The first ambulance Dad and I acquired was a '69 M-M Volunteer from the Rhawnhurst-Bustleton Volunteer Ambulance Assoc. in Philadelphia, PA. We got it probably in '80 or '81.

We sold it in the early-'90's to a buddy of mine who was going to restore it, but he sold it to a guy in WV, and the last we've heard of it, it was rusting in peace somewhere in a "holler" in the hills.

The first one I ever owned (titled to me) is the Henney Packard, debuting soon, I hope.

Tony Karsnia said:
My first one was a 1968 Superior Cadillac 51" ambulance ... I believe the car is now being preserved as a collector piece by an ambulance service in New York state.
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Tony, unless it has moved recently, your '68 is at Midwood Ambulance in Brooklyn, NY.
 

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My first and currently only procar is a 1963 Cadillac Superior Hightop Ambulance. It is model #616 The Rescuer.
 

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My first that I still own is a 1973 M-M Classic Duplex. Second is a 1977 M-M Landau Traditional. 3rd is another 1973 M-M, a Citation endloader hearse and 4th one. Even another 73 M-M, a Landau Traditional Duplex. The last two 73 M-M's were bought as parts cars since they had both been setting for a number of years. I Also lay claim to two others, I can do this since I serve as the fleet manager of them!:D A 1992 Eagle Brougham Cadillac Hearse and a 1994 S&S Cadillac Victoria 9 pass commercial glass limo. More to come? I'd say prolly one of these days there will be an ambulance in the future hopefully!:)
 
1974 Superior Cadillac hearse. Traded it for a 1952 Chrysler Crown Imperial limousine.
 

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So far other than me Jeremy Leeann Mike Sarah and Rick, it seems like varry few people still own there first Pro Car. Wouldn't it be nice to know where some of your past Pro Cars are today?

Josh
 
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