The plan is to do it up over three years and to use it as a hearse and wedding car for hire ! It's one of the biggest cars ever on the road in the states, let alone over here; 21 feet long, 6' 3.5'' tall, max width 6'4''. It has a 5.2 litre,150 horse power straight eight engine, automatic gearbox " Dynaflow" (2 speed!)  The interior on this one was leather front seat leather lining and door trim and a vinyl headlining. The rear was trimmed extensively with mohair with  leather lower door trim and a velvet headlining all in burgundy!

 

Built by the Flxible company in Loudonville, Ohio, the Flxible professional cars ( hearses and ambulances) had a very distinct look from the mid thirties up to 1948.  Thereafter styling changed for much lower cars, during the period mentioned they raised the profile of the front end by welding in a seam to make the hood ( bonnet ) taller to keep the overall look of the car with its large coach built body aesthetically pleasing and in proportion, the rise was 5 and 5/8 inches! Flxible built the body and rear doors, stretched and strengthened the Buick chassis, uprated the rear suspension and used and adapted Buick Wheel arches, fenders, front doors and several Buick fittings in their design.

 

 Generally, Flxible used Buick cars but in some years they also used Cadillac and other luxury cars for,hearse,ambulance and  combination conversions. 1948 was their most prolific year for professional cars, all Buick Roadmaster based, some with manual transmission, with a total of 646 in 1948.

Funeral directors very often provided the ambulances and hearses over many decades in the states and would run  ambulances, funeral hearses and combination cars in various combinations depending on the size of their business or the town they were in. This combination was finished in black  and looked just the same as a hearse from the outside, a carpet was used on this model to cover the coffin rollers when used as an ambulance, also there were sometimes cross emblems hung in the rear windows when serving as an ambulance.

This car would have cost more than $5k when new, back in 1948!

Thanks to Tom McPherson I now know the original owner of this vehicle was the Frank Funeral Home of Wellington, Kansas and it left the factory on November 7, 1948.  I know  it also once belonged to a rock band. Neil Young owned a 1948 Flxible Buick hearse or combination but I don't think it was this one as I believe his was fitted with a manual gearbox. Many believe his song ' Long may you run' was written about his first hearse, the 48 which he called 'Mort' abbreviation for 'Mortimer Hearseburg',certainly not his Pontiac based 53 which was his second hearse. After the unknown rock band the next known owner was a guy in Kansas who never got around to doing the restoration. Possibly with him the car sat for decades without attention, as it surely has somewhere. Ok Oldies bought it from Kansas to Oklahoma and advertised it in Hemmings Auto News where a friend of mine saw it and told me about it and thats how it turned out to be here !

August 2011 . After the initial work on arrival back in November to assess the condition of the vehicle and particularly the engine and gearbox. The Hearse is now back in the workshop. In November we failed to get the engine out. The picture below shows the vehicle over the pit in the workshop. It shows the rear bumper tilted upwards. This is due to a clumsy attempt at moving the vehicle with a forklift truck maybe when delivered to OK Oldies in Oklahoma where I bought it from. Or sometime before that. The damage underneath looked recent. The fuel tank had been crushed and a cross member on the chassis badly distorted by the incompetent mover.It really is lots of hassle getting something this big that doesn't run, moved around, and it's best to find someone who specialises in moving extra large non runners to avoid the cowboys who claim to be able to move such things on a budget. It took 5weeks and 5 attempts to get this moved going the budget route, and I wouldn't recommend the guy who eventually did it. He was careful and it wasn't damaged but there was a considerable extra charge for loading on top of shipping not put in the 'quote'. 

 

 

Side view, not much roof clearance in the workshop !

The engine was partially stripped down in November 2010. The pistons were seized in the bores through standing. Some were freed up with Coca Cola, others with wd40 and others with a propane torch heating the cast iron block. As they were really stuck ! In the photo below many of the pistons have been removed and all have had the conrod caps removed.

The engine bay with engine removed.

The engine with the head off and the dynaflow attached weighs around 1100 lbs or 500kg

The way we lifted it was with  high tensile bolts screwed in the head mounting bolt holes two front most and two rear most. In the photo the two attached at the  front. We lifted the engine/trans over the front engine mount posts but these are removable so I guess you could hoist the motor and remove the posts to make extraction even easier ! Anyway, our simple method worked real well !

The latest is the hearse is now almost just a body shell on wheels. The most major difficulty to date was drilling off all the door mountings from the pillars as these were held with crosshead screws which were seriously rusted. Thanks to a good quality set of drill bits, tough enough for stainless steel, all the doors were off in two hours.This would have taken all day with cheap drill bits ! The rear side windows are out as is the windshield, revealing some serious corrosion inside, just above the windshield. A pattern will have to be made and this section renewed. Wings, inner and outer are removed. The Bench seat, removed from the cabin. In the rear the wheel arch covers have been removed along with the rear door.

September 18, 2011

The hearse went to Henham Steam Rally for the day, although many of the major parts have been stripped off, what remained in one piece made a very popular attraction at the Rally. I hope to be in a position to take it there again next year but this will depend on the point of restoration at the time.

September 24, 2011

Work on the engine continues, with the cylinder head cleaned up a bit and all the valves removed yesterday. All pistons have been removed from the block and in the first half of October I hope to have the engine at a suitable machinists for the more difficult engine work to be assessed and later carried out, such as reboring, possible crankshaft polishing, head skimming , and valve seat fitting.

 December 12 2011

Dashboard removed, also nearly all interior trim photographed and removed including compartment 'glove' box from the partition wall. Some of the partition will have to be renewed as the rock band who once owned the vehicle cut out the partition window to make it more sociable for those in the rear with the gear!

I have managed to get hold of some hard to get Buick parts, Rear bumper guards and the two cross-bars were missing. I have also got a lower cross-bar for the front bumper guards as mine was badly damaged. These parts came up on US ebay as new old stock and they are on my mantle piece at the moment making a fine display. I also got reproduction badges from Bobs Automobilia for the bumper guard upper cross-bars. Also on the way are a pair of fender skirts ( rear wheel covers) also missing from my vehicle they are in restorable condition and again from US ebay. I am now attempting restoration of the hood ornament- the famous Buick bomb-sight as as I manged to get hold of a very poor one for next to nothing, again mine was missing, it looks like someone had tried to tow the vehicle with it the way it had been broken off.

January 05 2012

The hearse was moved back into the workshop today from the barn for all required welding on body and remanufacture of rusty interior sheet metal. I don't expect to repair the one or two body mounts that need welding until I get the new rubbers over and they are not on the current shipment. There are 20! Yes 20! Body mounts on this vehicle.

 Around February 1 a shipment of parts comes from the States including a new fuel tank. With the welding done the hearse will go back into the barn for jacking up, placing on stands for chassis cleaning and painting. Ordering of steering and brake components. The target this year is running and yard driving in September, body work and doors back on in primer, by the end of the year. Winter 2012 electrics. Painting summer 2013. Interior autumn/winter 2013.