Project Car Hell, Caddy Ambulance Edition: '49 Or '68?
In the agonizing choice between Italian style and American truckcar goodness, our readers tend to prefer an eternity spent with the three '59 El Caminos to one spent with three '73 Fiats, though the race was pretty close- more Dewey Versus Truman than Mondale Versus Reagan. Today, the choices are inspired by our friend Adrian, who is currently staring hopelessly at gearing up to restore a hopeless basket case of a fairly complete '57 Plymouth ambulance. Hey, it would rule to have a vintage ambulance, right? Sure it would! Ahhh... thus functions the lure of the entrance to Hell!
My childhood was full of tales of my mom's brother, Dirty Duck, and the '55 Cadillac ambulance he owned for a while. How he was busted on several occasions for using the red lights and siren in traffic, just because sirens are fun, dammit! How he visited the hospital while I was being born, with the back of the ambulance full of cases of Old Milwaukee for all the expectant fathers in the waiting room. Yes, it's great having an ambulance- you get the same vast carrying capacity of a hearse, without the overtones of death, faux hipsterdom, etc. And we guarantee you'd enjoy driving this 1949 Cadillac ambulance, on sale for a miser-friendly $5995. The seller says it "runs great," which probably doesn't mean anything like the same thing as "everything works," but at least it moves under its own power. Of course, it "needs your individual cosmestic touch," whatever that means, and the seller is sub-forthcoming about any details, so you figure there will be hundreds of a few surprises in store before you've got this baby wailing down the boulevard like you're on the way to the site of a mob hit by Mickey Cohen triggermen.
That '49 is cool, no doubt about it, but wouldn't you rather have the kind of ambulance that would have been used to haul, say, an OD-ing member of the Manson Family? The seller of this 1968 Cadillac ambulance thinks that it's just like the '59 Cadillac ambulance from the movie "Ghostbusters," thus making the thing worth four grand, but we're pretty sure the sight of some actual Benjamins will change his or her tune on that price. Nevertheless, this ambulance has serious coolness potential, especially for your disturbing medical fetishes costume party ideas. Now, you don't get a '68 Cadillac ambulance that runs for cheap, and given that this one has been sitting in the New Hampshire woods for more than 25 years... well, you'll be on intimate terms with every single component with any sort of seal, not to mention the entire fuel system. But look at those bullet-shaped red lights! Imagine Janis Joplin in the back, on her way to SF General to get that Seconal/Southern Comfort cocktail pumped out, while that big 472 roars through Cherry Bombs and the siren wails!
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