CC reader Teddy sent me the link to this ’88 GV for sale. He said he’d never seen one like this before, nor have I. We’ve seen quite a few interesting funeral business vehicles from Latin and South America hereabouts, but this is a new one for me.
Although the ad calls it a “hurst”, presumably its a “service car”, used to haul bodies to the funeral home. So why the stretch? The LWB Chrysler vans have a solid 8′ length behind the front seats. Or this this a prototype for an Ultra Grand Voyager Brougham?
Asking price? A mere $4,988. What a bargain. Ad here.
While perhaps under appreciated by true Professional Car aficionados, the minivan conversion is certainly not rare.
Holy Departure Angles Batman!
You better hope that everything is fairly smooth between the funeral home the church and the graveyard.
The P-100 COE panel sedan delivery!
I know it wouldn’t fit , nor would the van’s chassis be up to the job, but I would love to have the GV for cheap covered transport for one of man’s most coveted, unattainable toys…
That’s nice and cheap too , with low mileage .
-Nate
This must have been one of Chairman Iacocca’s visions that never made it to mass production. Being a non-woodgrained, sparsely-chromed Voyager, it must have been intended for the commoners.
Give it to me! NOW!!!
It’s amazing!
Ouch.
So, it’s basically a B1500 that’s front wheel drive, with a smaller engine, worse transmission, and smaller tires that carry less weight?
Strangely, I like it!
Actually, not a worse transmission. In pre-Ultradrive 1998 it would have been the FWD version of Torqueflite.
The stretch actually gives the van some nice proportioning.
Hmmmmm:
Mini van AND Hearse-
This is the perfect Band-Van for an all-girl punk-rock band named, ahem,
The Unwed Soccer Mamas
Tell me I’m wrong.
Very cool. It reminds me of the original Dodge Maxi Wagon. I imagine the driver would have to remain aware of the center of gravity.
What they really need to remain aware of is the swing with that much rear overhang.
“I imagine the driver would have to remain aware of the center of gravity.”
That’s what I thought, put in a big guy in a heavy casket feet first and this thing isn’t going anywhere with snow on the ground.
Ever since I heard about the miserable safety ratings on these 15-passenger mega-extendos, I get queasy just thinking about riding in one. Apparently this genre (not singling out the Dodge Maxi-Vans here; the other companies did them too) has quite the tendency to leave the road for the ditch They’ve hurt/killed quite a number of people over the years. (Including IIRC the son of writer Ken Kesey, along with his school’s wrestling team.)
…Which is only to expected when you’re cramming up to 15 humans onto a wheelbase designed for… what, eight? Nine at the most? Adding that many bodies to the load simply wasn’t in the original plans — and it shows in the crash figures. Anybody with even a rudimentary sense of geometry only has to look at one of these to see potential danger. As other posters have said: Center of Gravity. If a vehicle’s going to be this huge, and there’s going to be that much rear overhang, I want to see not four but SIX wheels on the thing. If not a third axle, then at least duallies. Anything less is criminal negligence in my books. Better yet, don’t extend them that much in the first place.
If you really have that many persons to transport, for G*d’s sake get a second van, don’t try to shoehorn them all into one silly, unstable superstretch like this. If Ralph Nader had set his sights on Maxi-Vans rather than on Corvairs and dashboard chrome I might actually have some respect for the little dweeb.
Remember the old saying, folks: “Gravity — it’s not just a good idea, it’s the law!”
Indeed. I drove a stretch Econoline as a shuttle bus in college, and the handling was nautical, to say the least. And I guy I knew in my class was killed after flipping one of those.
The Chevy/GMC twins have a longer wheel base for their 15 passenger version so I would go for those if I was looking for greater stability. Course all late model 15 passenger vehicles have stability control. The Ford Transit has two wheel bases and even a dually option.
And test have shown that the GM vans with their long wheel base are more likely to tip than the Ford vans with their shorter wheel base. The Ford wants to spin rather than tip.
The root of the problem is that in many cases the driver of the vehicle is used to driving a sedan and does not drive in an appropriate manner for such a large vehicle.
I drove vans for our debate team in college, and got my first and only speeding ticket while piloting a 15 passenger Econoline down 29 South to UVA.
They since have gotten rid of their 15 passenger vans due to the fact that the insurance company refused to underwrite them. For a while they had just taken the back seats out, because having a 13 passenger van was cheaper to insure.
So we are lucky to have you with us, you drove it at an unsafe speed and were unfamiliar with its handling.
The likely reason that they got rid of them was that they wanted to continue using “free” drivers rather than meet the insurance company’s requirement that the operator have a CDL, Chauffeurs license and/or have received training in driving a 15 passenger vehicle.
The root of the problem is the nut behind the wheel. Way to many of these are piloted by someone who has no experience driving such a large vehicle, they are just the one that drew the short straw when it came time to pick the driver. When you hear about the crashes of 15 passenger vans it is always a church group or school sports team. You do not hear reports of 15 passenger vans that are used as for hire transportation doing the same thing. The difference is that the for hire driver drives it on a regular basis and knows that it does not handle like his sedan. The for hire driver also isn’t likely to be rushing to get home half asleep covering roads that they are unfamiliar with. Adding an extra axle or dual wheels will not make up for a driver that is not used to driving such a large vehicle on roads they are unfamiliar with.
I drove one of these back when I was working for the maintenance division of a food distribution company. Of course ours was outfitted with all of the tools and spares we needed to fix our small fleet of delivery trucks. With all of that weight in the back, we never had a problem with traction…
I drove it a number of times to fix our trucks, but even with the 360/Torqueflite combo, we had so much stuff in it, there was little possibility of it getting out of shape.
In fact, when I saw the pic of this Voyager, I thought “Son of Maxi Van”…
According to the ad it’s not a hearse, it’s a “hurst”.
You mean like an Olds W30?
Good choice, but i was thinking more like this…
You call that a Hurst? *This* is a Hurst…
THIS is a Hurst!
Unlike a famous Potamkin Cadillac ad from the 60s, I don’t think anyone will ever say “Don’t let your first ride in a Grand Voyager be your last”.
I’d say lot of people’s first ride in a Chrysler minivan was their first ever.
Being of sound mind and body, my Last Will and Testament directs my executor to have me cremated and delivered to my survivors in the cheapest urn on the funeral home’s menu. (This is tradition in our family, in the belief that expensive, showy send-offs for those who aren’t there to enjoy them, are wasteful; and that the money is better spent on the living.) So when my time comes, my remains may never have occasion to ride in a hearse, or other funereal service vehicle, at all. But if I and/or parts of me ever does need to be transported anywhere, I promise to come back to haunt anybody who hauls my corpse around in an ’80s minivan — with or without an ugly extension and landau bars.
My mother-in-law wanted to be buried in a family plot in a tiny rural Nebraska town. After the service in our major city, we drove the urn to the little town ourselves – in our personal ’99 Chrysler Town & County LX – pretty spiffy as minivans go. The close family party in the van got a lot out of the several hours together that day, and no horrendous bills.
When my Dad passed last year, he was cremated and a plain white non extended Chrysler mini van was his last ride from hospice to funeral home. So you may want to step up a few bucks if you want a fancier ride. But I agree with your outlook on cremation.
Clicking through to the dealer’s website, the interior looks like it is configured for the quiet transport of upto 4 deceased folks at once (or two former basketball/volleyball players).
http://www.allanmarsh.com/default.asp?page=xPreOwnedInventoryDetail&id=611564&p=1&at=car|truck&s=Year&d=D&t=preowned&fr=xPreOwnedInventory
Also has a 91 Capri!!
A local mortuary/crematorium I pass by on my daily commute uses Chrysler minivans (actually, a lot of other funeral homes do as well, at least for transport purposes). Their current fleet are two current (2011-2013?) T&C’s and a fourth-gen (2001-2006?) Dodge Grand Caravan. Then they have a newer Lexus sedan and a Town Car, probably for family cars.
I’m guessing the T&C is what they use for official transports to other funeral homes or cemeteries as these are newer and carry the landau bars on the rearmost windows. The older Grand Caravan, which is unmodified as far as I could tell, is probably used as a backup or for hospital transports.
I think I’d rather have my final journey in a Chrysler minivan instead of the usual Cadillac hearse. I’d even be fine being taken in in this classic. It would be funny in a weird way. After all, I’m a Mopar lover.
Perhaps this is the first FWD vehicle in which the driver needs to be concerned about oversteer.
Seems like a better name for this version of a Voyager would be Mucho-Maxi Grand Voyager.
Alexander of Hollywood:
I think you will be amazed to find most funeral homes manage to stick you with some charge for hauling the deceased, even in cases of cremation. If nothing else, you get charged for transporting the body from a hospital and/or morgue to a crematorium.
Funeral homes make used car dealers look like charitable institutions.
We had a 15 passenger dodge van similar to the Maxi Van in the pictures. It was a Four Wheel Drive conversion with a lift kit. I don’t think I have ever been as scared to ride in a vehicle as I have that one. It felt unstable even on flat and dry pavement. We took it through the mountains outside Reno Nevada a few times. The front suspension was in bad shape as well. We dropped a leaf spring on the highway one night.
In my area of Ohio, I have seen a few of these, but it seems many of the funeral homes use them as “flower cars” or similar duty, not as hearses.
It needs a sufficiently grandiose professional car name. Something reflective of its owner’s standing in the community he serves and among his colleagues in the Profession. Something like Royal Victorian Sovereign Masterpiece Crown Vandaulet.
^This. I love “vandaulet”
I sometimes scour the Internet looking for 94-95 Plymouth Voyagers since someday I want to buy one to replace the 95 my family had for nearly 18 years. Would not have found this otherwise.