Vintage Ad: 1985 Braun Brougham Funeral Coach – For Mini-Budget Funerals
– Posted on August 3, 2021
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Why not, seems practical and useful.
Fascinating as they might be, I never could see the reasoning for an expensive coachbuilt hearse. After all the funeral is not about the car.
While using a minivan as a hearse would seem to make a lot of sense on paper, I feel compelled to point out one huge flaw with this Caravan, based upon experience.
Having been a pall-bearer for both of my grandmothers plus a few other people, with a Lincoln Town Car and a Cadillac DeVille being the most recent hearses, with the rear door swinging way far to one side on both, that hatch on the Caravan would be a deal breaker. Somebody has to stand at the opening and the load can sometimes be heavy enough as it is without having to be stooped. Plus that person and the other pall-bearers will run the risk of banging their heads on the hatch.
Few things are as gauche as dropping a corpse.
This is why a version of the clamshell doors on the early 1970s GM full-size station wagons would be perfect for loading a hearse. With a little extra engineering a pair of powered retractable arms could be included to accept the coffin and move it into the vehicle.
I’ve been a pall-bearer too and I can attest a coffin (wood or metal) with the earthly remains of a deceased adult can be pretty heavy even with five other grown men sharing the task.
My uncle had his last ride last year in a B body Buick station wagon US wagons are popular as hearses here, Where I lived in Napier the local funeral people had a Chevy clamshell done as a hearse.
The most obvious use here was for a small-town funeral home to keep costs down, but I suspect that the bigger market was for large funeral homes who maintained a multiple-car fleet. There are many miles logged by those operations in retrieving human remains from hospital morgues and nursing homes, and also making highway trips to transport a deceased from another city or even another state. Those missions do not need a full-on hearse and a vehicle like this could do the job nicely, with a little more dignity than with a plain van or Suburban. I can recall snapping a picture of something like this on the highway in the last 3 or 4 years.
Many years ago I worked at such a place that ran 4 Cadillac hearses (cycled with 2 new ones every year, none over 2 years old), and nothing else was ever used for any of the jobs mentioned above. They bought another funeral home in a small town and used a Ford station wagon for all non-funeral work there, but would not do that at the main place. That was in the late 70s, and I can only imagine how much more expensive professional cars have gotten since then. One of these might very well have made sense in the era when this one was offered.
These were still made relatively recently:
In this more detailed pamphlet, I find the following text interesting:
“Without the landau panels, the casket floor flips over to reveal the Stow ‘N Go® seating, allowing the van to be used as a personal transportation vehicle.”
So you can use the same vehicle for transporting bodies from the morgue and for taking your kids to a soccer game!
There is a white one of these in the neighborhood across from the one I live in. It has the landau bars on the blank spot where the back windows would be. I assume the person that lives there is a funeral director or mortician.
What could the price difference between the two models be? At least class it up a bit and go with the Chrysler…the equipment difference seems to be substantial.
I don’t know about this one. A dressed-up van is still a van, and seems to be getting a bit to close to hauling the dear-departed around in a cargo van. I suspect that’s the reason full-size vans were never really pressed into funeral service. Taking their final ride in the back of a van, as opposed to a Lincoln or Cadillac, doesn’t really seem all that appropriate.
OTOH, an Oldsmobile Silhouette, i.e., the Cadillac of minivans…
Funny, for my funeral, I was sort of hoping for exact opposite. You know, so when I go by, proceeded by 20 light-flashing Police Harleys, people will say, “Who the heck was THAT?”
I mean, people do say that now, but I’d like the question to be asked in a positive tone, at least once in my life. Oh wait.
That final ride is really for the mourners right? So let it be a classy one. I loved my minivan, but better to send me off in a pickup then one of these. O
It’s the first Grand Caravan. Long length with the original face, before the official Grand minivans were introduced. But it looks like this one just has a long rear overhang and not an extended wheelbase. Hearses don’t need to go fast, so the 2.6 does just fine.
It reminds me of a gen2 Ford Mondeo hearse that I would often see in the last town I lived in. Never got to photograph it because there were always people around or in it.
Good catch–this isn’t a Grand Caravan, just a Caravan with a longer tail.
I remember seeing a photo of an AMC Eagle hearse, as well as a Suburban hearse. The
Eagle had to be a joke I assume? The Grand Caravan just screams Wal Mart to me,
whatever that means.
The closest funeral home to me uses Grand Caravans, but not as hearses. They are used to go pick up the bodies from where the people passed. Mostly hospital runs, but some from at home passings too.
I can remember my limo rides when family members passed, but not as clearly as standing at the gravesites, sometimes in freezing cold, biting wind. Or on or in wet turf in rainy weather. The one that was the most classy was not in the kind of car it was, but in that the hearse driver went by the deceased’s house, and paused the car in front, kind of as a final goodbye.
I agree with having to have the rear gate open sideways. Those Caravans would have to be reengineered to that configuration to be effective in a procession.