“What’s the point?” If you mention the phrase “Pontiac limousine” to many people today, you’ll likely get that type of comment. After all, a limousine was – as the New York Times once put it – “the archetypical symbol of success in America.” So why make one out of an ordinary, thrifty sedan? Since this rare limo is now spending its time promoting a coffee shop, perhaps a coffee analogy may be appropriate. In fact, after taking these photos, I patronized this shop and ordered a regular coffee. Why not a fancier product? Because all I wanted was a good-tasting, hot, caffeinated drink – nothing more… both for practicality and cost reasons. And that was the appeal of Pontiac limos. If your company needed a comfortable nine-passenger vehicle, but you didn’t want to splurge for fancy extras, then a Pontiac was your best choice.
Most limousines weren’t produced as limos, but rather converted by independent coachbuilders. This particular Pontiac was converted by Armbruster/Stageway, a firm with a long and interesting history of creating custom vehicles. In fact, Armbruster’s history predates the automotive age.
The firm’s direct ancestry dates to 1887, when German native Adam Armbruster, then living in St. Charles, Missouri and working for a carriage shop, moved with a business partner 400 miles southwest to Fort Smith, Arkansas. A settlement of 10,000 on the border of Indian Territory, Fort Smith had no carriage manufacturer at the time, so Armbruster and partner John Kruel found plenty of work. Befitting a business in a fast-growing town with a somewhat rough reputation, Armbruster let it be known that he would make “anything from a baby buggy to an omnibus.”
Over the next several years, Armbruster & Kruel grew their business by both manufacturing and repairing carriages. Adam Armbruster died in 1903 from a shop floor injury, at which point Kruel took over the business.
A decade later, in 1912, Adam’s son Alfred K. (Tom) Armbruster, along with two associates, formed Armbruster & Co., which focused on the then-burgeoning business of automobile repair. It’s unclear whether these three men purchased Kruel’s business or formed their own, but regardless, they were soon established as the premier auto repair shop in western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma. Providing an indication of how quickly cars deteriorated in those days, a 1919 newspaper article noted that the firm had “a specialty of re-topping and ‘dolling up’ cars which are in good mechanical condition but show the vintage of 1915 or so.” 1915 was only four years in the past.
By the 1920s, the firm expanded its work into custom-built auto bodies. Armbruster & Co. stretched cars into ambulances, funeral vehicles, and small buses, and their customer list included some unique clients. In the late 1920s, the firm built a custom bus for “Singer’s Midget Band” – a group of traveling midget musicians. The bus’s interior was built to a scale to fit the performers’ diminutive statures. In 1928, Armbruster also made an early example of a motor home. This business model – custom bodies as well as general auto body repair – continued for the next two decades.
By the 1950s, the firm found a niche – stretching vehicles into limousines or shuttles. Instead of focusing on limousines for the very wealthy (though they did that work too), Armbruster’s main products involved stretching cars like Chryslers, Chevrolets or Pontiacs for clients such as hotels or tour operators that needed to carry more than a typical passenger car could manage. In those days, limousine versions of suburbans and non-prestige cars were common, as many buyers simply needed the practicality of high passenger capacities without the flashiness of something like a Cadillac.
In addition to businesses, athletes and entertainers were also among Armbruster’s regular customers. Above is the All-American Red Heads women’s basketball team, who traveled in an Armbruster Pontiac wagon stretch. Other notable customers over the years included Willie Nelson, Elvis Presley and Dean Martin.
Many Armbruster sales were handled by a Cincinnati company called Stageway Coaches, which began as a bus and coach sales division of Queen City Chevrolet, and eventually became Armbruster’s de facto distributor. Stageway handled such a significant proportion of Armbruster’s corporate sales that the two firms merged in 1966, and the company became known as Armbruster/Stageway.
And that brings us to the 1970s, by which time Armbruster/Stageway stretched over 500 vehicles annually at its Fort Smith facility. Offerings included several lines of multi-door limousines marketed to companies, as well as some increasingly specialized luxury limos made to order for wealthy clients. It’s the corporate limousines that we’re looking at today, and Armbruster made these in a variety of makes: Cadillacs, Chryslers, Buicks… and Pontiacs. Pontiacs were the cheapest, hence the appeal.
Our featured limo started life as a Catalina, Pontiac’s entry-level full-size car. Armbruster’s choice of a Catalina, rather than the plusher Bonneville or Grand Ville, is revealing. Starting at around $4,000, Catalinas undercut their full-size Pontiac siblings by several hundred dollars, offering plainer trim and fewer accoutrements. This car left GM’s Pontiac, Michigan factory with an unusual assortment of features for a base Catalina – equipped with the optional 455 cu. in. V-8, as well as air conditioning, power windows and a few other nicities.
Once at Armbruster/Stageway’s Arkansas facility, workers would cut cars in half, and then fabricate roofing and floor pan material, add the extra doors, drivetrain and brake components, complete the bodywork and add the extra interior appointments. Armbruster/Stageway’s marketing vice president noted in a 1985 interview that “anybody with a two-car garage and a hacksaw can get in this business; the trick is staying in it.” As a leader in its field since the 1950s, Armbruster clearly had the “staying in it” part figured out.
The end result just about doubled the original Catalina’s price, with Armbruster’s nine-passenger Pontiac limos starting at around $8,000. While costly (that’s Cadillac Fleetwood price territory), it was – as Armbruster/Stageway marketing materials made known – “priced thousands of dollars below any other limousine.” And in the 1970s, for companies needing to transport groups of people in comfort, a limousine was one of the few available choices.
Armbruster specialized in multi-door limos – this one has six doors and seated nine. The company also offered a twelve-passenger (8-door) version, in both sedan and wagon body styles.
Inside, we see a standard Catalina, with a cloth and Morrokide one-piece bench seat, the standard (well, “deluxe” in Pontiac lingo) un-padded steering wheel, and a scarcity of luxury upgrades. From this angle, this looks like any one of the 90,000 Catalinas that rolled off Pontiac’s assembly line in 1975. It’s one row back where things get interesting.
The car just keeps going. Rear row #1 shows once again, standard Catalina decor, but obviously with a twist. Instead of a rear window, passengers sitting here would have more people behind them. Armbruster obviously ordered matching seats and doors to go with their limo conversions, and it all fit together in a way that seems perfectly natural. The second row doors seem not to have operable windows, with the power window switch plugged. Since Armbruster offered these cars with standard front and rear air conditioning, few people probably missed wind-in-hair motoring back here, and considering the door frame was custom-made for this car, a fixed window was much more practical.
Legroom looks plentiful way back in the third row, and these folks could roll their windows down.
Pontiac’s 17.7 cu. ft. trunk was spacious, though a full load of passengers and luggage could get a bit cramped. Users with extensive luggage needs often ordered the larger (12-passenger) wagon limousine, plus a roof rack.
In today’s automotive landscape full of chubby, tall vehicles, this one strikes the opposite profile. With a silhouette more representative of river barges than anything on the road today, even without the coffee shop advertisement, this would be an eye-catching vehicle. I have not read any accounts on how these limos drove, so we can leave that to our imagination.
So just who purchased these types of vehicles in their day? Armbruster/Stageway’s president noted in 1977 that about 20% of his firm’s production constituted private limos for executives or celebrities, 40% for funeral service, and 40% to other companies that shuttled people – mostly airports and hotels, but also schools, churches and businesses. Celebrities usually opted for high trim levels and luxury makes – it was the shuttle and funeral businesses that gravitated towards lower-priced limousines like this Pontiac.
The limousine market, however, would change substantially in the coming decade meaning that limos like this frugal Pontiac would get increasingly rarer as the 1970s progressed. By the 1980s, they all but disappeared.
Within a decade after our featured car was built, corporate clients such as hotels, who comprised the bulk of low-end limousine sales, shifted to passenger vans or shuttle vans instead, which were cheaper and could handle more combined passenger and luggage loads.
The limo market didn’t disappear though – it actually surged in the 1980s due to the increased popularity of for-hire livery services (where customers could rent a limousine for short periods). Such services, however, emphasized luxury as part of their appeal, and generally favored Cadillacs or Lincolns. The market for low-cost limos dried up quickly.
1975, in fact, was Armbruster/Stageway’s last year for marketing a Pontiac limo. Buicks continued in their lineup for a while longer, but eventually, the submarket of “affordable” limousines faded into history. It’s unclear how many of these cars were made, but their survival rate is very low – this is, in fact, the only one I ever recall seeing.
As for Armbruster-Stageway, the company continued to navigate the crests and troughs of the professional car market. Although the firm has experienced several changes of ownership since our featured Pontiac was built, it is still an active participant in the field, particularly for the funeral services industry.
I’m glad I came across this limousine, since I find both the long history of Armbruster/Stageway, and the overall topic of non-luxury limos to be fascinating. As I mentioned earlier, after photographing this rare survivor, I demonstrated that advertising with a rare car works, so I used the coffee shop drive-through for which this Pontiac now serves as signage. And a regular coffee just seemed to go with the car.
Photographed in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin in July 2023.
One of those fascinating little subdivisions of automotive production. With the long since demise of Studebaker, Packard, and Oldsmobile, is Armbruster-
Stageway the oldest remaining car manufacturer in America? Or are there other firms that date back to the nineteenth century?
They probably went with the Catalina, rather than a Bonneville/Grand Ville, because those two were not offered as a 4-door pillared sedan. It’s a lot easier to convert a pillared sedan into a limo, than a 4-door hardtop.
If they wanted a ritzier look though, I guess they could have put a Bonneville/Grand Ville front clip on it, and perhaps used some of the senior Pontiac’s interior bits. Still, I think it’s pretty cool, as is.
Or they could have imported a Canadian Pontiac, as I recall the Parisienne (with Bonneville-level accoutrements) was available as a 4 door post sedan.
How did they drive? I’m your guy. In the late 70s I worked for a funeral home that had 2 six- door Lincolns builtby A-S. They were either a 78 and 79, or a 77 and 78, I no longer recall. The older one had a driveline vibration at around 40-45 mph, but the newer one was fine. The really, really long wheelbase was an odd sensation over bumps – kind of like a ship tossing in waves. They were a lot easier for families to get in and out of than the 71 Cadillac 75 limo that was replaced once the second Lincoln arrived.
I don’t normally care for the 75-76 B body sedans, but this Pontiac carries off the limo thing amazingly well. Nice find and write up!
The ’77 Lincoln would look distinctively different from behind the wheel from a ’78. The ’77 used the real Lincoln dash little changed since 1970, whereas the ’78-’79 used a cheaper, lighter Mercury Marquis dash. I never cared for the last two years of huge Lincolns for this reason; the massive, wall-like Lincoln dash looked so much better; the ’78 dash looked like standard ’70s Ford, which it was.
Thanks for the driving impression – “a ship tossing in waves” is largely what I suspected these limos would feel like. Must take a while to get used to its driveability quirks!
I saw this ’66 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight limo at a car show last year…it’s always interesting to find a limo that’s not a Cadillac, Lincoln, or maybe Packard.
This is an interesting car. From the looks of the upright side windows, I’d say this was used by a funeral home back in the day. Nice find!
That Olds is a Cotington by Cottner-Bevington.
That era Ninety-Eight was almost a better Cadillac. I spent a lot of time in a ’66 as a ‘ute.
Very stately with its raised roof, the wide door window frames almost suggest reinforced glass.
It reminds me quite a bit of the 1983 Cadillac they built for President Reagan…
A view inside that raised roof…..
Good picture of President Reagan! I miss him.
What flavor was your Kool-Aid?
Fluorescent tube overhead lighting a bit declasse
The level of protection offered by that car is not comparable in any way to The Beast. I’d argue that the vehicles which first went into use in 2001 with George W Bush were the first ones clearly built on a heavy truck chassis, but even those look well shy of the latest versions’ thickness.
I think that Ninety-Eight has what the builders call a Commercial Glass roof-extended height with flat side glass. It looks better on older cars.
The Aldi in the background is a nice touch…
I always thought when I saw limos back then, why not just use a customized van? Or even a non-customized van, like a Club Wagon Chateau? Then I remember that 1960s vans weren’t suitable for luxurious or even civilized transportation. That changed by the early ’70s with larger front-engine vans, but limos as airport and hotel shuttles were likely too entrenched for everyone to change over to vans right away.
Those Thomas Built Buses shuttles – who were they fooling? Glorified school buses will never make it as a limo substitute.
I think that sums it up regarding vans – they improved (as far a comfort) pretty quickly, and then became the default vehicle for shuttling people in relative comfort.
As for those shuttle buses? Just looking at pictures, I can almost feel the sensations of squeaking and rattling…
Ahem. “Arm-Buster and Cruel”. No wonder the company changed names. The jokes practically write themselves!
This Pontiac is really not a bad looking car done over as a limousine. I’m liking it. Of course, it’s probably one that used by companies/airports as a shuttle service. Not nearly elegant enough inside for an executive limo.
In the early 80’s, there was a Chevy/Olds dealer on Long Island that had a limo building shop. While delivering new Chevy’s there one day I took a tour. On the jig rack was a brand new Olds 98 that had been sawed in half and both ends were in position to receive the lengthening parts.
After all these years, the name of the dealer escapes me.
“Sawed in half and both ends were in position to receive the lengthening parts”.
As a Queens / LI guy who remembers the era… Wasn’t there an auto customization shop involved during that big whoop-dee-do which had the nation rivited for a brief while?
“Body By Fisher” indeed!
Remember what town it was in?
Come to think of it, no. Not precisely. “Long Beach” comes to mind though!
Outstanding research, on an interesting topic.
When I look at this Pontiac limo in profile, only the shape of the front wheel arch and wheel covers, clearly identifies it as a Pontiac. The average person would not necessarily differentiate a unique C-pillar, and other details from a Cadillac limo. Though the out-of-place sport mirrors, would have to be replaced with proper chrome exterior mirrors.
Even in the rear, the average person would not have a problem, with the Pontiac taillights.
It’s only quite clearly in the grille and badging, where the humble roots are obvious.
I’ve always wanted to ride the famous Glacier Buses.
I well recall 1967-68 Chrysler Newport limos serving as airport shuttles, also some 1966 Pontiacs.
“Real” limos in those days were based on luxury cars, and were the province of wealthy folks (or funeral homes). Upon seeing one I’d wonder just who those fortunate people were.
Today, when I see a limo, I only wonder how many prom kids or batchlorette-partiers chipped in to rent it.
Terrific article! Of course, you had me at “Singer’s Midget Band”…which then inspired considerable, mostly fruitless, Googling.
OK, I did find a little… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Singer
I have long been fascinated by these conversion limos. Somehow, something like a stretch luxury car (a Cadillac, a Lincoln) is nowhere near as interesting to me as the conversion of a more pedestrian car like the Catalina you found. I particularly like the 8 door Safari wagons that sometimes turn up. There’s definitely room (well, probably not) for one of those in my fantasy garage.
Thanks! And I learned quite a few things in preparing this article, the Singer’s Midget Band being among them. Unfortunately, I couldn’t come up with even a grainy image of the band’s bus.
Another new one for me was the All American Red Heads basketball team. Despite the team being around until the 1980s, I’d never heard of them. Apparently, they were similar in concept to the Harlem Globetrotters – very talented athletes, and also entertainers, who amazed audiences with trick shots, etc. Their Stageway wagon limo is now on display at the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame:
Note Stageway badge on front fender, so made/converted by same company as subject car.
Next stop LKQ Pick-A-Part .
That’s too bad as this looks like a nice car if way too big .
Maybe someone could rescue it and make it into a movie car .
-Nate
I could definitely see this Pontiac portraying the President’s limo, in some late ’70s low budget made for American network TV movie, filmed in Toronto. Starring Tom Poston as the President, and William Shatner, as the head of the Secret Service.
In the late 1950’s and through the 1960’s, we would regularly see the 6 and 8 door stretched sedans run by small regional bus/coachlines that ran State Highway routes stopping at locations in the small towns along the way. Typically, these built from bottom-line Chevrolet sedans and wagons. They must have accumulated a million miles on those cars with repeated engine changes as the miles racked-up.
Later, when they appeared in a local junkyard that must have bought the wornout, written-off cars for scrap. They were truly wornout too between the hard use and the Northeast rust. What few that escaped that fate are a reminder of those times.
Based on the current Armbruster-Stageway website it looks like the company now caters almost exclusively to the funeral car market. I guess that’s the only place stretch limos are still viable. High-trimmed factory-spec vans were quite plush by the late ’70s and made stretched low-end sedans like this Pontiac unnecessary, and the prom-night rental market eliminated any associations with prestige or wealth that limousines once had.
I’ll just come back to note that
the same more or less can be said for any business. Persistence is a much over-looked and ignored aspect of business (and other) success.
I’m glad to see that Armbruster has managed to nail that down.
Some of these must have been “awful” to drive. Wondering what the “ride experience” was like.
CC Effect: Just the other night, my wife and I finished up watching “The Continental” on Paramount +, and in the final scene of the last episode, the boss lady pulls up in a chauffeur driven and stretched black 1960 Impala. The driver/bodyguard gets out and walks around to the back on the curbside to let her out.
They did their best in the scene to cover the middle set of doors of this 6-door sedan to make it look like a regular stretch limo with only 4 doors, but I could see the middle doors at one of the camera angles.
I thought, ‘Wow, that’s weird, a Chevy Impala as a limo?’
I missed this article (very good BTW, Eric) the first time around, but recall another article a number of years ago showing a ‘57 Chevy 8-door limo driving through a redwood tree somewhere out west.
On another note about our weird English Language: Why do they call it a “Livery” service, when these stretched limos are almost never seen with any “livery” painted on them? I’m pretty sure that “Joe 2 Go” livery was not painted on that Pontiac in its original life as a livery car. 😉