So this olelongrooffan took an extended lunch hour to attend the Professional Car Society’s car show over beachside. They are having their national convention down here this week. Wednesday they toured the Daytona International Speedway and are winding up their week with a pretty cool show. I hoodwinked convinced my boss to let me attend the show and pass out some business cards.
The first Professional Car I spotted was the huge ass hearse. This freakin thing seemed to be a mile long and it was in superb condition.
At first this olelongrooffan thought it might be a LaSalle given the hinged solid spare tire covers but realized my error when I spotted the wheel covers. Packard Super Eight FTW.
I would suspect the coachbuilder on this one is Henney. I have not previously heard of them but there were a bunch of coachbuilders back in the day and this could easily have been one of them.
This is a unique Buick hearse in that it is almost sedan delivery in fashion by having no rear windows in it.
The tires on this one were pretty funky and appeared to be aged. It had just 39,000 miles on its clock.
This Special was built by Flxible. Yes, that is spelled correctly. If I remember correctly, the company was originally known as Flexible but due to some copyright or trademark infringment they were unable to use that name so they merely dropped the “e” and kept on keeping on. This olelongrooffan was previously unaware they built Professional Cars in addition to some pretty cool ass old buses. Jay Leno’s garage restored, or is still in the process of restoring, a Flxible bus to use as a tow vehicle. You should check it out. Pretty awesome.
There were a bunch of ambulances there also including this 1966 red and white one.
I’m pretty sure this one is a 1963. It is considered a low roof model. On the dashboard of it there was a picture of this driving on the Speedway.
These old ambulances were pretty well decked out back in the day.
I thought this was pretty humorous.
And this monster is an example of a high roof model.
I likes me some old Suburbans. Their roofs are just long enough.
This one is a local model and I have seen it around at several local car shows over the years.
According to the paperwork on the dashboard of this 1970 Cadillac, it is a Fleetwood 75. I believe they would know what it is.
These were some pretty damn cool old Cadillacs. The black one on the right belongs to Bill Head. He is from Atlanta and bought a trailer online and we had it built for him. Bill stopped in our showroom yesterday to pick up a spare tire for it and showed me an image the black beauty on his phone. My boss’s jaw hit the floor when I correctly identified it as a ’55. I think Bill might have been a little surprised also. Yeah more automotive trivia that won’t earn this olelongrooffan one freakin red cent.
This plain jane cop car from Connecticut was pretty cool. The lights and siren works as was briefly demonstrated by a guy in plain clothes with a pistol strapped to his waist.
By far the coolest Professional Car in attendance was this 1957 Desoto. I struck up a conversation with the two dudes sitting out back and they said they were unsure as to how many were built but they did know they built at least one.
Memphian was another boutique coachbuilder and they did this one up right.
The name of this longroof is “B & B’s Dream.” The owners were the two dudes out back and they have been friends with each other for over 50 years. Pretty jovial dudes they were.
I didn’t really find out a whole lot about this one but it too was about a mile long.
Number two in the favorite line up for this olelongrooffan was this Cadillac Flower Car. Much like the one I spotted up in Indiana a couple months ago, this one has an aluminum bed.
I would suspect the builders of this used these bits of aluminum to cover up the remnants of the roof and truck removal as well as to alleviate any rust issues with the water from those floral bouquets.
I know this thing looks pretty goofy but it is right up this olelongrooffan’s alley and it would be great to have one in my livery.
This one is Bill’s. He owns a funeral home up near Atlanta, Georgia.
This one was built by yet another coachbuilder. Meteor is a well recognized name in coachbuilder circles. I’m pretty certain they merged with Miller Coachbuilders to become Miller-Meteor.
On Bill’s prompting I opened the driver’s door to check out the leather upholstery and that huge bench seat.
Behind the grille of this sweetie contained a pair of red lights.
Next to Bill’s hearse was this red one. Similar but this one was built by Superior and it was a ’51.
In the back row were a few more some of which were for sale.
According to the license plate, this one is a ’74. Now my fellow Hoons need to get their minds out of the gutter. That license plate is not related to anything naughty.
This ole beauty can move a casket out the rear door or that platform can pivot and move out either of the rear side doors. Hence “3-way.”
Yeah, some of them were in better condition than others.
And if my fellow Hoons have been Hooning along with this olelongrooffan you will remember this blue one.
Image Copyright Hooniverse 2012/longrooffan
Original: Hooniverse
by Jeff Glucker
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