W.S. Ballantyne Co. 1962-1967 - Windsor, Ontario, Canada


   

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During the 1960s, the W.S. Ballantyne Co. of Windsor, Ontario turned out small numbers of custom-built funeral cars and ambulances for Canadian funeral directors and ambulance operators. The one-off vehicle shown on the back cover is a raised-headroom ambulance conversion of A 1964 Chrysler station wagon built for an ambulance operator in St. John's, Newfoundland. Rear headroom was raised 10 inches.

see The Professional Car, Issue # 51, First Quarter 1989

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A number of station wagon conversion firms offered service car and ambulance conversions of Plymouth, Dodge and Chrysler station wagons into the late 1970s. The most prolific of these were those done by the Automotive Conversion Corp. of Troy and Birmingham, Mich. Other companies included Abbott & Hast in Los Angeles and Universal Coach in Detroit. In Canada, the Elegante Coach Co. of Kitchener, Ont. and a few small concerns in the Province of Quebec -- Cloutier and DeMers -- also offered standard-wheelbase Dodge and Chrysler hearse conversions. The short-lived W.S. Ballantyne Co. built a small number of one-off ambulances and hearses on Plymouth, Dodge and Chrysler chassis between 1963 and 1967. Chrysler Corporation actually promoted its Plymouth, Dodge and Chrysler station wagons as the ideal service car in funeral service trade journals in the 1960s and '70s.

 

   

For more information please read:

The Professional Car, Issue # 51, First Quarter 1989

The Professional Car (Quarterly Journal of the Professional car Society)

Gregg D. Merksamer - Professional Cars: Ambulances, Funeral Cars and Flower Cars

Thomas A. McPherson - American Funeral Cars & Ambulances Since 1900

Carriage Museum of America - Horse-Drawn Funeral Vehicles: 19th Century Funerals

Carriage Museum of America -  Horse Drawn - Military, Civilian, Veterinary - Ambulances

Gunter-Michael Koch - Bestattungswagen im Wandel der Zeit

Walt McCall & Tom McPherson - Classic American Ambulances 1900-1979: Photo Archive

Walt McCall & Tom McPherson - Classic American Funeral Vehicles 1900-1980 Photo Archive

Walter M. P. McCall - The American Ambulance 1900-2002

Walter M.P. McCall - American Funeral Vehicles 1883-2003

Michael L. Bromley & Tom Mazza - Stretching It: The Story of the Limousine

Richard J. Conjalka - Classic American Limousines: 1955 Through 2000 Photo Archive

Richard J. Conjalka - Stretch Limousines 1928-2001 Photo Archive

Thomas A. McPherson - Eureka: The Eureka Company : a complete history

Thomas A. McPherson - Superior: The complete history

Thomas A. McPherson - Flxible: The Complete History

Thomas A. McPherson - Miller-Meteor: The Complete History

Robert R. Ebert  - Flxible: A History of the Bus and the Company

Hearses - Automobile Quarterly Vol 36 No 3

Marian Suman-Hreblay - Dictionary of World Coachbuilders and Car Stylists

Daniel D. Hutchins - Wheels Across America: Carriage Art & Craftsmanship

Marian Suman-Hreblay - Dictionary of World Coachbuilders and Car Stylists

Michael Lamm and Dave Holls - A Century of Automotive Style: 100 Years of American Car Design

Nick Georgano - The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile: Coachbuilding

Marian Suman-Hreblay - Automobile Manufacturers Worldwide Registry

G.N. Georgano & G. Marshall Naul - The Complete Encyclopedia of Commercial Vehicles

Albert Mroz - Illustrated Encyclopedia of American Trucks & Commercial Vehicles

Beverly Rae Kimes & Henry Austin Clark Jr. - Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805-1942

John Gunnell - Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975

James M. Flammang & Ron Kowalke - Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1976-1999

 



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