Oct 26,2010: Professional Cars

[xoxoxoBruce]

From ProfessionalCar.Org;

A professional car is loosely defined as a custom-bodied vehicle, based on passenger car styling, and used in the funeral, rescue or livery services. Such vehicles may be hearses, flower cars, service cars, ambulances, limousines, or cars which are special built to combine two or more of these different functions, such as combination hearse-ambulances, sedan ambulances or invalid coaches. These body styles are all hand built. The commercial chassis and the front and rear clips of these cars are the only thing they have in common with their factories of origin. The roof, glass, and doors are all manufactured by expert craftsmen.

Of course like everything else, there are people who passionately restore and collect them.

Next time you pass by a hearse or a limousine, study the design, and see the designers are able to maintain fluid proportions on such a long wheelbase. For many professional car enthusiasts, these vehicles are the epitome of automobile design.

Like I said, passionately.

Now one guy, Fernando Aguerre, has found and started to restore this pair of '42 Cadillacs, a hearse and a flower car, in Argentina.

We recently made the acquaintance of Fernando Aguerre, a surfer who lives in California, but who also keeps a sizeable car collection in his native Argentina. While all of the cars in his collection are impressive, his latest two additions – a pair of 1942 Cadillacs – are certainly the most unique.
Fernando said he’s not sure who transformed them into a hearse and a flower car, but whoever it was certainly had a patience and a skill for woodworking: Both cars feature elaborate hand-carved wood bodies from the cowl back, each with its own unique swirl and wave patterns.

He started with the flower car. Here the body work is finished and paint applied, ready for electrical and mechanical work, although he said the engines run very well. That's far from the finish paint on there, just good enough to check for flaws in the body work.



They were found in a "barn", along with a pair of horse drawn vehicles of very similar design.
Of course they are one of a kind, but even the cars they were built from are rare, any 1942 American non-military vehicle is rare.

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