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View Full Version : Hemmings! Find of the day! '56 Chevy Ambulance



BamaNomad
01-25-2021, 06:34 AM
For all of you who have been pining for a TriFive Ambulance... Here it is! :)

https://assets.hemmings.com/uimage/76957075-770-0@2X.jpg?rev=1

https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2021/01/25/find-of-the-day-national-bodied-1956-chevrolet-ambulance-ready-to-awaken-from-its-years-long-slumber-without-much-difficulty

Tabasco
01-26-2021, 07:33 AM
That '56 looks it would be a cool road car. Lots of room for luggage and a place to take a nap when you got tired.

In the 1950s and 60s in Fort Worth The funeral homes all had ambulances similar to that. They all had police radio monitors. As soon as they heard about a wreck they would all speed to the location with lights and sirens going. Each company driving as fast they could. The first one there got to take the patient and got the money. Then they would drive as fast as possible to the hospital.

Buy the sixties they all had high performance engines in them to see how fast they could go. I had a friend who rode as helper for one funeral home ambulance. It was a Ford Amblewagon with a police interceptor engine and 3 deuces and headers. Johnny said they often ran down the road at over 100 MPH and hoped the traffic would move over. There was no medical training, no medical supplies just hurry up and take the patients to the hospital.

There were a lot of wrecks because of this. On time an ambulance was approaching an intersection going west to a wreck while a different ambulance was going north to another wreck. All the traffic saw them coming and cleared the intersection. But the ambulances didn’t see each other. They collided and caused a big wreck.

Eventually Fort Worth and most other cities required ambulances to have trained medical technicians with first aid equipment. They also had to drive at a reasonable speed. So the funeral homes got out of the ambulance business. That is why you don’t see ambulances like this any more.

This is similar to the one my friend Johnny rode in.
11747

BamaNomad
01-26-2021, 11:32 AM
Interesting story Tabasco! Thanks for providing.. :)

WagonCrazy
01-28-2021, 07:19 AM
I think I've seen this 56 ambulance before...
Many years ago now, I was sourcing 3rd row seat parts for my (then) 57 9 passenger wagon and ran across a parts collector guy in the Arcadia-South Pasadena area (near me) and when I went to his house to pick up the parts, there in his garage was this red tri5 ambulance...all restored. I bet it was this one. I remember thinking how rare seeing one was (at the time I was new to this tri 5 hobby so everything I saw was new). Hemmings price is $63K. Have no clue if that is what someone would pay for it. Nice wagon though...

Old Buzzard
01-30-2021, 10:26 AM
"and a place to take a nap when you got tired".
A place for the MIL, comes to mind!:D