Black Hoe said:
The Cadillac Ambulances in the northeast (NY/NJ/CT/Long Island) in the 60's and 70's were either Superior, Wayne Miller Meteor or Hess & Eisenhardt (S&S). The majority of the rigs were equipped with Federal Interceptors or Directors (various series depending upon the model year) using either MM-24 speakers behind the grille or CP-25 speakers mounted atop the high-headroom models. Very few used electro-mechanical sirens and the few that did had a Federal 28 behind the grille. Most high headroom models (the most popular in the northeast) were equipped with 3 front facing Red Solar-Rays and either one or two top mounted Federal Beacon Rays, either the 176, 175, 173, 17 or the 184. The less common low headroom models had 4 Grimes beacons mounted at the corners of the roof. The high-headroom models also had the sign in the front usually denoting the fire department or ambulance company name. They were great rigs back the day and you couldn't beat the comfortable ride!
The first big coach ambulance I ever saw was in Fall River, MA in 1968. We were there for my grandma's funeral (Dad's mom). If you know the area, the Taunton River runs right through Fall River and separates it from Somerset. On the Fall River side right at the bridge between the two cities is a large Italian restaurant, Begoni's, that's been there for many years One of my great uncles took everyone there to eat one night while we were there. While we were eating I heard a Q siren, so I looked out the window, and here came this gorgeous M-M Volunteer all lit up. It had the four-corner Full-Vue lights (the Grimes light you mentioned) and a red 184 in the center rear. The Q had to have been either behind the grille or underhood, as it wasn't visible; but it had to be a Q as it was much too loud to be 28, which as you said, was common on those cars. It had all-red lights; and something else I noticed was the police cars with all blue. That's something you just didn't see down here. In Texas, red is the primary emergency color on all emergency vehicles, but blue is allowed as an auxilliary color in conjunction with the existing red. An interesting note that could generate a thread all to itself is that for some reason the Texas DPS officers a few years ago got it in their heads that blue is reserved for
law enforcement in Texas; but it isn't. A friend of mine who is now a retired volunteer fire chief showed up one time at our Ham swapfest with a new LED bar on his pickup, and the LEDs were all red. His previous LED bar was red/blue, so I asked him why he had made a switch, and he explained the problem with the DPS officers. So I put him in touch with the DPS public information office in Austin. They looked up the laws and let him know that there was no prohibition on blue in Texas. He got that in writing, so now they're all back to running red/blue. Politics!!!
Another interesting ambulance I had seen was in 1963,so it actually predates what I said above about 1968. This was in Tucson, AZ and belonged to a large funeral home that still ran ambulances. It was a new '63 M-M ambulance (I'm not sure which model). It had the big red sealed-beam tunnel lights front and rear, with a red 173 beacon on the front center of the roof. This was a lowtop ambulance, but had the sloping front roof. The siren, a B&M Super Chief, was mounted on the right fender. This was a neat unit and I managed to see it run a time or two while I was there.
But one of the ultimate ambulances that I ever saw back then, and eventually got to work out of, was a 1967 long-wheel-based lowtop Pontiac ambulance that was operated by AID Ambulance in Lubbock. This was one of two cars inherited by AID when they first opened on August 1, 1968. What happened is that four funeral homes got together and formed an ambulance corporation to compete with another funeral home that had manged to snag the city contract, but didn't maintain the contract properly. This was in '66 right after the other funeral homes had exited the ambulance service. So by '67 these guys had formed the new corporation and got up and running despite the flack from the city, who favored the contract ambulance co. So when AID opened the started out with two Pontiacs from one funeral home. One was the '67 I mentioned. It was equipped with twin red 174 beacons on the front corners with four DoRay red lollipop lights mounted between the two beacons. And it had a Q mounted on the right fender. I guarantee that this was one sharp light show when you saw it coming. The other Pontiac was a '64 Consort which had a 174 mounted front center with two red lollipops on each side and a Q on the right fender. Both Pontiacs were painted blue over white: the original funeral home's company colors. Another one of the partner funeral homes supplied AID with a '63 Pontiac Consort that had to be put back together, so-to-speak. I had seen it once in its original form. It had a roof mounted Q flanked by a total of six (6) big Dietz lollipop lights, 3 on each side of the siren, and a 174 in the rear. That made for a spectacular display; but in 1966 when the funeral directors started leaving the ambulance business in droves, that Consort was stripped and used as a removal vehicle. Once AID got it, they mounted a 17 front center with four red lollipop lights and a Q-1 siren behind the grille. Now you've by now noticed that I've mentioned a number times in my comments about the use of lollipop lights. The two primary brands used were the DoRays, which had the reflective area around the lenses and the chromed Dietz lights that had visors over the lenses and were
expensive. For many years, the lollipops were the "staple" on ambulances, particularly since the DoRays were relatively inexpensive. One of the largest ambulance dealers who also built ambulances in-house was the Gordon K. Allen Co. in Dallas. Their standard ambulance conversion on station wagons (and eventually the lowtop Suburbans) was a roof mounted Q flanked by four DoRay lollipops and a 17 beacon in the rear. They had the option of going with all red on the lollipops or having two red and two blues, which was the most popular option. Once they began building the lowtop Suburbans c. 1967, they also had the option of substituting a Federal Director and a pair of CP25 speakers for the Q. Gordon K. Allen, Sr., opened the short-lived Modular Ambulance Corp., which provided the original Type I ambulances for the Emergency! TV show. MAC's Modulars were the first of their type, as were the Type IIIs they added and a full 54" headroom hightop Suburban. But despite all that, they were gone by the mid-80s. It's interesting to note, Black Hoe, that as popular as the big coaches were up in your area, the station wagons, sedan-deliveries and the short coaches (Consorts, Buick Flxettes, and Olds Sevilles) were the popular ambulances in the Southwest. Go figure! BTW, what kind of car is that that you're showing all lit up. To me it looks like a Charger, but I just wasn't sure. I had a nice old '97 Crown Vic PI that I drove for years that was decently equipped for first response. But I'm now driving a 2002 Saturn L. It has a bit more of a stealth look than the old Vic.