My Holy Grail item would be a truck and the equipment. My best-ever workhorse ambulance was a 1971 low top Suburban converted by the Gordon K. Allen Co. in Dallas, TX. GKA was the longtime Superior Coach dealer for the Southwest, but also built thousands of ambulances from the time they opened in the late 40s or early 50s until Gordon K. Allen, Sr., opened the short-lived Modular Ambulance Corp. in nearby Grand Prairie, TX. They started out building on sedan-deliveries and then station wagons, and then on both low top and high top Suburban platforms in the '70s.
The most common conversion was a center-mounted Q flanked by either two or four DoRay lollipop lights with a red17 beacon behind the siren. Of course, they would equip to customer specs as well; and I've seen some interesting configurations built for their customers over the years. One of the most interesting conversions they did I've mentioned elsewhere on the board: a 1966 Pontiac station wagon ambulance that was built for the Longview, TX Fire Dept. It came with five red Dietz 211 beacons and three roof-mounted Qs! It had twin batteries and twin high-output alternators to power all of the "toys".
My 1971 Suburban ambulance came equipped with a center-mounted Q flanked by four DoRay lollipops (two red and two blue) and the red 17 in the rear. It was sold new in 1971 to Black and Clark Funeral Home in Dallas, who only ran the truck as an ambulance until 1972. In 1972 Sparkman-Hillcrest Funeral Home won the ambulance contract for all of Dallas County, "prying" it away from the Dudley Hughes Funeral Home who had maintained the contract for many years. Because of Dallas County's large size, the contracting funeral home (or ambulance co.) traditionally sub-contracted with some of the outlying services. But in 1972, Black and Clark was not one of the sub-contractors, so they ended up having to discontinue their ambulance service. But they kept the Suburban in service as a first-call vehicle until I bought it in the spring of 1981. It had just under 60,000 mi. on it at the time, and I kept it in service until 1989. As I said above, it was workhorse, and I've wanted to find another one since. I'm sure there's one out there somewhere, I just haven't spotted it!
