Cars & Movies » American Rolls-Royce hearses?
American Rolls-Royce hearses?
Published 28/02/2012 @ 15:40:51, By Kooshmeister
An acquaintance of mine is attempting to match up the cars used in the "Worthless" song in the movie The Brave Little Toaster to real-life models. While this at first may seem an exercise in futility, given how generic most of the cars in the movie look, at least a few of the vehicles have some details which correspond to real cars. The only problem is that they claim the hearse used in the scene is a 1973 Rolls Royce Silver Shadow. Now, I understand that Rolls-Royces were/are offered in the US for many, many years but were they sold in hearse models here? Were there any US coachbuilders that made hearses out of foreign luxury cars as oppose to domestic ones? I know this is just a cartoon movie but I am genuinely curious and I've Googled trying to find US Rolls-Royce hearse coachbuilders and come up totally empty.
If none exist, I suppose it could be an import, as in, imported as a hearse, but this seems like a lot of money for a funeral home to throw at a hearse when they could use a comparatively cheaper domestic model. So could someone explain to me the likelihood of a Rolls-Royce hearse in the US and who would've made it?
If none exist, I suppose it could be an import, as in, imported as a hearse, but this seems like a lot of money for a funeral home to throw at a hearse when they could use a comparatively cheaper domestic model. So could someone explain to me the likelihood of a Rolls-Royce hearse in the US and who would've made it?
American Rolls-Royce hearses?
Published 28/02/2012 @ 17:15:48, By dsl
RR did not sell Shadows as hearses - all conversions were third party. My guess would be that most if not all Shadow hearses are one-offs, more comparable to stretch limos based on wacky choices like Hummers, MINIs, Countachs etc than genuine coachbuilder conversions. Not aware of any UK coachbuilders who did Shadow hearses - there were many cheaper base cars of the same size (Granadas, Mercs) and then the next size up tended to be Daimler Limousine DS420, which was the successor from hearses based on big 50s Rollers and Austin/Van DenPlas Princesses when they stopped. My next guess would be that any Shadow hearses were not done from new-build cars, but more likely using cheap old Shadows 10-20 years after they left the factory, and may have been in poor condition/unwanted.
American Rolls-Royce hearses?
Published 28/02/2012 @ 19:16:56, By ingo
Or they took accident damaged cars. Animatronixx has told me, that there were hearse-coachbuilders, specialized on that. They have looked around for cars with a smashed back, or the customers had to bring such cars with them when they made the order.
American Rolls-Royce hearses?
Published 28/02/2012 @ 19:48:16, By Kooshmeister
Thanks guys.