A "Great White Fleet" Ready for Your Last Ride! And Your Widow Can Follow in a Fisker!

From Ed -- 

For whatever reason, recently I've gotten interested in so-called "professional cars" that include funeral cars, hearses, flower cars, and other vehicles used by mortuaries.  You cannot make this stuff up, but this afternoon I decided to take a drive and went to Germantown, Ohio, west of Dayton.  Decided to return home on Germantown Road (Route 4) which, within the last three miles before Dayton, goes through a really deteriorated part of Dayton.  On Germantown Road is a funeral home W. E. Lusain Funeral Home (see website below).  This is a Black-owned funeral home chain that has at least three other funeral homes including one in Birmingham, Alabama.  Lusain also has a funeral home location in Cincinnati.

I am not joking but parked next to the place was their funeral fleet -- see attached photos: Two white Mercedes buses, a white Mercedes truck-like vehicle with open bed that can carry a casket in open-air fashion, another Mercedes SUV also in white, and a white electric Fisker (a funeral home that has a Fisker.......a rare car anywhere but in a Black part of town with a couple of dive bars just down the street?

I would not recommend driving in that part of Dayton, but if you do stop by the Lusian Memorial Funeral Home.  How many widows would like to be driven to the cemetery in a Fisker?

Ed's 1959 Plymouth Fury

Photo attached of a white 1959 Plymouth Fury exactly like my first car and the one that I owned while in college starting in 1965.  This is the car that my stepfather "installed" the heavy-duty spring under the passenger's seat that caused my date to "spring" out of her swivel seat and fall on the dormitory lot pavement.  No second date ensued.  

The car, with push-button automatic and the 318 V-8 engine never failed to start during the three years I drove it.  As I recall, never a mechanical problem during that time.  Never used a drop of oil.

Virgil Exner design at its best and can you believe that on a used car lot in Lewisburg, West Virginia, I bought this car for the grand sum of $450 and it was already six years old?  As I recall it had around 85,00 miles on the clock when I bought it using money I had earned as a newspaper boy.  

A Breakthrough Victory: Mercedes-Benz Monte Carlo Rally , 1-2-3 in 1960.

29th Rallye Monte Carlo, 18 to 24 January 1960. The Mercedes-Benz team at Stuttgart Central Station. From right to left: Roland Ott/Eberhard Mahle, Eugen Böhringer/Hermann Socher, Walter Schock/Rolf Moll and race director Karl Kling with the winning car, a Mercedes-Benz 220 SE (W 111) with start number 128.

29th Rallye Monte Carlo, 18 to 24 January 1960. The team that finally won it: Walter Schock and Rolf Moll in a Mercedes-Benz 220 SE (W 111).

Early post-WWII Mercedes-Benz motorsport successes included the triple victory at the renowned Monte Carlo Rally 60 years ago: the 29th edition of the rally was held from 18 to 24 January 1960 over a route spanning 3567 kilometers. Walter Schock and Rolf Moll led the first German overall victory with the Mercedes-Benz 220 SE (W 111) ahead of Eugen Böhringer and Hermann Socher as well as Eberhard Mahle and Roland Ott – also in 220 SE.

 From the 1950s right until the 1970s, Mercedes-Benz used vehicles that were close to series production highly successfully in rallies. The modifications include the reinforcement of chassis elements, larger fuel tanks, the modification of the engine characteristics as well as adjustments to the transmission and axle reduction ratio. The Mercedes-Benz 220 SE, which won the Monte Carlo Rally 60 years ago, was also prepared in this way. With these “tail fin” saloons, the brand from Stuttgart won the European Rally Championships in 1960 and 1962.

Top Selling Vehicles in Selected US Metro Areas

From a January 2, 20020 Detroit Free Press article by Mark Phelan:

Top-selling new vehicle in selected metro areas

:Atlanta – Ford F-150

Austin, Texas –  Chevrolet Silverado 1500

Baltimore – Honda CR-V

Boston & Manchester, NH – Toyota RAV4

Columbus, Ohio – Honda Civic

Houston – Ford F-150

Indianapolis – Chevrolet Equinox

Los Angeles – Honda Civic

Nashville – Ford F-150

Oklahoma City -- Chevrolet Silverado 1500

San Antonio – Ford F-150

Washington, DC – Toyota RAV4

Top-selling used vehicle in selected metro areas

Atlanta – Ford F-150

Austin, Texas –  Ford F-150

Baltimore – Nissan Altima

Boston & Manchester, NH – Toyota RAV4

Columbus, Ohio – Honda Civic

Houston – Ford F-150

Indianapolis – Chevrolet Equinox

Las Vegas – Nissan Altima

Miami-Ft. Lauderdale – Toyota Corolla

Nashville – Nissan Altima

Philadelphia – Nissan Rogue

Washington, DC – Toyota Camry

A Middle Class Hearse if the ever was one -- a Pontiac!

None of us want to think of their last ride, but for many we will have no choice but to have one. I doubt there are too many complaints, no matter what the ride or interior temperature. And status? What is wrong going out in a Pontiac? But if it were a PT Cruiser, I would raise Holy Hell!

On Wed, Dec 25, 2019 at 7:03 PM Ed Garten <eddiegarten1948@gmail.com> wrote:

When I was a kid growing up just outside of the small West Virginia town of Hinton, West Virginia, one of the local funeral homes had four vehicles, all of which are pictured in the attached photo.  

From left to right: A Chevrolet sedan serving as a "family car" to take the widow or widower to the cemetery; a Chevrolet panel truck which served as what, today, funeral homes refer to as the "first call car" (the vehicle that picks up one's loved one who dies at home); the ambulance that served the country (a Cadillac); and the hearse (what a Pontiac?).  Given the reality that most hearses back then (and still today) are Cadillacs, it is easy to forget that funeral cars were sometimes built on Pontiac and Buick chassis as well as the occasional Lincoln.   

Keep alive in 2020.  Drive carefully!

What should you know about PSA in the PSA-FCA Merger

Taken from A Detroit-Free Press article published October 30, 2019.

PSA sales by brand

1. Peugeot: 1,889,527
2. Citroen: 1,013,065
3. Opel/Vauxhall: 1,007,129
4. DS: 52,433
5. Fukang: 330

PSA's top 10 markets 

1. France: 852,297 units
2. UK: 402,799
3. Germany: 390,969
4. Iran: 336,478
5. Spain: 327,157
6. Italy: 323,037
7. China: 257,723
8. Belgium: 126,400
9. Netherlands: 101,090
10. Argentina: 89,719

PSA's top-production countries:

1. France: 1,199,102
2. Spain: 915,583
3. Slovakia: 352,007
4. Germany: 208,360
5. UK: 140,088
6. Poland: 106,456
7. Brazil: 78,952
8. Portugal: 65,043
9. Argentina: 35,574
10. Namibia: 1,170
11. Tunisia: 96

Source: Augusto Amorim, senior manager, Americas Vehicle Sales Forecasts, LMC Automotive. All figures are for 2018.