Historical research located vintage photos of this very same vehicle and details about its provenance! The exact same vehicle is shown below nearly 60 years ago in vintage photos from New York's historical archives. (Click any photo to enlarge.)
This is an extremely rare 1948 Cadillac 75 Series Fleetwood Ambulance Conversion. This is 1 of only 2,067 commercial chassis vehicles that Cadillac shipped to independent coach builders in 1948 (per the Cadillac-LaSalle Club, Inc. website). Cadillac's 1948 production archives indicate that only 1,262 of the standard 136" wheelbase and 2,067 of the commercial 163" wheelbase were made:- 225 units - 7519X Sedan (5 passenger)
- 499 units - 7523X Sedan (7 passengers)
- 90 units - 7523L Business Sedan (9 passenger)
- 382 units or less - 7533X Imperial Sedan (7 passenger)
- 64 units - 7533L Business Imperial (9 passenger)
- 2 units - 75 Series Bare Chassis
- 2,067 units - 75 Series Commercial Chassis (163" wheelbase, Commercial Chassis were shipped mostly to independent coach builders, like Meteor, who made custom specialty vehicles primarily for commercial use.)
This survivng 75 Series Commercial Chassis vehicle has matching serial numbers, is virtually 98% complete and in amazingly great "desert" conditon, no rust-through, after 60+ years:
- Meteor Motor Car Co. of Piqua, OH did the 1948 factory conversion.
- Meteor Serial Number indicates this was Meteor's 281st vehicle produced that year.
- Meteor Motor Co. VIN tag (instead of a Cadillac VIN tag)
- Coach Builder's Model: #76-481
- Wheelbase is 163" (Cadillac's 75 Series "Commercial Chassis").
- The body measures 20'3" long x 6'6".
- Surprisingly, ALL of the custom "Meteor" branded stainless steel trim, rocker panel threshold moldings, etc. are intact plus all of the garnish trim molding around the custom features (e.g. the rear window garnish mouldings, base for the landau lights, etc.).
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