In decades past, creative RV builders used just about anything they could get their hands on as base vehicles for motorhomes. Motorhomes have been built on top of everything from pickup trucks to wrecked cars, but one company’s builds stand out as especially weird. The Superior Coach Company, known best for its funeral cars, used to tack motorhome bodies onto the backs of hearses, making for a weird way to travel. Perhaps weirder is the fact that the company has forgotten this history.
RV history, just like automotive history, is filled to the brim with brands that came and went leaving behind little, if any, documentation about their existence. I had to dig several layers deep into the obscureternet – that’s what I’m calling the obscure Internet – to find anything on those wacky Daystar motorhomes. It’s rare to get the chance to reach out to the manufacturer of a vintage coach. Technically, Superior Coach is still around today and it’s still building the hearses it’s famous for.
One of my white whales since joining The Autopian has been finding the history of Superior’s lost RV division. I’ve also just wanted to find an example of a Superior motorhome that’s in good enough condition to write about. I’ve seen many of these coaches, but they’re usually gutted and unrecognizable. There’s one for sale in Ohio right now and while it’s not in the greatest shape, it’s one of the most complete Superior hearse-based motorhomes I’ve seen in a while.
Professional Cars And Buses
Superior’s roots go back over a century to the founding of the Garford Motor Truck Company in 1909 in Elyria, Ohio. Within just a few years, the company was able to score a lucrative contract building trucks for the postal service.
According to the historical archive Coachbuilt, Garford introduced an aluminum-bodied passenger bus lineup in 1923. That year, businessmen from Lima, Ohio, saw the future in these buses and formed the Superior Motor Coach Body Company to construct the bodies for Garford. Two years later, the Henry Ford writes, Garford itself moved to Lima in 1925. There, the company changed its name to Superior Body Company and began a focus on placing its custom bodies on existing platforms.
Superior Coach’s portfolio at that time included buses and trucks, but the company noticed that the professional car industry was taking off. So, that year, the company also added its first hearse to its lineup. All of these vehicles rode on either Studebaker or Cadillac chassis and over time, Superior became one of the first names in school bus, ambulance, and hearse bodies.
By 1940, the operation grew large enough to necessitate another name change to the Superior Coach Company. Superior would also begin building its bodies on top of a wide assortment of domestic vehicles, including trucks from all of the Big Three as well as International.
Superior was also pretty clever in its marketing. In a 1959 issue of Popular Science, the company advertised a vehicle for traveling salesmen and dealers. The car was a Pontiac riding on wheelbase lengthened by two feet and payload upped by 50 percent. It looked like a hearse of the day, but it was just a giant cargo-carrying wagon.
In a 1963 issue of Popular Science, Superior displayed one of its advancements in bus design. The school buses of today have gates that come out and forward, forcing kids walking across the street to pass several feet in front of the bus before they board. This ensures the driver can see kids even when their bus has a conventional-style hood.
Back in the day, these gates were used for a slightly different purpose. Bus drivers used the gates to signal to kids when it was safe to cross in front of the bus and into the road. Superior was once a leader in school bus tech, and you can also find tidbits here and there about its work in building limos and military vehicles, too.
In 1969, Superior was acquired by the Sheller-Globe Corporation, which kept Superior’s operations going until 1980, when both school bus demand and professional car demand fell off of a cliff. Since these were Superior’s core products, this was bad news.
Sheller-Globe responded by liquidating Superior, with the company’s units splitting off in a bunch of different directions. The school bus unit was purchased by former employees, forming Mid Bus, which was later acquired by Collins. The hearse operation was sold to a businessman and it was later merged with S&S Coach Company to become S&S/Superior of Ohio. This business would later fall under the umbrella of Accubuilt, but continuing to operate today as Superior Coach.
What’s fascinating is how little you’ll find out about its RV division from the company or anywhere else. You can find RVs by Superior Coach for sale and in articles online, but no real history about them.
I reached out to the modern incarnation of Superior recently to ask if anyone at the company knew anything about its past in making motorhomes. Sadly, the representative got back and confirmed that yes, Superior used to make motorhomes, but that’s all they could tell me. As noted above, Superior went through some ownership changes it appears some records have been lost. Likewise, apparently the company doesn’t have anyone currently working for it who knows anything about the motorhomes. So, Superior is still around, but the company knows less about the RVs than I do.
What I have been able to find is that in 1969, the Sheller-Globe-run Superior began production of what it said was its first motorhome, a 22-foot Class A coach with an all-steel construction. Interestingly, some publications said this RV was the first all-metal motorhome of its kind, but the Clark Cortez predated the Superior all-metal motorhomes by years. Superior also made extra-large camper vans to go along with its Class A motorhomes.
From Funerals To The Campground
Things get fuzzy really quickly the moment you try to figure out what motorhomes Superior may have built before the Sheller-Globe era. If you search the web, you’ll find a number of vintage RVs built on the beefed-up and elongated chassis of professional cars. So many of them are claimed to have been built by Superior and some of them even have the same Dana 70 as today’s camper.
All of them are done in the same style, too. They started off as hearses before getting cut up from the B-pillar back. They all have bucket seats with a pass-through in the middle into the camper body. Did a bunch of random people all get the same idea? Or did Superior itself make these coaches?
It seems the consensus is that Superior made these coaches, but after nearly two years of digging, I haven’t found a single advertisement or other hard confirmation. Yes, each of these coaches have manufacturing plates by Superior in them, but Superior’s hearses, on which these are based, also had those plates. As I said before, all Superior could tell me is that its history does include RVs, but that’s only somewhat helpful.
That brings us to today’s motorhome, which has been looking for a new owner for a while. This listing was published this year, but the vehicle has been for sale since 2018 with the asking price steadily declining since then.
Sleeping In A Caddy
We’re told this camper is based on a 1968 Cadillac hearse and that does appear to be the case. Check out the goofy professional car roofline on the cab. As I noted earlier, this also meant a longer wheelbase and a beefy chassis, perfect for hauling bodies or, in this case, a toilet and a bed.
The camper on the back is exactly what you’d expect from an RV from this era. There’s a three-burner stove, a bathroom, a sink, a dinette, and an over-cab bed. It’s all brown and of course, you get that important shag carpeting. The seller says it’s pretty loaded, too:
20 gallon pressurized water tank, 30 gallon waste water tank, bathroom with toilet, 2 gas lights, 30lbs LP tank, Furnace, sleeps 5, stereo with cassette, CB, air shocks and air bags on rear, extra 1000lbs. Carrying capacity on rear, has power steering, power brakes, wind windows and vent wings, cowl vent, electric fuel pump for priming, disc brakes front drum rear, heater/defroster plus rear heating unit, 12 camper windows that open, 1 roof vent, Reese hitch, Total weight 7440lbs. 22.5 length 7.5 width 9.9 height.
All of this is powered by a 472 cubic inch V8. This engine made its debut in 1968 and offered up 375 HP and 525 lb-ft of twist. Even accounting for gross power figures this was a pretty healthy engine for a camper. The seller says it’s backed by a TH400 automatic and a Dana 70 in the rear with a 3.73 ratio.
The seller says the engine bay has a lot of fresh parts including camshafts, lifters, timing chain, gears, radiator, and three batteries. Of course, this thing has been for sale forever now, so “new” is relative.
Sadly, much of the ceiling in the interior has been ruined by a water leak. I could not find anything on how Superior may have built motorhomes before 1969, so I can’t tell you if you’re looking at a nasty surprise under the rotted wood. But the seller does describe the water leak in the past tense, so maybe the rig is structurally okay, maybe?
At any rate, the seller, who is located in Toledo, Ohio, wanted $12,500 for the motorhome back in 2018. Today, years after it first went up for sale, they want $6,500 for it. I’m reluctant to call that a good price. Again, water damage is no fun. However, it might be worth taking the chance on anyway because come on, how many other motorhomes have you seen that look like this? The hood is almost longer than the rest of the camper!
Yet, I’m still left with some questions. Was this coach built by Superior? Why did Superior get into the RV business? How did something like this cost back in the 1960s? How many of these were sold? Sadly, I’ve spent so much time trying to answer these questions just to come up short. This is where I’m turning things to you. If you happen to know anything about Superior motorhomes built before 1969, I’d love to hear from you! I’ll see you in the comments, or you can email me at mercedes@thautopian.com.
(Images: Facebook Seller, unless otherwise noted.)
Sleeps 5? 2 over the cab, 2 on the dinette…hmmm.
I think this would be a fun project, give the roof a little TLC and refresh that shag carpet.
Mine was built by a local Southern California trailer/rv place on a 1956 Sedan de Ville by chopping it behind the driver at the top of the fenders and removing the trunk. No frame reinforcements; they didn’t even weld the rear doors shut. To me, this one looks like an engineering triumph.
One minor point – in those days these could just as well be called ambulance-based, as most ambulances were the same as hearses other than interior fit out and usually having more windows at the back and a little taller roof. And in the case of my hometown in Maine and our local funeral home – were the SAME cars.
They bought them in silver and just stuck a magnetic emergency light on the roof when they got an ambulance call. I worked for them in high school 40 years ago, they still had the last dual-purpose ’74 Cadillac as a spare, though they stopped providing ambulance services when it was still new. It had extra storage compartments for the various ambulance supplies that the new hearse lacked, and the roller system for getting caskets and coffins in and out was removable. Still had the siren too!
Combination cars, they were still built in very limited quantities into the 1980s, but the era was really over by the mid 1970s. There were also some dedicated hearse models with fold-down jump seats in the back so they could do double duty as wagons, if the small funeral home operator really could only afford one car
Indeed, the town bought it’s own ambulance in ’75 and that was that for the funeral home providing that service.
They had a couple of regular full-size Buick station wagons for “removals” and shuttling corpses to and fro – they really only used the hearse when there was a casket to be hauled around.
At one time, the job of ambulance crews was really to transport the injured to the hospital as quickly as possible, and not much else. Maybe set a broken bone or stop some bleeding, but that was about it, no need for large quantities of equipment and supplies and the space they took up. And, in a weird way, more business for their employer’s other division if things didn’t work out
Very much the case. They weren’t EMTs or paramedics, just basic first aid and hit the road. A LOT more people died in crashes back then for more reasons than just cars were less safe. The good old days kind of sucked.
Also of interest from those olden days – the three BIG stainless steel lidded bins big enough to hold a torso that were stashed in the back of the funeral home garage. For cleaning up the REALLY bad accidents… The old hands still referred to those as “bucket jobs”. Eeeeeww. They were the coroner too through the 60s, and even performed autopsies at the funeral home.
I was around there because it was my best friend’s family business across three generations. Sadly sold out to a national chain when his mother retired, none of his generation had any interest in it.
My Dad started working as a cop in the early 1970s and retired in the 2020 he has talked about how absolutely gruesome 1970s accident scenes were, brains and guts everywhere, even after relatively slow crashes, fatalities were very common, not just because cars were less safe, but also because of how many people refused to use the safety features that existed (seat belts). Used to completely dread accident calls more than anything else because of how sickening the scenes almost always were back then.
By the 2020s, fatalities or major injuries were the rare exception, people wandering around on their phone calling their relatives to come pick them up after a crash that would have easily killed them on impact a few decades earlier.
My grandfather was a traveling salesman for many years. He became an early proponent of seatbelts after witnessing a head-on collision where multiple people went through the windshields and splattered. Never turned a wheel without buckling up after that. My grandmother though refused to until it became illegal not to – then she did it without complaint – go figure. I have three cousins who are cops – all of them say they have never unbuckled a corpse…
Even in an older car, wearing a seat belt is an exponential increase in your chances of living. A friend of the family fell asleep at the wheel and tried to move a bridge abutment in an ’80s S-class at highway speed thankfully belted up. She lived, but had to learn to walk again. Still far better than the alternative. Not quite as severe as that, but in a much less safe car – I t-boned another car at 60mph+ in an ’89 Ford Escort. My only injury was a bruised shoulder from getting the driver’s door of the then MUCH shorter Escort open – adrenalin is a hell of a drug. Luckily I hit the other car in the back door/rear wheel area (and there was nobody in the back seat), the driver had some broken bones and cuts but she lived. She just pulled right out in front of me from a side road without looking. I didn’t even have time to brake.
I think we have jumped the shark in car safety though. We have created overpowered bunkers on wheels that give very little sensation of speed, leading to more aggressive driving, and made them so hard to see out of that it’s that much easier to have minor fender-benders and mow down pedestrians and cyclists due to the massive blind spots. And higher centers of gravity such that even relatively minor collisions result in rollovers. And that’s even before the distraction of “infotainment” and cell phones.
I honestly never realized these were built at the factory that way, I always assumed somebody had hacked up a hearse (or ambulance, or hearse-ambulance) or other car and mounted an old trailer on the back, but there seems to be good reasoning why that isn’t always the case
“I always assumed somebody had hacked up a hearse (or ambulance, or hearse-ambulance) or other car and mounted an old trailer on the back”
That’s probably exactly what they did at the factory… LOL
I’m just glad these were a separate thing and no hearses were harmed in the making of these.