Advertising Last completed movie pages 1966 Vanden Plas Princess 4-Litre R Hearse Alpe & Saunders [ADO66] Ep. 1.01Class: Cars, Funeral — Model origin: 
![1966 Vanden Plas Princess 4-Litre R Hearse Alpe & Saunders [ADO66]](/i001807775.jpg)
00:46:59 ![[*]](/res/star.png){kind=small}
Minor action vehicle or used in only a short scene
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◊ 2023-07-15 04:08 |
I think it's this one - "1966 Vanden Plas Princess R Hearse for hire – the last remaining example of this car in existence. Coach built by Alpe & Saunders of Surrey." also video here - FPR 96D.![[Image: 1966-vanden-plas.jpg]](http://pics.imcdb.org/10314/23/1966-vanden-plas.jpg) My VdP bible says only one 4-Litre R hearse chassis was produced, chassis VRS3-6843 " a stripped saloon with no rear doors or boot, and painted black with no interior trim." |
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◊ 2023-07-15 17:14 |
@dsl: This one, as advertised: ![[Image: alpesaundersvandenplasprincess4litre.jpg]](http://pics.imcdb.org/3946/23/alpesaundersvandenplasprincess4litre.jpg) Or maybe another one the VdP bible doesn't know? The advertisement above is undated, but appears to be from 1973. The very same hearse was advertised "for immediate delivery" in September 1973, so either a second one was built on a used 4-Litre R chassis or the construction of the body on the hearse chassis mentioned in the VdP bible must have taken very long. |
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◊ 2023-07-15 17:57 |
Intriguing ..... VdP 4-litre R production ended 1968 when VdP switched to the Daimler DS420, so if 73 ad the car would have been 5+ years old at that point. Agree the ad seems to be end 60s or later - the 1967 DR450 had had 2 owners by then. So why convert a used 4-Litre R?? Why not convert/buy a used DS420?? My VdP bible is this, written by the bloke (Bryan Peebles, 2009 edition) who created the VdP Owners Club website, so should be as solid as granite. The book text and pictures are almost exactly the same as that webpage, but no mention of the hearse on the webpage. |
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◊ 2023-07-15 19:16 |
No no, not "if". The advertisement above was commissioned by Alpe & Saunders supposedly in summer 1973, when the hearse was "under construction", most likely a couple of weeks before it was advertised "for immediate delivery" in the FSJ issue from September 1973 in another Alpe & Saunders advertisement. A third ad with similar text was placed in 1973 as well, as the owners wrote back in March on their Facebook page. This hearse was built or at least finished in 1973. Hm. I never ask myself that question, because... you name it. Maybe because everyone else had DR450 or DS420? Maybe because the base vehicle was just there or the funeral director just wanted this particular hearse? All of this happens: The BMW 750iL was built because a funeral director wanted a 750iL hearse, so he had this one-off constructed by Pollmann. The famous Mercedes-Benz W100 was an outstandingly low-priced occasion, so an undertaker bought it and took it to Pollmann for another one-off construction. My former Mercedes-Benz W116 was an undertaker's personal car, got rear-ended at the age of two and instead of just having it repaired, they took it to Rappold and transformed it into a hearse. The list of possible reasons is endless. I have no doubts Mr. Peebles' research is solid as granite - according to the state of knowledge when the book was written. The regular nightmare for a specialist author regularly happens as groundbreaking news emerge after the book is printed. .gif ":)") |
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◊ 2023-07-15 19:48 |
The story I found a few years ago was a gold 1967 swb saloon bought by a German farmer in an attempt to rescue his failing marriage by convincing his wife that he could build a new life for them both after the sale of some of farmland for housing suddenly made him wealthy. Other steps included engaging an architect to build them a new house, but his wife ran off with the architect in the 600 before dumping it, so although the farmer got the car back he was too distraught to use it again and passed it back to the dealer in a very forlorn state and it was eventually bought cheaply by an undertaker who took it to Pollman for conversion. Later fell into the clutches of Karl Middelhauve, a well-known 600 meddler in Wisconsin, who rebuilt the salvageable remains into another 600 chassis and tweaked the oily bits enabling a quarter-mile drag strip time of 16.6 seconds. Then it returned to Germany and resumed life as a working hearse. My 1:43 model ![[Image: dscf2819cc.jpg]](http://pics.imcdb.org/10314/23/dscf2819cc.jpg) made by Schuco in a de-specced version for Best Of Show. Schuco's own version is better - proper side windows instead of cheap printing on tacky plastic. |
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