Junkyard Find: 1948 Pontiac Hearse

by Murilee Martin

Published: July 15th, 2012

As I’ve mentioned before, Colorado is a hotbed of recreational hearse activity. This means that today’s Junkyard Find— spotted at the Brain Melting Colorado Junkyard— might be able to find someone willing to brave the rust and get this super-rare hearse back among the living.

Pontiacs built between World War II and John Delorean can be a bit frumpy-looking, with cheap-out features such as a big chrome strip down the hood to hide the fact that GM didn’t want to pay to make hoods out of one piece of metal, but then you look more closely and see all the great Indian-head decorations.

Who doesn’t like an illuminated chrome hood ornament representing Chief Pontiac? Bad people, that’s who.

This hearse is very, very, very rough.

There’s no telling how long the right rear door has been sitting in the weeds, or how many seasons of snow have melted on the floors.

But still, imagine having this brute on the street, maybe complete with vintage coffin in the back.

#1940s #1948 #1948Pontiac #Colorado #DownOnTheJunkyard #Hearse #Junkyard #JunkyardFind #Pontiac

Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

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2 of 25 comments

Moparman426W on Jul 20, 2012

I'm sorry but I'm just too creeped out by hearses to ever own one, I'll ride in one when I'm dead. I would even pass up an Imperial hearse.

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-Nate on Dec 06, 2012

This '48 didn't have an illuminated Chief Pontiac but it's nice anyway . My '54 Pontiac Super Chief Coupe did and it was the first thing I fixed after the brakes and tune up details . Terrific cars in spite of the aging flathead InLine 8 cylinder engine . -Nate

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Recent Comments

Lou_BC Hard pass
TheEndlessEnigma These cars were bought and hooned. This is a bomb waiting to go off in an owner's driveway.
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Theflyersfan If this saves (or delays) an expensive carbon brushing off of the valves down the road, I'll take a case. I understand that can be a very expensive bit of scheduled maintenance.