Bring Out Your Dead: HearseCon Decay-'N-Shine 2011

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

Did you know that Colorado has more hearse enthusiasts than any other region in America? Neither did I, until I checked out HearseCon 2011, which took place a few miles from Chez Murilee last weekend. Hearses, ambulances, and flower cars! Coffins, goths, rodders, and— of course— Hearse Girls!

I shot all my HearseCon photos in stereo, so those of you with any variety of 3D glasses should head over to Cars In Depth to see the icy fingers of death reaching out for you.

Most of the 50 or so hearses at the HearseCon were Cadillacs, but the Olds contingent had some seriously great machines as well.

The crowd was a weird mix of inked-up hot-rodders discussing Stromberg 97 rebuilds, hyper-mascara’d goths sweating in the 95-degree Denver heat, and single-interest hearse freaks debating the merits of various coffin-to-ice-chest conversion techniques.

Donk hearses, slammed hearses, showroom-condition restored hearses, and this hearse for funerals in Unreachable Wilderness National Park.

My favorite (well, tied with the purple Olds) was this super-patina’d ’54 Cadillac.

Check out this weathered, rat-rod-style coffin. Now that’s attention to detail!

It was nice to be at a car show that didn’t have the eleventy-billionth repetition of “Hot Rod Lincoln” playing on scratchy PA speakers, although an organist playing Chopin’s Funeral March would have been nice.

Only at HearseCon!






















Murilee Martin
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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  • Mazder3 Mazder3 on Jun 30, 2011

    The patina'd '54 looks particularly creepy on a dank, wet, foggy day. Saw it in front of Pifler's a couple years ago with a severed head for a hood ornament and leg hanging out of the back. Had a dash pad with a spider on it then though....

  • Redmondjp Redmondjp on Jul 01, 2011

    Oh shoot, I was into these "commercial" vehicles way back in 1985 when I bought a 1969 Cadillac Miller-Meteor 42" (refers to height inside the back from floor to roof) combination (which was usually purchased by a small town where it did double-duty as an ambulance and a hearse). Mine was painted red and white, had (at one time) all of the lights on the roof, but also had curtains and blinds in all of the rear windows, and reversible panels in the floor with casket rollers on one side of them. It definitely wasn't "cool" back then to drive one of these things, and I literally had to almost give it away when I sold it in 1995 because nobody wanted it. I had it advertised in Cars & Parts for a solid three months (pre-internet and Craigslist). Oh well, it was the most enjoyable ten years I ever had driving a car in my life thus far. That 6300 lbs of American iron on a 156" wheelbase just soaked up the road and the torque of the high-compression 472 was something to behold. And honest truth, it would get 13-14 mpg on the highway if you stayed under 65 and kept your foot out of the secondaries (which sounded awesome with the air cleaner lid reversed) which isn't that much worse or maybe even better than some modern-day SUVs of a similar size and power level (thinking V10-powered Expedition). Long live the deadmobiles! Still a great way to piss off your neighbors too (as long as it runs & drives and has current tabs, you're golden, city can't touch you). Right now, the LT1-powered mid-90s hearses are hitting the market, there was one locally for only $2500 on CL recently that was very tempting (wife would kill me, producing a very ironic news headline).

  • Syke Kinda liked the '57, hated the '58. Then again, I hated the entire '58 GM line except for the Chevrolet. Which I liked better than the '57's. Still remember dad's '58 Impala hardtop, in the silver blue that was used as the main advertising color.
  • Dartdude The bottom line is that in the new America coming the elites don't want you and me to own cars. They are going to make building cars so expensive that the will only be for the very rich and connected. You will eat bugs and ride the bus and live in a 500sq-ft. apartment and like it. HUD wants to quit giving federal for any development for single family homes and don't be surprised that FHA aren't going to give loans for single family homes in the very near future.
  • Ravenuer The rear view of the Eldo coupe makes it look fat!
  • FreedMike This is before Cadillac styling went full scale nutty...and not particularly attractive, in my opinion.
  • JTiberius1701 Middle of April here in NE Ohio. And that can still be shaky. Also on my Fiesta ST, I use Michelin Pilot Sport A/S tires for the winter and Bridgestone Potenza for my summer tires. No issues at all.
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