Sad Day in Detroit

Russell Dalziel

President MotorCity Chapter
I am Very Upset with this news. I was Just Talking to Marc Macintosh from American Ambulance That They are Out of Business. The company was started in 1926 and was the premier Ambulance Service of Metro Detroit. I have many great Memories working at this company I had worked with Norm. Marc.Don. Bill.


Russ
 
That is sad news,especially since you had worked for them,as advanced as the system gets its hard to forget the founding fathers of Ambulance service and how they did so much with so little and we were proud to do this with them.
 
when I bought my 78 Horton from Evan B. in the fall he had the 1976 Superior Cadillac that American owned sitting beside my Horton in the woods. I will try and get some of the pictures posted on here this week. its a shame ! another great Ambulance Company bites the dust but at least we have the pictures !!
 
American Ambulance

I always found their color scheme intersting black over white Caddys. I can remember the ad that they had in the yellow pages as a kid and their moto was "Once American, Always American.

Last year on are way home from a fire buff club oicnic Russ and I stopped off at American and took a photo of his ambulance parked in front of their office in Detroit.
 
I am Very Upset with this news. I was Just Talking to Marc Macintosh from American Ambulance That They are Out of Business. The company was started in 1926 and was the premier Ambulance Service of Metro Detroit. I have many great Memories working at this company I had worked with Norm. Marc.Don. Bill.


Russ

Is this the ambulance company that has the mid 70's ambulance out bacK?
 
I dropped a trailer, I think it was a generator for an event about a block from their headquarters about a year ago. I had heard all about this company from you guys, and I saw the cool sign on the building, and it all came together.
At least I had the chance to see it and know about it.
 
It's a scene that's been repeated all too often in the last 20-30 years.Well established local firms go down the tubes,often due to slow pay/reduced rates from medicaid and medicare.Add in increased costs for everything from medical supplies to fuel and insurance.

Then you get these giant ambulance companies coming in,buying out competitors and putting the squeeze on every company they can't buy out.
Owners facing all of this,and trying to pay a fair living wage to their employees,and provide decent medical insurance for them.

If my company had not been bought out,i would have faced the same fate.
The giant ambulance companies (we all know to whom i am referring) don't impress me at all.They are short on good service,and i would not be caught dead running some of their equipment.

Don't even get me started on how much they charge for ambulance service!

We did not have computerized dispatch,and GPS on our rigs,but our patients got good care and respect,and good value for the cost of service:mad:
 
It's a scene that's been repeated all too often in the last 20-30 years.Well established local firms go down the tubes,often due to slow pay/reduced rates from medicaid and medicare.Add in increased costs for everything from medical supplies to fuel and insurance.

Then you get these giant ambulance companies coming in,buying out competitors and putting the squeeze on every company they can't buy out.
Owners facing all of this,and trying to pay a fair living wage to their employees,and provide decent medical insurance for them.

If my company had not been bought out,i would have faced the same fate.
The giant ambulance companies (we all know to whom i am referring) don't impress me at all.They are short on good service,and i would not be caught dead running some of their equipment.

Don't even get me started on how much they charge for ambulance service!

We did not have computerized dispatch,and GPS on our rigs,but our patients got good care and respect,and good value for the cost of service:mad:

Not only has the ambulance industry consolodated, in many cases the consolodators have withdrawn from markets, sometimes entire states, where they couldn't make their profit margins. Consoldation has even extended to the ambulance manufacturers. American Emergency Vehicles, Leader, Horton, Wheeled Coach and Road Rescue are now owned by Allied Specialty Vehicles which in turn is part of the equity investment firm American Industrial Partners.

From the Allied's website:
Allied Specialty Vehicles ("ASV" or the “Company”) is a leading diversified manufacturer of specialty vehicles to North American as well as export markets. The Company operates in three industry segments: Fire & Emergency, Recreational Vehicles, and Commercial. Within the Fire & Emergency segment, ASV offers an extensive line of fire apparatus under the E-ONE brand name including pumpers, aerials, tankers, rescues, and airport firefighting equipment. Additionally, the Company offers a full line of ambulances and rescue vehicles under the Horton, Wheeled Coach, American Emergency Vehicles (AEV), Leader Emergency Vehicles and Road Rescue brand names. Within the Recreational Vehicle segment, the Company produces Class A and Class C Recreational Vehicles under many of the industry's iconic brand names including Fleetwood RV, Discovery, American Coach, Bounder, and Tioga, among others. Within the Commercial segment, the Company produces Type A bus products for both the school and childcare markets under the Collins, Mid Bus, and Corbeil brand names as well as terminal trucks and street sweeper products under the Capacity and Lay-Mor brand names.

And yes, I too was one of those who sold their ambulance service to one of the "big ambulance companies". Three years later, they were gone from Ontario.
 
Yes Dean,you are one of those I referred to in my post,you have given a lot to the system in Ontario,and in the days of the OAOA (ontario ambulance operators assoc.) you work tirelessly for the betterment of our system,and I for one thank you,:applause:
 
when I bought my 78 Horton from Evan B. in the fall he had the 1976 Superior Cadillac that American owned sitting beside my Horton in the woods. I will try and get some of the pictures posted on here this week. its a shame ! another great Ambulance Company bites the dust but at least we have the pictures !!
Mike sent me the photos and asked that I post them. Here's the '76:
 

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Mike also sent me a photo of a '72 Superior from American:
 

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By the plates on the 72 that photo was taken between 73 to 75.

For non Michiganders those plates were originally issued in 73, 74 and 75 used a renewal sticker on the rear plate only.

That photo looks like the location on West Seven Mile at Asbury Park on the west side of Detroit.
 
While the livery has changed, one girl will live on for a very long time
 

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After the Micro-Meet, Russ Dalziel and friends took me on a nickel-tour of Detroit. We stopped by the now-closed building of American Ambulance.

There is a '70's Superior Cadillac ambulance in their fenced lot - I shot photos through the fence. Alas, there is nothing left ahead of the cowl, not even frame rails. That might the Cadillac hood in the foreground of one of the photos, I'm not sure.

I shudder to think how long this has been sitting out in the yard. It's probably prohibitively expensive to restore, but there looks to be some usable parts (glass and such).
 

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