Vehicle Geneology

So how do I go about finding out the history of my 1970 Superior Rescuer? I have the manufacturing tag as being December, 1969. I have a cash receipt from Thomson-MacConnell Cadillac in Cincinnati dated 10/13/1972 written to Anderson M & M and I have a Georgia vehicle Registration dated 1/11/93 to a funeral home in Albany, Georgia showing a purchase date of 12-17-1971. When I called the funeral home, the son of the owners at that time told me they never had a high top straight ambulance, but had a black combination. "But sir, I have this registration with your dad's signature on it." "We ain't never had no high stop ambulance here!" Help....

Aah. The joys of research. I'd try contacting the Cadillac dealer. Probably a dead end but, at least you can say you tried.

some time people are helpful and sometimes they are not. just because his Dad owned a high top (for how long) doesn't mean the home did. if you have the first owners try there.

Biggest problem today is believe it or not computers. In the old days records endured forever in storage in file cabinets. Years ago we went to Pa. Motor Vehicle in Harrisberg to try and find the linage on a 1943 Harley Army bike. after some proding and name using the nice lady came with a complete history from when titiled in Pa. in 1946. Tried the same with a Packard a couple of years ago. "NO RECORD FOUND". Asked WHY?, answer any vehicle not registered for 10 years is purged from the records automaticly by the computer no file cabinets anymore. I am sure the situation is the same in other states. Now if you send a title over 10 years old and not registered in to transfer to you thats OK a new record is then established. But if the title was lost you are dead. With a Pro car a bit easier as you can sometimes run down the history by going from owner to owner till you get Dad didn't own one.

owning

when my father died we were taken back by all the auto and truck titles found in a file(no computers) held by him in a file cabinet at the funeral home marked personnel. my mom didn't know what my brother and I were doing so as we looked at the titles we were aghast with all the different vehicles he owned (technically anyway) and went into research mode. kept it from my mom as some had ladys names as owner and my dad as lienholder. didn't want to tarnish any memory and my brother jack and I started the only way we knew how and went to a couple of addresses on the titles and spoke with the owners and found out my dad either gave them the vehicle or signed a note at the bank for them and perfected a lien so to protect his investment. went to the dmv and after a lot of prodding got as much info on vehicles owned by my dad as we could. this went on for a couple of weeks and my mom still didn't know what we were doing (we thought) until she came to us and told us she knew all about those folks and there vehicles and we needed to stop what we were doing now. some people saw my dads death as an excuse not to pay and didn't. I re-checked the bank and my mom had been paying notes for people who hadn't. said she was protecting my dads memory. I went back to the dmv and got copies of all transactions and thanks to a kind employee was able to get info on when the lien was perfected and for how much. during this ongoing investigation on my part I found titles that hadn't had a registered owner in years and made a decision to identify the vehicles and who they were sold to and was going to handle each one as I saw fit. found a 1962 Cadillac superior coach registration that was 12 years old by that time and finally found it in a funeral homes possession in hidalgo county texas. many letters and phone calls later I was gonna just right it off when by accident I checked the dmv one more time and it suddenly was registered! long story short I drove to the valley and confronted the owners daughter about the car and was told they owned 1 62 and knew nothing about a lien. it was in there garage!! police, sherrif and such later they were told it was my car legally and would turn it over or I would have to file theft charges to get it back. they paid what I wanted and I handed over the title with the lien released. the moral to this story is you may find something related to your vehicle that you didn't want or expect to find. this post reminded me of this.

Public records demand

Has anyone ever gone as far as to contact the state the car was believed to serve in and make a public records demand through DHSMV to see if it was ever registered in that state? Just wondering how that would go over and if there would be a fee. Just curious!

Just a story about researching the history of my first pro car - the '67 S&S high top - I purchased it in '08 from a salvage yard on Long Island, NY - who could provide no history what-so-ever. The only thing I had to go on was the name on the roof - Billings Ambulance Service - which I assumed was someone's last name. (The S&S builders tag, showing who the car was built for was long gone - although, at the time, I didn't know it should have one.) On the trip home with the car, I was talking to a friend, who wanted to know where the car served. When I said the name, she immediately made the connection to Billings, Montana - which I felt was unlikely, with the fact that the car came out of a salvage yard on Long Island. However, upon getting home, I realized the keys were on a plastic key chain, advertising the "First Citizens Bank of Billings, MT." I tried doing as much research as I could - scoured the internet, emailed several museums in Billings, but could find no information on Billings Ambulance Service. Finally, after two years, I took a week of vacation, hopped on a plane and flew to Billings. I started with the fire department, as I figured someone there would know, which led me to the current ambulance provider, which led to the previous owner of Billings Ambulance (and my car.) I came home with a stack of photos of my car in service, lots of great stories, and a new good friend.
Moral of the story, persistence pays off (sometimes), it's harder to be told no in person, and if you can't find the previous owner, look for someone who would have interacted with the car - maybe try the local fire departments - they probably would have worked accident scenes with the car, and may be able to point you in a good direction.