I came upon this car in the mid 1990's in Columbus, Texas. At the time, it was sitting in a closed up black owned funeral home. It's stable mate was a '55 or '56 Oldsmobile Comet combo. This car was painted red white and blue, for the 1976 festivities, and was actually used in service this way until 1980, when the owner of the funeral home died. At that point, the business was closed, and the building and coaches went into disrepair.
When I first inspected this car, the interior was perfect. The front seat, as well as the dash pad were soft and supple. The rear window was intact, and the rear compartment was nothing short of amazing in it's state of preservation. There was even a mohair bag covering the church truck. The only damage at that time was the lifting of the lead roof seam on the passenger side, above the drivers compartment. Around 1996, neighborhood kids smashed the rear window, and the owners solution, was to tape a plastic bag over the rear window. I will mention that many attempts were made by me to either purchase this coach, or store it in a secure facility, free of charge to the owner.
The owner was a delusional woman, who was saving the car for her 5 year old nephew.. and she saw no harm in a "little moisture" getting into the car from the smashed rear window. She managed to get behind in property taxes, and the car was sold to Ardeen, who promptly flipped the car to someone else. It's sad to see it in it's present state, as it was 100% complete back then. Even the sconces were intact in the rear compartment, and of course the landau bars were intact as well. I have a feeling that this coach has been robbed of some of it's rarer parts for another coach Dwayne Velasquez has.
