ITEM E442

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By Walter M.P. McCall and Roger D. White, MD

Weller Brothers was one of a half dozen ambulance and hearse conversion businesses based in the Memphis, Tennessee locale during the decade following World War II. Although the smallest of these businesses, it was arguably the most interesting.

Weller Brothers built three basic types of professional cars—straight ambulances, hearses and ''combination'' coaches. Accounting for the majority of Weller's production, the dual-purpose Combination could be used as either an ambulance or hearse as needed. With fold-down ambulance attendant seats and the insertion of a casket roller rack, the combination coach could be quickly reconfigured for funeral service.

What made Weller unique among America's professional car builders was the wide variety of base vehicles on which the company mounted its handcrafted bodies. While its much larger competitors built their hearses and ambulances on special long wheelbase commercial chassis supplied by Cadillac and Packard, Weller did conversions on any car provided by the purchaser.

Pictured inside are conversions based on products of the ''big three'', from Chevrolets, Buicks, Oldsmobiles, to Fords and Mercurys as well as Plymouth, Dodge, De Soto and Chrysler.

By the 1970s, the Weller Brothers' saga had come full-circle—from a small body shop, to a successful, well-known regional professional car converter and back to its core auto body shop business. You will find the complete story here accompanied by a remarkable collection of black and white photographs highlighting Weller Brothers production.

Softbound, 132 illustrations, 10.25”x8.5”, 128 pages