The amount and size of equipment that EMT’s are expected to carry has increased significantly since the 1970’s or whenever you last saw a station wagon based ambulance.
What’s also happened is that the automotive manufacturing world has since then universally switched to unibody designs for cars which do not have a traditional frame, and one of the major requirements for making large scale modifications to the back of a vehicle is for it to have a separate frame for you to bolt all your stuff to. You can’t get that anymore. Station wagons are also functionally no longer manufactured (you can argue in the comments if the Outback and the XC70 are still “station wagons” or if they’re just crossovers now) and even so they’re still unibody vehicles, so unsuitable for modification in this way.
The only vehicles left to buy anymore with traditional frames are trucks and (some) SUV’s. The classic platforms we used to have for this have gone away: The Ford Panther platform which was the Crown Victoria, Town Car, Grand Marquis, and basis every cop car and taxi up until the early 2000’s, gone. The Cadillac DeVille and even its successor, the DTS (which was even a unibody, albeit regarded as the strongest one ever), upon which may hearses were based, gone. The GM B Body, the basis of the Caprice, LeSabre, Roadmaster, and others upon which many taxis and so forth were based, gone.
This is why pretty much every stretch limo, police car, hearse, and similar you see these days is built on a full sized body-on-frame SUV or truck. And ambulances have been based on small box truck platforms for quite a while now.
Interesting, although this is a 10+ year old Escalade. So it was probably more unique when it was in its prime. Ford and GM still had those sedans platform back in the late 00’s / early 10’s
As people have gotten heavier, ambulances went from station wagons to vans to heavy duty truck chassis. I imagine hearses will follow the same trend.
That’s not quite it.
The amount and size of equipment that EMT’s are expected to carry has increased significantly since the 1970’s or whenever you last saw a station wagon based ambulance.
What’s also happened is that the automotive manufacturing world has since then universally switched to unibody designs for cars which do not have a traditional frame, and one of the major requirements for making large scale modifications to the back of a vehicle is for it to have a separate frame for you to bolt all your stuff to. You can’t get that anymore. Station wagons are also functionally no longer manufactured (you can argue in the comments if the Outback and the XC70 are still “station wagons” or if they’re just crossovers now) and even so they’re still unibody vehicles, so unsuitable for modification in this way.
The only vehicles left to buy anymore with traditional frames are trucks and (some) SUV’s. The classic platforms we used to have for this have gone away: The Ford Panther platform which was the Crown Victoria, Town Car, Grand Marquis, and basis every cop car and taxi up until the early 2000’s, gone. The Cadillac DeVille and even its successor, the DTS (which was even a unibody, albeit regarded as the strongest one ever), upon which may hearses were based, gone. The GM B Body, the basis of the Caprice, LeSabre, Roadmaster, and others upon which many taxis and so forth were based, gone.
This is why pretty much every stretch limo, police car, hearse, and similar you see these days is built on a full sized body-on-frame SUV or truck. And ambulances have been based on small box truck platforms for quite a while now.
Interesting, although this is a 10+ year old Escalade. So it was probably more unique when it was in its prime. Ford and GM still had those sedans platform back in the late 00’s / early 10’s