Pinup Pole Show Pinup of the Week: Nik White’s 1963 Superior Coach

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This week’s Pinup Pole Show Pinup of the Week is an ambulance! We’d never seen anything like Nik White's 1963 Superior Coach until it showed at Pinup Pole Show, and as you can see from Shane Karns' photos, my models turned into little kids with this fantastic classic around! Let's have a chat with Nik, the ambulance's owner.


NIK: My name is Nik White, age 31 from Sherman Oaks, California.


TONYA KAY: What kind of classic is your ambulance?

NIK: The ambulance is a 1963 Superior Coach body on a Cadillac chassis. Superior, the company that took the stock Cadillac and cut the frame to extend the wheel base, then built pretty much the entire body onto it. In the case of this 1963 Cadillac, the only parts interchangeable with the passenger car are the hood and front bumper/grille assembly. The glass is taller, the doors and fenders are longer and finding replacement parts is near impossible.


TONYA KAY: What customizations have you done to it?

NIK: Not much customization has been done. It's been more of a restoration effort. When the car came to me, the rear compartment had been gutted to make way for limousine seating which never came to be. I rebuilt the rear floor, medical cabinets, folding attendant seats, etc. Everything else was general mechanics to make sure it stays road worthy.


TONYA KAY: How did your ride come into your life?

NIK: I was working on a friend's recently acquired hearse in her driveway when her neighbor came over to inform us that her boss had an old hearse he was looking to get rid of. We went later that day to check it out. As we pulled up to the house, there was the 1963 Superior Cadillac sitting in the street. It was gold with a black roof, flat tires and broken side glass, but still beautiful. The owner was unable to meet us there but knew we were coming, so his assistant met us there and unlocked the car for us. I asked his assistant how much he was asking for it. She replied, "I think he's giving it to if you'd take care of it". I laughed in disbelief - then she showed me the pink slip, all signed and ready to go!

I couldn't believe it. It took me a few seconds to realize this was actually happening. I went back two days later, aired up the tires, pumped the gas pedal a few times and turned the key. It started right up. Mechanically it needed a bit of tuning, but it was a great canvas to start with. I limped it home from Chatsworth with a bad transmission. That was 11 years ago this past March. The guy I bought it from moved to Vegas shorty after. We became friends on social media and he loves seeing the progress and seeing it at shows being enjoyed, but to this day we still have not met in person.


TONYA KAY: What’s something we don’t know about this car?

NIK: This coach originally served at Bolin-Bryan Funeral home in Zanesville, Ohio. Most people don't know that back in the day, the funeral homes operated the ambulance service as well. Mostly because there was no life saving EMS performed on the way to the hospital, it was just for transportation. The city saved money on buying an ambulance, and the funeral home made money by using the hearse which already allowed someone to lay horizontally on a cot or gurney. This practicality stemmed the birth of the "combination hearse/ambulance," which could perform funeral services and also hold materials to perform general EMS on the way to the hospital. These combos were common until the early 1970's, but eventually died out with the evolution of emergency medical transportation regulations. Also, it was speculated that if a patient wasn't looking good, the funeral home running the ambulance call would take a longer way and wait for the patient to expire because they could make more money on a funeral than an ambulance call. Again, purely speculation.


TONYA KAY: What’s next for the ambulance?

NIK: I finally put a nice coat of paint on it after all these years. The California sun has baked and cracked the front bench seat, so that's the next repair on the agenda. Then, new curtains made of a period correct material to bring it back to a completely mid 1960 appearance. That's about it for this one. Then I can shift my focus to the other coaches I'm currently restoring.


TONYA KAY: Where can we learn more about you and the car both?

NIK: I can be found on Instagram by searching for @Series75 to see what projects I'm working on. You can also check us out on the Coffin Cartel Hearse Club on Facebook.