By K. Richard Douglas
The concept of the ambulance goes back to 900 AD according to historians, who say that a chariot assumed this role. The first motorized ambulance was put into service in 1899 in Chicago. The gasoline-powered version came along not long afterwards and the first mass-produced ambulance rolled out onto the streets in 1909.
Greg Graves, a biomedical engineering specialist at Texas Children’s Hospital Pavilion For Women, didn’t set out to find an ambulance to restore. It was not even a thought when he came across a gray, elongated vehicle on the website of a classic car dealer. It was sitting in a field behind a Jeep and he knew that it wasn’t a station wagon. He recognized it as a 1957 Chevy and he thought it looked like an ambulance. His quest was originally for a more run-of-the-mill classic Chevy.
“Ever since I was eight years old, I loved 1955 Chevrolets. I scraped together $200 to buy a Bel Air two-door hardtop in 1965, spent all summer getting it running
to go to college, but the Vietnam conflict caused me to serve in the Air Force,” Graves remembers.
“I came back from the Philippines to find my parents had sold the car. All I had was the dream: no car, no money. So life happened and I finally got to a point where I thought I could realize my childhood dream. I was searching for a replacement ’55 and saw this really long gray car in the background of a photo on a site with many old cars.”
Graves kept searching that website for several months and finally saw that long gray car for sale. He debated whether or not to purchase it. Then, it disappeared from the site again.
“I was heartbroken when it went off the site. Two months later it re-appeared on the site; this time painted red and white. Better than that, the price was reduced. My wife encouraged me to take the four-hour trip to at least go see it. Something told me to measure the 20 foot garage before we went. Needless to say, we bought it. At 19 feet 4 inches long, it just fits in the garage.”
Once he bought the old ambulance, reality sunk in. It had been sitting in a field for many years.
“The interior had a bench seat and not much more; not even door panels. It had new paint, but it was done in a hurry without quality body work,” he says.
Among the problems he encountered were broken glass; all the windows except the windshield. The brakes needed replacing, the carburetor leaked and the fuel lines and gas tank were rusted. One bit of luck was that “the motor turned over and sounded good.”
In 1957, ambulances did dual duty: carrying patients and carrying the deceased. Why use two vehicles when one long one will serve both purposes?
During the mid-1950s, there were only about 24 ambulances produced from Chevys. The typical ambulance was a converted Cadillac or Oldsmobile.
Graves nicknamed his restored classic “Amby.”
Bringing Back the Past
Graves went about the process of bringing the old ambulance back to life.
“The drive-train is a 283-cubic-inch V-8 with a 1990 700R4 transmission — replaced when the original automatic transmission gave up the ghost — and a stock ’57 Chevy rear end,” he says.
“We think the motor is not original, but it is still a ’57 Chevy 283 V-8. When I had front end work done, the owner of the shop said there was evidence of front end damage that was excellently repaired,” Graves adds. “The body is all original.”
“My own restoration efforts were to install the driver compartment partition wall as well as replacing the rear floor deck making it ready to carry stretchers or caskets. I used shower paneling to make door panels. Updated front disc brakes were necessary to stop the weight of 5,000 pounds,” he says.
The old ambulance turned out to have an interesting history. Before it landed in a field, it had been called into service for several years.
“My research included reading the cowl tag on the vehicle to determine that it was built in the Chevrolet plant in Norwood, Ohio, in November of 1956,” Graves says. “It is a series A (1512), Model 150.”
Research verified that the Chevy was originally labeled as a two-door utility sedan and began life painted Onyx Black with a black vinyl interior trimmed with black and gray patterned cloth.
“When my wife, Marti, told her sister that we bought an ambulance, she sent a YouTube video of a similar vehicle,” Graves says. “Luckily, the guy’s email was on the video and I was able to contact him. He is a retired EMT in British Columbia, Canada, and he told me that I had one of seven combination vehicles — hearse/ambulance — built at the National Body Manufacturing Company in Knightstown, Ind.”
He also learned that they had extended the frame 30 inches by cutting the vehicle in half behind the front door.
“They custom made a larger back door for ease of access for attendants, thus making the wheelbase a total of 144 inches,” Graves says. “The overall length is 19 feet 4 inches. The base price was $1,850, the conversion cost $1,995.”
A title search through the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles turned up more history.
“They sent me all the owners once the vehicle arrived in Texas. This is how I found out Amby spent 29 years in Fort Irwin, Calif, at the Army National Training Center in the Mojave Desert and has been in Texas since October of 1986. The title surrendered to Texas had it registered as a hearse with 21,123 miles,” Graves explains. “It was even used to deliver furniture for a few years. We think that is how the back windows were cracked. The odometer is not original, so we do not know the exact mileage.”
On the Job
At Texas Children’s Hospital, Graves works in the area of diagnostic imaging and is assigned to ultrasound machines and fetal monitoring in the labor and delivery department.
“I decided to go back to technical school at age 40, after taking care of my father through all stages of throat and oral cancer. I was mechanically inclined and had worked in the petrochemical and machinist industries. I had some electronics experience in down-hole drilling systems,” he says.
“In the late ’80s, I saw the medical field had a need for electronics technology. A counselor told me ‘You are going to be 40 with or without an education,’ so I enrolled in a biomedical electronics technology program,” Graves says. “Good thing I did, that is where I met my current wife. I started this career working on sterilizers as a field service engineer, but have worked in hospitals in three states doing a wide variety of in-house biomedical services. I have been at TCH for 16 years.”
In the meantime, Graves enjoys taking Amby to car shows almost every weekend in the spring and fall and has been in a couple of small-town parades.