Classic car enthusiast installs Bluetooth in 1963 Lincoln Continental
A Detroit classic car enthusiast has installed a state-of-the-art Bluetooth infotainment system with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto in his 1963 Lincoln Continental.
Last week’s “My Favorite Ride” was about a 1990 Ford fire truck that was used as a hearse for a firefighter’s funeral. This week’s column, looking back from 2021, features another unlikely hearse. When I spoke with funeral director Rondale Bryshaver this week, he said about 20 percent of his company’s funerals use 1965 Chevrolets.
When Ed Hollis bought this station wagon in 1960, when it was shiny new, it had only one purpose. That is, when someone dies, they are sent to pick up the body.
“He bought it new in 1960, but I don’t know where he bought it,” said Rondale Bryshaver, the current owner of the Chevrolet Biscayne. He is also the owner, embalmer and funeral director of Hughes-Taylor Funeral Home in Salem, Indiana. “Back then, it was just transportation.”
Over the next few decades, station wagons were driven less and less and didn’t travel very far. This car was permanently parked in 1987. “The car was stored in different garages at different locations, at different times, throughout that time,” Bryshaver said.
And just recently, a new gas tank and radiator were installed, the brakes and fuel lines were replaced, and brand new whitewall tires appeared that looked like they hadn’t been used in over 30 years.
“What happened is, in 2015, we started a funeral home in Beijing,” Bryshaver explained when we spoke this week. “The 2019 Beijing parade was the longest continuous July 4th parade in the country and passed right by a funeral home.
“And when they started driving old cars, I thought, ‘I’ve got to run that station wagon and put it in the parade.’ That day I met a guy named Jeff Martin, he was in the parade, and he said he’d restore it for me.”
Shortly thereafter, Martin and his friend retrieved the car and made it roadworthy. It returned to the funeral home in January 2020 and is now playing a new role as a hearse.
“It still has 27,400 miles on it,” Bryshaver said. “The body is in good condition, but it wouldn’t hurt to paint it.” He said a new hearse costs about $130,000, but he invested $3,000 in repairs and tires to get this unique hearse.
In April of this year, 49-year-old Beijing resident Brad Foster passed away. His father was with Martin the day Martin arrived to fix the station wagon.
Foster’s family held a private funeral at Hughes-Taylor Funeral Home and asked if the old Biscayne could be used in place of the 2010 hearse to transport Foster to his final resting place.
It had been a while since this 60-year-old station wagon was used for funeral-related work. “I used it about 15 times in 2020,” Bryshaver said. “There is no additional charge, but if a family wants to use a car for their loved one, we will provide one.”
Last week’s “My Favorite Ride” column — which, by the way, was a 1961 Chevrolet that became part of a mud bank along Jack’s Defeat Creek in Ellettsville — is this week’s feature.
That’s because the pillar of a rusted Chevrolet sunk in a creek was cut out of paper and given to Bryshaver in Salem through his wife’s father and brother-in-law, with whom he once oversaw three Hughes-Taylor funeral homes.
“Thanks to that column, I finally got to talk about this car,” he said.
Want to talk about cars and trucks? Contact My Favorite Ride reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com or 812-318-5967.
