This was one of the first things for me as a K 70-newbie 25 years ago: asking a Hearse-registration (not Animatronixx, but he know the other guy), if there were any K 70- or RO 80-based Hearses - no, none.




As Animatronixx told me, this is not the question for several Hearse-coachbuilders. The smaller companies often take used cars and then -because of the lower price- accident cars with a smashed back. Then it doesn't matter, if it's an Estate, Sedan or Hatchback.





Just two of the total 23 NSU-prototypes. Only a handful photos is left over:

http://faimg1.forum-auto.com/mesimages/264762/k70komb2.jpg

http://www.k70-club.de/images/werksfotos/K70-prototyp-kombi-vore.jpg

It had a second bench-seat! The construction was similar to the later Mercedes W123 T-Modell, but the seat-position was te same as in the Peugeot Break.

There were prototypes - Our K70 Expert can tell you more .....

There are plenty of cars that have no wagon version but are/were still common for hearse conversion. Jaguar XJ, Rover 800, Vauxhall Senator and Austin Ambassador/Princess being ones from the top of my head.

A K70 hearse would be hard to make, as there was no K70 Variant...

Some people may wondering, why this hearse

http://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/liveticker-trauerfeier-fuer-richard-von-weizsaecker-berlin-trauert-abschied-vom-altbundespraesidenten/11356498.html

(funeral of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_von_Weizsaecker )

doesn't wear a license plate.

A guy in my plate-forum explanined, that this is a an explicit regulation for a state funeral in Germany. The hearse has to be without license plates and without any lettering of the undertaker.

Interesting. Didn't know that before.

Nice, but I prefered the one based on Saab 9000, looking more like a stretched limousine than a van like this one

It's actually a Granada MkIII, but that's really the same car. As you can see it has a Northern Irish plate. It was recently for sale, but it was sold on 1st of March.

Here's the advertising where I found the photo: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/FORD-GRANADA-HEARSE-AUTO-BANGER-RACING-PRIVATE-PLATE_W0QQitemZ140384248980QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAutomobiles_UK?hash=item20af8da49- 4&afsrc=1

Scorpio MKI. The coachbuilding-style looks British.

In the last "SPIEGEL"-news magazine was a short article about a funeral in Britain (Wales maybe), where they drove around with the hearse (and the coffin inside), with sign "I was killed by smoking", so a kind of anti-smoking campaign. The hearse was based on a Vauxhall Omega.


@Animatronixx: maybe you are interested to enjoy our plate-collector-forum www.pl8s.biz (sorry for the others, it's in German and the most members are, more and less randomly, collectors of German plates), as recently we've opened a thread about hearses. Sure, the main thing for the guys are hearses with old and rare plates. The DDR-vehicle-freak has contributed three pics of funeral-cars from the DDR, an Opel Blitz, an early Barkas and a trailer.

The initial for this thread was a scene in the news, one guy has seen. About a bad crash on the A 24. The victim was transported in a KAD-Opel from the late 60ies with a plate from PCH.
Until now thre are pics of three Volvo 9-Series from HHM, GC and PCH, a trailer from E, a Vito from the town of Nürnberg (authority-plate), a Barkas from RL, A Mercedes W124 from HC, a trailer from PRÜ and a Mercedes W 110 from ERK.

You'd probably already figured it out by now..