Someone Turned This Vintage Cadillac Hearse Into An RV Cooler Than Almost Any Camper Van

History is full of creative endeavors from custom RV builders who wanted something that they couldn’t buy from Indiana. Custom RVs have been built out of everything from retired ambulances and airport catering trucks to airplanes and transit buses. The humble hearse is another good pick, and the results from converting one can be spectacular. Check out this 1957 Superior-Cadillac Landaulet Side Servicing Coach that was converted into a camper back in 1968. This gold beauty doesn’t seem that impressive until you pop the doors open, then, it looks cooler than almost any modern camper van. Oh, and yes, it can be yours.

Hearses are deeply underrated platforms for RV conversions. Funeral cars often have curtains built right in and they have nice and flat floors for you to build from. Sure, you can’t stand in a hearse, but you can find these cars all day for little money and often with low mileage. I’ve seen people turn $500 hearses into off-road beasts and they were surprisingly comfortable with little more than an inflatable bed and some basics.

This 1957 Superior-Cadillac Landaulet Side Servicing Coach on Facebook Marketplace would represent the other end of the hearse RV conversion spectrum. It isn’t so much an old hearse with a bed in it, as someone more or less built an entire camper van into this hearse. It’s even more impressive when you realize that this conversion was done 57 years ago and it still looks so good today.

Not Just Hearses

Something that’s pretty neat about this RV conversion is that it’s not too far off from the RVs that Superior Coach itself used to make. Superior Coach is known for its hearses, but its history is far more colorful, including a line of forward-thinking buses, trucks, and even gigantic, high-payload wagons for traveling salesmen.

I’ve written a story about the history of Superior Coach, which you can read about by clicking here. Otherwise, here’s the short version of what you need to know:

Superior’s roots go back over a century to the founding of the Garford Motor Truck Company in 1909 in Elyria, Ohio. Within just a few years, the company was able to score a lucrative contract building trucks for the postal service.

According to the historical archive Coachbuilt, Garford introduced an aluminum-bodied passenger bus lineup in 1923. That year, businessmen from Lima, Ohio, saw the future in these buses and formed the Superior Motor Coach Body Company to construct the bodies for Garford. Two years later, the Henry Ford writes, Garford itself moved to Lima in 1925. There, the company changed its name to Superior Body Company and began a focus on placing its custom bodies on existing platforms.

Superior Coach’s portfolio at that time included buses and trucks, but the company noticed that the professional car industry was taking off. So, that year, the company also added its first hearse to its lineup. All of these vehicles rode on either Studebaker or Cadillac chassis and over time, Superior became one of the first names in school bus, ambulance, and hearse bodies.

What’s fascinating is that at least in two points in history, Superior was also in the RV business. One of those periods was after Superior Coach was acquired by the Sheller-Globe Corporation in 1969. The Sheller-Globe era Superior Coach motorhomes were marketed as being all-steel beasts, but they also didn’t look related to professional cars.

There was also an earlier point in Superior Coach’s history when the company took its professional cars, cut the body off behind the B-pillar, elongated the chassis, added structural reinforcement, and then planted a camper body on top. I have contacted the modern incarnation of Superior Coach and sadly, while the company was able to confirm that it built campers back in the 1950s and 1960s, it could give me no further information. What documentation that Superior might have held onto may have been lost during one of the company’s numerous ownership changes throughout history.

I suppose that’s less important here because this 1957 Superior-Cadillac Landaulet Side Servicing Coach is not an official Superior build. But wow, it looks like it could have been!

This 1957 Superior-Cadillac Landaulet Side Servicing Coach

Located in St Joseph, Michigan is something pretty special. It’s not often that you see a hearse converted to this level and it’s even rarer that you see such an old conversion presenting in such great condition over five decades later. I had to know the story, so I contacted the seller, Debby, to get the scoop on this camper.

She sent me this, via her husband, Scott:

[H]ere is the short version of the story behind the hearse. My father was an electrical engineer and loved to build all kinds of things. This was the second camper he built. The first was on a ’55 Cadillac ambulance cut behind the front doors and a custom-built Class-C type motorhome constructed. Then he purchased the ’57 and discovered the removable door jambs and came up with the idea to build this mini-camper.

As a teenager, I only “assisted” in this build. It was purchased in ’68 and on the road in ’69 as the mini-camper it appears today. Later in its life, I added a new paint job, re-chrome, and white wall tires. On a side note, my wife and I used it on our honeymoon to Florida in 1973. And yes, we are still together.
– Scott and Debby Taylor.

All of this is so awesome. Not only was this hearse the work of a dad crafting something new with his son, but the RV has remained in the family ever since. The Taylors say that the RV has always been garage-stored and wears just 51,000 miles on its odometer. I can see why it looks so good.

The car underneath is a 1957 Cadillac Series 75, which was originally powered by a 365 cubic inch V8 rated for 300 horsepower gross. The Series 75 enjoyed a long run covering most years between 1936 and 1987, serving as a long-wheelbase luxury V8 powerhouse, and a favored platform for builders designing classy limos, funeral cars, and even traveling sales offices.

Professional cars like the ones from Superior had distinct, elevated rooflines compared to the sedans and limos riding on the same donor vehicle. Superior marketed its high roofs as offering plentiful space for bombastic floral displays. Something I’ve always found fascinating is that this roofline was even present in the cab portions of Superior’s early motorhomes.

What makes this particular hearse neat is that it was built as a “Side Servicing Coach.” This setup swaps the typical rear doors for rear-hinged units that latch with the front door at the bottom of the door sill and at the roof. As you can guess, these coaches allowed for caskets to be loaded in from the side doors and advertisements from Superior show that the car would have had a platform to assist with side loading.

This door arrangement also makes for a pretty sweet way to get in and out of the camper. The outside is awesome and all, but the camper bit is what I’m most impressed by. The listing states:

Contains: sink, stove, refrigerator, toilet, sit down bathtub, full size double bed, bucket seats, stereo, air conditioning.

This camper is a triumph of packaging. The center area has the kitchen neatly contained entirely on two counters, and under the sink is a portable toilet. The bathtub, which sprouts out from under the bed, also appears to be quite clever. It has all of the features of a modern camper van but in a far more stylish package.

The price also seems pretty reasonable, or at least is a very reasonable place to start negotiations. The Taylors want $25,000 for their ’57 Caddy camper. If I had such a lump of cash in my bank account and an extra garage to put it in, I think I’d be on my way to Michigan today. Sadly, I’m not nearly that loaded.

This camper probably won’t be for everyone. I know some folks don’t like the idea of sleeping in something that was used to transport dead people. Some folks also want standing room, which is totally fair. But I do think that, at least based on the photos, there was some real creative and quality work done here. This is why custom RVs remain some of my favorites. I have no doubt that whoever buys this will have heads turning at every campground that they stop at.