William Pfeiffer Auto & Carriage Works - Pfeiffer Top & Body Co. - 1880s-1940s - Omaha, Nebraska


    William Pfeiffer Auto & Carriage Works of Omaha, Nebraska was famous for their standardized high-quality low-budget funeral vehicles mounted on chassis of the customer's choosing. Their bodies were known to have built on 4-cylinder Ford Model Ts and 6-cylinder Buick and Dodge Brothers chassis during the Teens and early Twenties.   

Many local carriage makers and truck body constructors furnished bodies for Ford's amazing Models T, and for a number of years the Model T was undoubtedly the most popular professional car chassis in the world. During the late Teens and early Twenties Ford sold over 50,000 chassis annually to thousands of domestic coachbuilders.

During 1915 Model T ambulance production (listed separately from chassis production) exceeded 20,000 units, with most of the production sent to Europe prior to the US's involvement in WWI. This statistic alone makes the Model T the world's most famous professional car chassis, ever.

Throughout the 1920s Pfeiffer continued to offer its budget-conscious mid-west customers the latest body styles mounted on low-priced chassis such as Chevrolet as evidenced by an attractive landau funeral coach which was advertised in 1927.

Pfeiffer converted a number of Plymouth sedans into hearses for local funeral homes in the mid-to-late 1930s. A 1936 Pfeiffer-Plymouth Hearse and a 1939 Pfeiffer-Plymouth Roadking Hearse still exist among the membership of the Plymouth 4&6 Owner's Club.

1890 Omaha directory - Pfeiffer Wm, mfr of carriages, buggies, spring and truck wagons, 2505 Leavenworth and 807 s 28th.

 

    For more information please read:

The Professional Car, Issue # 51, First Quarter 1989

The Professional Car (Quarterly Journal of the Professional Car Society)

Gregg D. Merksamer - Professional Cars: Ambulances, Funeral Cars and Flower Cars

Thomas A. McPherson - American Funeral Cars & Ambulances Since 1900

Carriage Museum of America - Horse-Drawn Funeral Vehicles: 19th Century Funerals

Carriage Museum of America -  Horse Drawn - Military, Civilian, Veterinary - Ambulances

Gunter-Michael Koch - Bestattungswagen im Wandel der Zeit

Walt McCall & Tom McPherson - Classic American Ambulances 1900-1979: Photo Archive

Walt McCall & Tom McPherson - Classic American Funeral Vehicles 1900-1980 Photo Archive

Walter M. P. McCall - The American Ambulance 1900-2002

Walter M.P. McCall - American Funeral Vehicles 1883-2003

Michael L. Bromley & Tom Mazza - Stretching It: The Story of the Limousine

Richard J. Conjalka - Classic American Limousines: 1955 Through 2000 Photo Archive

Richard J. Conjalka - Stretch Limousines 1928-2001 Photo Archive

Thomas A. McPherson - Eureka: The Eureka Company: a complete history

Thomas A. McPherson - Superior: The complete history

Thomas A. McPherson - Flxible: The Complete History

Thomas A. McPherson - Miller-Meteor: The Complete History

Robert R. Ebert  - Flxible: A History of the Bus and the Company

Hearses - Automobile Quarterly Vol 36 No 3

Marian Suman-Hreblay - Dictionary of World Coachbuilders and Car Stylists

Daniel D. Hutchins - Wheels Across America: Carriage Art & Craftsmanship

Marian Suman-Hreblay - Dictionary of World Coachbuilders and Car Stylists

Michael Lamm and Dave Holls - A Century of Automotive Style: 100 Years of American Car Design

Nick Georgano - The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile: Coachbuilding

Marian Suman-Hreblay - Automobile Manufacturers Worldwide Registry

G.N. Georgano & G. Marshall Naul - The Complete Encyclopedia of Commercial Vehicles

Albert Mroz - Illustrated Encyclopedia of American Trucks & Commercial Vehicles

Beverly Rae Kimes & Henry Austin Clark Jr. - Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805-1942

John Gunnell - Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975

James M. Flammang & Ron Kowalke - Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1976-1999

 



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