What's the catch?

When we combined with Pittsburg Ambulance Corps we wound up with one more ambulance than we needed.

It's the smallest of our four trucks.

A friend of mine drives a late 70s ambulance, re-painted gold, to Winfield every year. I think he gave the County about $300 for it. The gas mileage has to represent at least one deadly sin, but I'd say it's worth it.

It would make a cool Ghostbusters vehicle.

What's the asking price? Our EMS team over at Red Cross might be interested if there is funding for something like that... We have 2 rolling junkyards right now for short BLS x-port at outdoor events. I'll enquirate a bit for you...

It might be a good PR vehicle for a legislator. One of our House members used to drive an old Checkers cab around town when he was here. It got him on the front pages periodically, and for all I know it was a darned reliable car.

Edward, I don't know the price. I think it's probably on the close order of "Make me an offer."

Starts right up, runs fine, but as you'll notice the cot is all the way against the left side of the patient compartment. Our other trucks we have walking room all the way around the stretcher.

BTW, everyone is invited to inform anyone they think might be interested.

Wow, that thing is enormous!

(Okay, okay, you should see what passes for a fire engine on this side of the pond :)

I'm trying to think if there's any illegal cross-country races I could enroll myself and my ambulance in. It would be quite the advantage....

I can't justify it to myself in any way... but it'd be such a perfect race support vehicle...

Does DHS keep track of ambulances? They're one of the best ways to get in and out of secured areas following an incident.

TNH @12: IIRC, at least in Virginia where I once knew about this sort of thing, there are regulations about who's allowed to have red vehicle lights of the sort installed on that truck -- or, basically, exterior red lights of any sort other than taillights. So you couldn't register it for plates without removing the lights, and without the lights it's pretty clearly a no-longer-in-service ambulance.

Or, at least, that would be my not-especially-informed take on why what you seem to be implying wouldn't work.

Wow, that thing is enormous!

Brooks Moses @13: I've seen at least one former ambulance re-outfitted as an electrician's truck. They did remove the outer lights, anything that's reserved for emergency vehicles, and painted over the corps/service name. I'm sure they had plenty of work space inside, though.

It has plenty of 120v 60Hz power outlets inside, and storage space for two large compressed-gas cylinders.

I wonder how people would react to a "Don't laugh -- your daughter might be in here" bumper sticker on an ambulance?

Did it originally have your community's name affixed to the outside in some manner (presumably removable)?

It did have the community's name on the outside, and it was an interesting week removing the words using a combination of plastic blades, a heat gun, and solvents.

Our ambulances are newer than that one, but the stretcher is still against the left wall. I can only get into ambulances on a stretcher, so I don't think it would be a good buy. Newer than my van, but probably harder-used.

Very nostalgic. I rode/drove one on the vollies that looked just like that.

There was a movie called The Ambulance in1990. It starred Eric Roberts as a comic-book artist who's a buddy of Stan Lee.

Josh Baker meets a very special woman, Cheryl, in the streets of New York. Suddenly she collapses, and she's picked up by an ambulance. When Josh wants to visit her in the hospital, it appears that she hasn't been admitted in the hospital. Josh follows the roommate of Cheryl, and she disappears after a ride in the same ambulance. It's up to Josh to solve the secret behind this strange vehicle.

One of Larry Cohen's better efforts, if I remember correctly. Certainlybetter than "Q", which had a winged serpent hiding inide the roof of the Chrysler Building.

One of the things about American stuff is that it tends to feel bigger. Something about it having the same sort of shape, but, mostly, taller.

So that particular ambulance has the general front-end shape of any ordinary motor car, but it isn't.

And, here in the UK, the pattern for large vehicles has been mostly forward-control, with no huge engine sticking out the front, for around sixty years.

OK, perceptions can be misleading. I used to drive a Land Rover, and it intimidated other drivers in car parks, but it took up less ground-space than the current Mini--you just looked down on everything.

If it had Wi-Fi you could probably sell it to some victim of the housing crisis. Or convert it into the Making Light Emergency Mobile Command Centre.

Charlie @#9-

You think that's a huge vehicle, search for pictures of Oshkosh fire-crash-rescue trucks. Large enough to get to any point on an airport within minutes, in spite of any fences that may be in the way.

My kids are quite fond of the nearby ladder truck at Station 5 here in Springfield OH.

I worked as a temp one summer at an ambulance manufacturing company-- I have a deep appreciation for exactly how many nooks and crannies there are in your standard rig.

Already have one, thanks!

No "Your daughter may be inside" bumper sticker, but at one point we did have a "Watch out for moose" bumper sticker.

Or convert it into the Making Light Emergency Mobile Command Centre.

Hey, I was thinking of the same idea for my weblog:-) Just scaled up. Anyone know if there's a surplus Looking Glass in the desert somewheres?

Perfect for mobile command during the Zombie invasion.

Brennen at 3:

My father-in-sin drives a hearse to Winfield with the same idea. Terrible gas mileage, but was cheaper to buy than an RV. It has a lot fewer miles on it than a comparable ambulance. It is just big enough for a bed in the back, with electrical hookups for a fridge (diabetic) and CPAP.

30: why on earth would a hearse have electrical hookup points and a fridge?

Actually, you know what? Don't answer that question.

Worked it out - it's so you can have a Tailgate Irish Wake. Got the corpse, got the cold beer, got power for the band's amplifiers... "hey, let's do the wake right here!"

affreca @ 30:

Is the gentleman in question by any chance Don Shorock?

Ajay @ 32:
More funeral homes should do Tailgate Wakes. It sounds like a lot of fun.

Brennen @ 33:
Yes.

Land Rover Vampire

For some reason, the rear body is light-tight.

Joel, #17: Is it just me, or have the implications of that sticker (in its traditional location on a Pimpmobile) gotten a lot nastier over the past couple of decades? ISTR that I used to think of it as a crass joke implying that your daughter has really awful taste in men; now it pings my "sexual predator" alarm.

affreca @ 34: It's a small internet, I guess. I think Don tends to hang out in slightly less dirty-hippie oriented zones of the festival, but I've run across him and his camera a time or two, and he put together a site for my aforementioned friend with the ambulance.

Lee @ 36: My judgment on that is skewed. From the time that I was a late teenager, several of my female friends, a few years younger, were involved with much-older men that I regarded as sexual predators. There wasn't much I could do about it except, in one or two cases, try to make sure that their families were informed about the sleazebags who were picking them up from school. So my reaction to that possibility is that it isn't new, and my reaction hasn't changed much over the years.

34: actually, it does. You'd need a Designated Mourner to stay sober for the drive back. But otherwise, yes. Get a long-wheelbase 4WD in a suitably sombre colour, coffin in the back, drive out to some beautiful bit of coast, and get the party going.

My Inner Redneck likes the idea.

A local police sergeant (now retired and working on television) has a second business, buying old police cars and ambulances, repainting them for use on movie sets.

I've been watching Criminal Minds on DVD so seeing this instantly made me think "the unsub has an ambulance! That's where he takes them!" etc.

I believe Homer Simpson would want this, too.

Serge @ #22:

Coincidentally, the first movie I ever saw with Eric Roberts in also featured an ambulance. He was the ambulance driver in that one, and got killed by the alien slime monster about a third of the way in.

Paul A @ 42... If Eric Roberts is around, slime can't be oozing too far. (I'll confess I thought he was funny as the Master in that Doctor Who movie.)

A used ambulance would make a really swell planter in the backyard. What a conversation piece!

I want to keep my books in a used bookmobile.

As my library grows, I'll just add more bookmobiles to the driveway.

I run with a local volunteer service in SE Vermont that could use a new rescue truck–ours is an old mid-80s E-350 with a modified pickup bed, about ready to retire. Our offer would depend entirely on how much we can twist the arm of our treasurer, but as vollies we can't afford way too much. It'd be easier if there were a starting point; could you throw out a ballpark asking cost?

It'd be easier if there were a starting point; could you throw out a ballpark asking cost?

I really can't. Write a letter to the address given, and ask.

Si Adam:

Asking $10K.

Alas, my hopes for a winter drive to and fro the northern frontier are dashed. In fact, I got laughed at.

Well, they won't be laughing when I show them the headline that reads, "Si Adams Saves Hundreds of Lives With Used Ambulance!" and remind them that it could have been US saving THOUSANDS of lives (after all, we have more people than Vermont, so the imaginary potential for lives saved is MUCH higher)...

...sigh...

(The actual price is "Any reasonable offer." Which probably means "First person to make an offer." The hospital wants us to get it the heck out of their parking lot.)

Oh, and this job is still open, too.

Here's the ad at Ambulance Trader.

Quasi-comprehensible spam.