Hearse Funeral Vehicle

Hearses were originally horse-drawn, but silent electric motorised carts were introduced as horses began to be phased out as transportation. Examples that were used in Paris were reported in the pages of Scientific American May 1907 and petrol-driven hearses began to be produced from 1909 in the United States. Motorised hearses became more widely accepted in the 1920s. The vast majority of hearses since then have been based on larger, more powerful car chassis, generally retaining the front end up to and possibly including the front doors but with custom bodywork to the rear to contain the coffin. Some early hearses also served as ambulances, owing to the large cargo capacity in the rear of the vehicle. A few cities experimented with funeral trolley cars and/or subway cars to carry both the casket and mourners to cemeteries, but these were not popular.
North America and Europe
Normally more luxurious brands of car are used as a base; the vast majority of hearses in the United States and Canada are Cadillacs and Lincolns. In Europe, Mercedes-Benz, Daimler, Jaguar, Opel, Ford, Vauxhall and Volvo are or were common contemporary bases, and in the past even used Rolls-Royce cars were converted, though their cost is generally considered prohibitive.