The clue is on the front fender. If one looks carefully, one can see the name Barnette in script above the trim strip. Guy Barnette and Company was a Memphis, Tennessee, builder of funeral cars and ambulances, one of several such outfits in that city. Gregg Merksamer, the CarPorts Professional Car Consultant, says in his book Professional Cars (Krause Publications, 2004) that the 1949 debut of an inexpensive Streamliner sedan delivery insured that Pontiac would remain the industrys most popular platform for low-cost professional cars. The Barnette Pontiac at the St. Louis auction perhaps began life like this Pontiac ambulance used by the Forestville Volunteer Fire Department in Prince Georges County, Maryland.
Some Pontiac sedan delivery conversions were made for combination hearse-and-ambulance purposes, like this eight-cylinder model, carrying both the funereal landau irons and white cross window insignia. Due to its window placement and lack of Barnette script, Gregg thinks this is from another conversion company, probably Memphis neighbors Weller Brothers, although Economy Coach (later Memphis Coach Company) also did Pontiac conversions.
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Economy Coach Co. was one of Memphis' "small 4 (Weller Bros., Barnette/Barnett, Comet/Pinner, and Memphis/Economy Coach)" professional car producers that flourished there in the 1940s-1960s. Located at 2087 York Avenue in Memphis, the firm was run by J.K. Barnett and J.B. Norfleet.
(Economy Coach's general manager J.K. Barnett (no e) is often confused with Guy Barnette who owned Barnette Co, Economy's direct competitor in the Memphis professional car business. However there was no relation between the two men)
In sparsely populated areas of the country funeral directors were usually responsible for a region's ambulance service and Economy specialized in combination coaches specially built built for dual ambulance/funeral service.
Economy manufactured Professional Cars on stretched Chevrolet, Chrysler, Dodge, Ford and Pontiac chassis. In the early 1950s their expensive coaches were built on Chrysler chassis, and their lower-priced models were built on cheaper Chevrolets and Pontiacs.
Economy was a sub-contractor to Meteor Motor Co. of Piqua, Ohio, and built their budget-priced Pontiac coaches from about 1951-1953. An early 1950s Chrysler coach attributed to Meteor was likely built by Economy as well.
General Motors stopped building Pontiac sedan deliveries at the end of the 1953 model year and small professional car builders who used Pontiac chassis were forced to switch to the much more expensive Pontiac station wagons. The additional costs involved eventually forced a number of them out of business.
Economy also built a few flower cars, one was built in 1954 on a long wheelbase Pontiac commercial chassis that featured a curved-glass rear window.
1955 Economy Coaches were all-new and featured very distinctive stamped steel upper door frames and flat commercial side glass. Ambulances were also available with panoramic rear corner windows.
Sometime during 1955, J.B. Norfleet left the firm and J.K. Barnett reorganized the firms as Memphis Coach Co. I have 2 different pictures of the same 1955 Pontiac combination car with commercial glass identified as an Economy Coach in one picture and as a Memphian (the name used by Memphis for their coaches) in the other. The reorganized firm stayed at the same address, 2087 York Avenue. Memphis and closed sometime in 1961.
