A funeral is a ceremony connected with the final disposition of a corpse, such as a burial or cremation, with the attendant observances. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember and respect the dead, from interment, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honour. Customs vary between cultures and religious groups. Funerals have both normative and legal components. Common secular motivations for funerals include mourning the deceased, celebrating their life, and offering support and sympathy to the bereaved; additionally, funerals may have religious aspects that are intended to help the soul of the deceased reach the afterlife, resurrection or reincarnation.
A hearse is a large vehicle, originally a horse carriage but later with the introduction of motor vehicles, a car, used to carry the body of a deceased person in a casket at a funeral, wake, or graveside service. They range from deliberately anonymous vehicles to heavily decorated vehicles.
Minivan is a car classification for vehicles designed to transport passengers in the rear seating row(s), with reconfigurable seats in two or three rows. The equivalent classification in Europe is MPV or M-segment - and are taller than a sedan car, hatchback, SUV or station wagon.
A pickup truck or pickup is a light or medium duty truck that has an enclosed cabin, and a back end made up of a cargo bed that is enclosed by three low walls with no roof. In Australia and New Zealand, both pickups and coupé utilities are called utes, short for utility vehicle. In South Africa, people of all language groups use the term bakkie; a diminutive of Afrikaans: bak, meaning bowl or container.
A van is a type of road vehicle used for transporting goods or people. There is some variation in the scope of the word across the different English-speaking countries. The smallest vans, microvans, are used for transporting either goods or people in tiny quantities. Mini MPVs, compact MPVs, and MPVs are all small vans usually used for transporting people in small quantities. Larger vans with passenger seats are used for institutional purposes, such as transporting students. Larger vans with only front seats are often used for business purposes, to carry goods and equipment. Specially equipped vans are used by television stations as mobile studios. Postal services and courier companies use large step vans to deliver packages.
A woodie is a wood-bodied automobile, that became a popular type of station wagon the bodywork of which is constructed of wood or is styled to resemble wood elements. The appearance of polished wood gave a resemblance to fine wooden furniture and on many occasions the wood theme continued to the dashboard and inner door panels including the rear tailgate.
A flower car is a type of vehicle used in the funeral industry of the United States, frequently under the Cadillac brand. It is used to carry flowers for the burial service, or sometimes to carry the coffin under a bed of flowers. Built on the same commercial chassis as a hearse, the flower car has half-height rear bodywork on the rear similar to a pickup truck bed. The bed contains a liner to hold the flowers, normally built of stainless steel to resist rust. Some flower cars have a raised, flat tonneau cover across the bed at the top, upon which the flowers sit; the center portion sometimes is designed to raise and lower, hydraulically or by hand. If the flower car is designed to carry a casket, it will be stored under the tonneau cover in the space beneath, behind the opening rear gate.
There are many types of car body styles. They vary depending on intended use, market position, location, and the era they were made.
A military funeral is a memorial or burial rite given by a country's military for a soldier, sailor, marine or airman who died in battle, a veteran, or other prominent military figures or heads of state. A military funeral may feature guards of honor, the firing of volley shots as a salute, drumming and other military elements, with a flag draping over the coffin.
The Pontiac Trans Sport is a minivan that was marketed by Pontiac from the 1990 to 1999 model years. The first minivan marketed by the division, the Trans Sport marked the beginning of a wider transition of moving away from sedans and station wagons as family-oriented vehicles. Marketed between the Chevrolet Lumina APV and the Oldsmobile Silhouette took its name from a similar 1986 concept vehicle.
The Cadillac Commercial Chassis is a chassis that was built by the Cadillac division of General Motors. Produced from 1931 to 1979, the Commercial Chassis was constructed as an incomplete vehicle intended for use by coachbuilders for final assembly and fitment of bodywork. Produced on the D platform throughout its entire production, the Commercial Chassis was initially derived from the Series 355, shifting to the Series 75 from 1936 onward. Since 1960 they had a longer wheelbase by 16 cm.
The Wayne Corporation was an American manufacturer of buses and other vehicles under the "Wayne" marque. The corporate headquarters were in Richmond, Indiana, in Wayne County, Indiana. During the middle 20th century, Wayne served as a leading producer of school buses in North America.
GMT is a nomenclature used by General Motors to designate multiple vehicle platforms. In use since the early 1980s, the GMT nomenclature is used for light trucks, full-size SUVs, and vans, along with several medium-duty trucks. With only a few exceptions, nearly all GMT vehicles use body-on-frame construction, along with rear-wheel drive powertrain configurations.
A panel van, also known as a delivery van, blind van, car-derived van or sedan delivery, is a small cargo vehicle with a passenger car chassis, typically with a single front bench seat and no side windows behind the B-pillar. Panel vans are smaller than panel trucks or cargo vans, both of which use body-on-frame truck chassis.
Superior Coach was a coachbuilder in the American automotive industry. Founded in 1909 as the Garford Motor Truck Company, Superior is best known for constructing bodies for professional cars (hearses) and school buses. Following major downturns in both segments in the late 1970s, Superior was liquidated by its parent company in 1980. From 1925 to 1980, the company was based in Lima, Ohio.
A combination car was a vehicle that could serve either as a hearse or as an ambulance, and had the capability of being swapped between those roles without much difficulty. This hybrid usage of the cars reflects an era when funeral homes offered emergency ambulance service in addition to their primary trade, especially in smaller towns and rural areas.
Cutaway van chassis are used by second stage manufacturers for a wide range of completed motor vehicles. Especially popular in the United States, they are usually based upon incomplete vans made by manufacturers such as Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors which are generally equipped with heavier duty components than most of their complete products. To these incomplete vehicles, a second stage manufacturer adds specific equipment and completes the vehicle. Common applications of this type of vehicle design and manufacturing includes small trucks, school buses, recreational vehicles, minibuses, and ambulances. The term "cutaway" can be somewhat of a misnomer in most of the vehicle's context since it refers to truck bodies for heavy-duty commercial-grade applications sharing a common truck chassis.
A chassis cab, also called a cab chassis or half truck, is a type of vehicle construction, often found in medium duty truck commercial vehicles.
A funeral procession is a procession, usually in motor vehicles or by foot, from a funeral home or place of worship to the cemetery or crematorium. In earlier times the deceased was typically carried by male family members on a bier or in a coffin to the final resting place. This practice has shifted over time toward transporting the deceased in a hearse, while family and friends follow in their vehicles. The transition from the procession by foot to procession by car can be attributed to two main factors; the switch to burying or cremating the body at locations far from the funeral site and the introduction of motorized vehicles and public transportation making processions by foot through the street no longer practical.
