June 4, 2015 • 43 mins
No question about it: Elvis Presley was an American -- heck, an international -- icon. Tens of thousands of people attended his funeral, and for years his fans tried (in vain) to figure out what happened to his hearse. Luckily, Scott and Ben tracked down the answer.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from house stuff Works dot Com. I'd welcome
to car stuff. I'm Scott and I've been as always.
Scott and I are joined by our super producer, Noel
the hound Dog Brown and most important to you, which
makes that car stuff. And I'm wearing my blue suede
(00:23):
shoes too. You are wearing your blue suede shoes. Now
that's not an everyday thing for you, right, Scott? In
a special occasion, definitely a special occasion church here, maybe
a birthday party, sure, like at a nice J C. Pennies.
You know, I don't know if I have you ever
ever seen anybody in blue suede shoes? I have, but
(00:43):
you know I'm from Tennessee, so I have to match, right. Yeah.
I have seen some people, uh, wearing some blue suede
shoes before. I have yet to see somebody in an
all blue suede outfit, though I am sure those exist.
Is likely out there somewhere. Yes, and I have been
to Graceland as a wee tyke that I don't remember
too much of it, really, Okay? That okay, You've answered
(01:06):
one of my questions. I was gonna ask you real, yeah,
I was gonna ask you if you ever been there,
because I've never ventured over there now, you know, I
wonder what it would be like going back as an adult,
because you know, so many things that you do when
you're a kid seem entirely different when you're an adult,
from watching a film to visiting a theme park or memorial. Sure,
(01:27):
you probably had you couldn't really grasp what you were
looking at there. You couldn't understand what you were seeing.
Probably if you're really really young. I don't know how
what age you were. I mean nineteen it was. How
how old do you think you were? Just roughly well, gosh,
we moved up. We moved around the age of eight,
so I was younger than eight, and it's probably maybe
(01:48):
six seven. But the thing there is, when you're a kid,
if your parents are taking you to museums or places
where figures of note used to live, and one of
the first things that you notice and remember about the
place is that it's just like a house with a
bunch of velvet ropes that you can't cross. Sure, and
you weren't like you weren't really looking to see. Uh,
(02:10):
just what makes up the jungle room, or or how
opulent the bathroom was there, or anything like that. Right,
I wasn't walking with a guy booking hands going interesting
at seven whatever? Okay, I get it. I probably shouldn't
take another visit back and just and see what you think. Hey,
you should you should go to while we're on the way.
We can make a road trip of it. Definitely, it
seems like it's close enough to us that we could
(02:32):
do that. I think so. By now, ladies and gentlemen,
if you haven't read the title of this podcast, and
why would you spoil the fun? Uh, you may think
you know what our episode is going to be about today,
but I'm not sure you know. I think this is
this is kind of a left field one for us,
you know what. I'll be honest. You can read the title.
There's so there's other stuff going on in this story.
(02:52):
As always, it seems like recently when we've been you know,
kind of researching a topic, digging up some information. Uh,
it just takes us in so many different direct and um,
and the focus of this one really is whatever became
of Elvis Presley's first That's that's Truely, We're gonna get
to it I promise you we we have the definitive answer.
We know what happened to it, but we're not gonna
get to it straight away, not right away, as as
(03:13):
is our typical routine here. I guess because we've got
a lot of information. I think, where do you want
to start with all this? Because I've got a couple
of sidebars that I think are pretty interesting. Um there's
some speculation about what happened that I want to talk
about just before we tell you what actually happened to it,
which again, we do have the answer. Yeah, we do
have the true answer. And um man, maybe we should
just kind of set the scene because wait, you know,
(03:36):
how about this, Let's let's do something else. Okay, why
is this even important? Why are we been talking about
this today? Because? Um, who really cares? What? You know?
Herst Elvis Presley was was, you know, given his last
ride in? I mean, does it really matter? I mean,
he's he's in there for just a couple of minutes. Oh,
come on, there's a symbolism too, I guess, yeah there is.
But think about I mean, there's gonna be celebrity hearses
(03:57):
all over the place, right, I mean, the chance that
you know some plays out in Hollywood, California has got
a hearse that has carried countless celebrities in it. I
mean likely, it's likely there. I mean I would think
that like the Burbank area, Hollywood Hills, that area. So
what makes this one so special? Why is there so
much injury around this this hearse? And it's got an
(04:18):
interesting tale that goes along with it. Yes, and we
will will start with just a couple of dates, just
to catch everybody up if for some reason you are
not familiar with the person we're talking about. Elvis Pressley
was born in nineteen thirty five. Uh, world famous American
senior actor. You may have heard him at times called
(04:39):
the King of rock and roll or simply the King. Uh.
And if you are from the U s. You definitely
know about him. Heck, I would have a hard time
believing someone doesn't know about him. However, despite his legendary status,
Mr Pressley did pass away in August of nineteen seventy seven,
which is kind of where our story today starts. Yes,
(05:02):
we've already talked about Elvis with his his car collection.
Did some of his eccentricities right? Because he really wasn't
he really was truly eccentric, the way he would just
buy you a cadillact well to do that. And then
he also had other like he would shoot his cars,
and he just he had quite a temper on him.
And it seemed like, like we said, he seems like
a fun guy to know, really, I mean the Shenanigans
(05:24):
that he and his his group would get up, the
kind of guy he could have a beer with. Yeah,
exactly right. I forget the name of his group. I'll
have to remember that as we talk. Yeah, yeah, I'll
think of it as we're as we're going through here.
But yeah, so, so we're talking about nineteen seventy seven
and a particular vehicle and why it's why it's kind
of something that we want to focus on today because
(05:44):
there's there's some lare out there about what happened to it,
and you wouldn't think that would happen, but people try to.
You know, he became such a celebrity, um, you know,
during his life and then even after his his you
know was untimely passing and seven there were you know,
numerous reported Elvis sightings all the way through present day
really well until recently, I guess and on islands or whatever.
(06:08):
And of course all of his uh you know, the memorabilia.
Everything is so um um collectible these days, yeah, and
it wasn't so much in nineteen seventy seven. So the
car that was used to you know, to take him
to the to the graveyard really wasn't anything that anybody
particularly wanted at the time. It was just another car
in the fleet of vehicles that this uh, this funeral
service offered. Um, I don't know where, I don't We're
(06:31):
getting scattered here. Let's start this way. Let's focus on
the car. Let's do that. Okay. So this car at
the time was brand new. It was a white nineteen
seventy seven Miller Meteor Landau traditional Cadillac Hearse. If you
have not heard our earlier episodes that touch on hearses,
please to do, by all means check them out, because
there's some fascinating stuff here. So we've got that. We've
(06:52):
got the hearse right, the one hearse that's a Cadillac
and in white of course, white, of course, of course,
and leading the charge are the leading the procession rather
is a silver Cadillac limousine. But that's not the only
limousine in the entourage. Right, Oh no, this is this
is a huge entourage. And if you haven't seen the
the Elvis Presley funeral, the film footage of this, you
(07:14):
might want to just check out a clip of it,
because it's pretty impressive. Really, sixteen white Cadillac limousines carrying mourners,
uh you know, to the cemetery from uh you know,
the ceremony that happened to Graceland, um down the street
and and their mourners lining the pathway the entire way.
We're talking eighty thousand people that line the streets. Thousands.
(07:35):
I mean, that's unbelievable. This is what a big deal
this was. I mean, he was a huge pop star
at the time, and I would I would say that
I think in the time, just after his death even
became more popular. I think, Um, it seems that way.
But again, eighty thousand people um the line this this
final route I guess, you know, from Graceland to to
the place called the Forest Hill Cemetery in Memphis, and um, okay,
(07:58):
here's here's how how enormous the ceremony was. I guess. Um, now,
they had to remove all those flowers that were at
Graceland and bring them with them to the cemetery for
the second part of the ceremony. It took one hundred
vans five hours to move the flowers, the flowers alone
from Graceland to the to the cemetery and the CEO
(08:20):
of ftd Um, I forget the guy's name. I think
it was Bud something, Bud Lepinski, I think it was. Um.
He flew to Memphis to personally handle what they called
the flower problem that was going on there. Yeah, amazing,
So this is a really big deal. I mean a
lot of people turned out. Um um. It was just
a uh a well covered news story at the time. Right,
(08:42):
people that that's a larger funeral attendance than some members
of royalty have. Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah, And
this is just people that just showed up and they
weren't really invited to the ceremony or anything. It was
just people that lined the street as the procession procession
went past. And uh, you know, there's so much that
(09:02):
goes on around this whole thing. There's uh, um, vigils
being held at the Graceland. Sure, there's of course, you know,
some people are let into view Elvis's body while he's there. Uh,
there's a lot going on around the death of Elvis,
and it all happens within about two or three days
again mid August of nineteen seventy seven. Right, that viewing
stuff was primarily for celebrities like the Kennedy's or James Brown. However,
(09:28):
interesting fact here, the the police department actually had a
code specifically for Elvis sightings. Right, They had like a
one hundred for um, homicide or two hundred for something else,
and three hundred was the code for an Elvis side range,
isn't it now. They did allow some of the just
general populace to come in and see him as well,
(09:48):
but very limited. I think. You know, people were lined
up for so long that you know, if you were
not right there when the gates open, you probably didn't
get in to see them see him. Rather, um, what
is a strange thing to do though? I mean, to
be there and then to suddenly at the gates open
and you're invited in for a viewing of of your right,
that's exactly right. So I think there's one thing, there's
(10:09):
a sidebar here that we need to talk about before
we get much farther. And um, maybe to tell me
which one you want to hear. First, there's a there's
an interesting story that goes along with the vigil that
evening the evening of the funeral. There's also a sidebar
that has to do with other horses that have kind
of been in the news recently. Let's do the vigil
first and then the other horses. Okay, let's do that.
(10:31):
So we'll talk about the vigil first, um, and then
we'll go onto some of these other horses that have
kind of been the news recently. I think it's worthwhile mentioning. Alright,
So this is a kind of a strange bit of
history that is often ignored when we're talking about the
vigil and a huge gathering of people outside the gates
of Graceland the night of the of the funeral. Oh yeah,
that's right. Hundreds of people, right, I think they're like
(10:53):
three hundred or so, depending on where you read, uh
the you know, the accounts go from like I think
two fifty or something like that. But the hundreds of
people holding an all night vigil in front of the
you know, Elvis's mansion there Graceland. And this is in
how what's this would be August I believe at eighteenth
(11:13):
in the nineteen seventy seven and among the mourners were
three um individuals that we're talking about right now. Alice
over to her, Juanita Johnson and uh and Tammy Bater
and they were aged nineteen, nineteen and seventeen, respectively. And
uh so they're outside the gate there and they're talking
with us in policemen, I think some you know, local authorities,
(11:34):
and they hear some screeching tires behind them, and someone
just plows right into the crowd, going like fifty miles
per hour something in a in a nineteen sixty three
white Ford. Um, Now, this is crazy. The guy, um
it was apparently driving south on Elvis Presley Boulevard, but
he turned off onto into some lots on the right,
(11:54):
and he turned back around and to head north and
drove straight into the crowd intentionally. Now they found out
this guy was drunk eventually, because he tried to run
from the police about a block later, but he struck
two two of them. Alice and Juanita both died on
the scene and Tammy Uh lived. She was this is
a horrible bend. She was drug underneath the car for
like a block, but lives. She's she's the one who survived.
(12:17):
And the reason I'm telling you all this is because
this this story takes another twist as well. So she
survived this and was in a coma for like three
weeks and had brain surgery and all kinds of stuff
like this happened to her, bad bad stuff. When she
wakes up from the coma, Uh, there's a guy there
who Um, a guy on the phone. Brother. His name
(12:37):
is um Donald Batty, Donald Donald Beatty. Now Donald Beatty
is important because the night of that accident, there was
a sort of famous photo that was taken and he
is one of the first responders on the scene. There
he's helping her out. Now it's Tammy laying on the ground.
It's not too graphic or anything. He's laying on there
on the ground and he is I believe he's touching
(12:58):
her knee. And there's another good samaritan who's there helping her,
but he's closer up by her head, you know, he's
talking to her. And all right, So again she wakes
up and Beatty is there. He's on the phone. Um,
and I guess she said, he just kept calling me,
kept pestering me, she said, So I'm reading this news
story what happened later and this this is where it
takes another twist. Um. So she had undergone brand surgery,
(13:19):
you know, all this other stuff, and and she accepted
Beatty's invitation to come and visit her because you know,
he had helped her out at the scene. So she
said it reorse but um along with some other family
members from Arizona, and she said it was a mistake.
Now looking back, I wasn't thinking clearly, um My. Um,
the guy he starts to almost harass her over you know,
(13:40):
at the hospital. Well she's still at the hospital. And afterwards,
and he goes so far as to follow her from
like where where she lives. He follows her from city
to city. So you know, the accident happened in Tennessee.
She lived in Arizona, I guess, with with family. Um
or maybe she was she lived in Missouri, I guess,
but she had been in Arizona to stay with family.
Then she moved back to um, Missouri, her home, and
(14:04):
then he went with her. He moved back with her, Um,
you know, not with her, but near her. And then
she moved to Indiana. And then he moved to Indiana.
And yeah, they said, okay, that the the finally the
family got together and said, no, we're buying you a
one way ticket. And they did. They bought this guy
one way ticket to air back to Arizona. And they
thought that was the end of his this twisted romantic pursuit.
(14:25):
As they and he was saying things to her like
and the reason that they were upset was not only
the following her and stalking her. Um, he's saying things like,
you know, you should marry me, you had in fact,
you really should marry me after what I did for
you at the accident scene. He's saying like, you owe me,
you owe me your life. Yeah, that's kind of what
he's saying. Right. So, so as as she improves, as
(14:48):
her condition improves, uh, she realizes that his only role
in assisting her at the crime scene was he he
like knelt by her and I think he put his
hand on her knee. The other guy was the one
who really helped her out. He was just there. He
even he just happened to be there. So she realized
that he didn't necessarily help. And then when he moved
back to Arizona, you know, the family gave him this
(15:08):
this trip back to Arizona, and I promised we're getting
back to her a minute. But um, this is all
car related, right somehow? Um So, a guy claiming to
be a U. S. Marshall shows up at her home
and asked her to sign a petition asking the Arizona
governor to pardon Batty. Now she doesn't know anything about this,
and she says, well, no, I'm not going to sign that.
(15:29):
I don't know for what. For what. He has been
arrested for murder in Arizona like a thirteen year old girl.
And so this is a bad guy. And she said,
when I think about this now, like the stocking that
went on after this this whole thing happened, Um, he
could have flipped at any minute. He could have you know,
flipped the switch and and overpowered me. It could have
been over for me as well. Um. So she narrowly
(15:50):
escaped that. I think her family did a good job,
you know, realizing what was going on there. But this
guy was on death row and he was actually put
to death for that murder in Arizona shortly after you know,
he had been involved with uh with um Tammy Bader
talked about Double Jeopardy. She was dragged under the car
for a block and then I guess spent the next
(16:10):
what months years after that, years on the run from
this guy. I think the murder happened in eight four,
so that was seven years later. So she spent about
seven years being harassed by him and then kind of
out of touch with him for a long long time.
And of course he was in prison on death row.
And not to be not to be flippant, but it
does remind me of one of those, uh, one of
those famous quotes the police director E. Winslow Chapman at
(16:34):
the time of the at the time of Elvis's funeral
and death, said, uh, I'm afraid we're gonna have people
trying to get into the mall's limb tomorrow and the
day after that and the day after that. There's nothing
like an Elvis fan. And he was saying this in
the context of multiple strange behaviors by fans of Pressley
(16:55):
after after Pressley passed on and was interred um, including
you know, people getting drunk and running up shirtless or
even new to try to vault over the gates of
Graceland or to break into the tomb. One interesting thing
about the sidebar there with the with the drunk driver
at the funeral is It reminds me of a novel
(17:17):
recently recently published by Stephen King, who I know is
not for everybody, but he has some good car related
horror stories, and he had this one that came out
recently called Mr. Mercedes, which is more like a detective
crime book than it is horror. There's nothing supernatural really
in it, uh as far as I know, but in
(17:38):
that in that story, Mr Mercedes is the name of
a killer who drives through a procession of people. Yeah,
it just seems like and I just mentioned that in
case somebody's interested in reading some detective fiction. But Christine,
you could read Christine. I mean you could read Christine.
There's also from a Buick eight, which is another evil
(17:59):
car thing, but not quite the same. They're different kinds
of evil cars. It's just strange how surreal the entire
situation was surrounding Elvis's hearse. And I know that was
a little bit off track there, but I found it
so interesting that all that was going on, and then
as I just found this little bit of you know,
like a side note typically and in the in the
story of like what happened that evening, and then it
(18:21):
goes on to this tale that lasts all the way
up until um, what year was at two thousand and eleven,
I think when he was finally put to death. Of
this guy, so it was like twenty seven years later,
very very strange. So let's let's talk before we get
into the speculation and again the definitive answer to the
mystery of Elvis's hearse. It's time for a word from
our sponsor and we are back. Uh, let's talk about
(18:46):
some of those other celebrity hers. And now there's other
celebrity hearses that have been on the news, and it
doesn't happen too often, but this does happen. Um. In
two thousand eleven in North Carolina, man sold the hearse
that was used for Dale Earnhardt's seniors funeral. He's old
on Craigslist for eight thousand, eight hundred dollars UM, and
I think he said he immediately regretted the decision to
get rid of it. Um. The it was a nineteen
(19:09):
The car itself was a nineteen nineties six Lincoln Town car.
Hearse UM had a hundred and fifteen thousand, one hundred
fourteen miles in the odometer as as they said it
in his Gelatanic article. And the new owner almost immediately
tried to sell it honey Bay for one point five
million dollars. So he buys it for you know, eight thousand,
eight hundred bucks. He puts it on eBay immediately for
(19:31):
one and a half million dollars. It did not sell. No,
he didn't sell. And if it did sell, it didn't
sell for one and a half million. I'll tell you that, um.
And then there was also this, Now that was the
real deal. That was that was the one that really
was used in that funeral, But there was a fake
JFK funeral hearse that was also put on eBay for
one and a half million dollars as well another one
that failed to sell. But see see what I mean
(19:53):
here that this is like this, This is kind of
a big business. I guess if you have something like this,
you could make quite a bit of money. Not a
million and a half as no one's paying that obviously,
But if you attach a famous name to a vehicle,
oftentimes that vehicles sell for a lot more. I mean,
celebrity owned cars sell for a lot more money than
a car of the same make and model. Absolutely in
better condition. Yeah, exactly right. And so you know this, uh,
(20:15):
this JFK. Funeral Hurst that you can look up the
story about that, you know, the fake and how somebody
faked it. Um. Also you know, this reminded me of
them the hot Rod Hurst that we talked about recently,
the nineteen sixty seven Boothill Express. You remember that one,
which that was at the Peterson Museum in the in
the basement, and that one. The reason that one is
maybe famous, I guess, but more for one they made
(20:36):
it into a hot rod, which is are but it
was supposed to have carried a James Gang member to
the Boothhill Graveyard in Tuston, Arizona. The guy's name was
Bob Younger allegedly allegedly. Yeah, that's right. And see it
adds value to it though. That's why that hers stands
out in people's mind as being somewhat historically significant. Yeah
and if okay, so I'm gonna be maybe a little
bit abstract here, but one thing that's interesting at least
(21:00):
us about society today here in the West where we
live is that the role that once upon a time
would have been taken up by you know, heroes of
stories or mythological figures or real life saints, things like that.
Celebrities occupy all those roles at once now and just
the way that saints would have relics or reliquaries. Now
(21:23):
celebrities after they pass away. Um. First off, if they're
famous enough, no one wants to admit that they passed away. Right,
the doesn't the legend go that Elvis Presley, Kurt Cobain, um,
who else, Jimmy Hendrix um and uh Michael Jackson are
all living in a in a time share somewhere some islands,
(21:45):
somewhere remote island. Right. But this, this idea that there's
some sort of um, non tangible spiritual importance to things
that famous people possessed, is kind of crazy because you
start to see the bizarre things that people will do
for them, But then also you start to see the
(22:08):
bizarre stories that tend to coalesce around these things. I've
been thinking this ever since we did our very first
episode on a Cursed Car, which was James Dean's cursed Porsche, right,
and whether or not it was an actual curse. Now
it just full disclosure for everybody I don't know about,
I don't know about you know, but Scott, I know
that you and I aren't really the kind of people
(22:30):
who buy into that stuff, not me, but but it
is interesting nonetheless, especially when we start talking about what
happened to this hearse because speculation ran wild, it did,
and you know that's before we got the true answer,
and which we're getting to. We're gonna the true answer
here in just a minute. But the speculation is kind
of interesting to read and there's some good, you know, opinions,
(22:51):
here's some good thoughts. Uh So some of these uh,
some of these people that wrote into the site, and
I think that um, I gathered the stuff from a
site called Elvis Elvis Cadillacs, and uh, it had some
comments from people I don't know if they were gathered
from elsewhere, you know, these were you know, kind of
uh combined into one article here for for the Elvis
(23:11):
Cadillac site or not. But um some of the comments
from the Professional Car Society members were pretty interesting because
these are people that have a deep interest in hearses
and they know a lot about them, they know how
many of them are out there, really, which is another
factor that we haven't really talked about yet, but we
will get to Um, here's an opinion of a member
by the name of Bernie de Winter. And you know,
(23:33):
first of all, Bernie describes, uh, you know, the the
purse itself, and you know that it was, Um, I
think we talked about it was in the seventies seven
Miller meteor land out traditional Cadillac curse and it was
the first the new downsized Cadillac curses, the new chassis design. UM.
I don't know if the King would like that being
in a smaller caddy. No, it doesn't sound like him anyway.
It's still a big hearse as a huge hearse. Um.
(23:56):
But his opinion, and this is just the generalization of
what he says here. It's a long, long article. But Um,
the cost was the was the big factor in this one.
He says, the hearse itself was not particularly desirable. Uh.
The chassis change led to a higher load floor. Um,
it's something like five or six inches higher than the
previous design. So that meant that you had to lift
(24:16):
the casket the body five or six inches higher, which
is not easy when you're talking about something in the ways,
you know, like nine hundred pounds combined. It's it's very
very difficult. Um. Also the annual demand for cattle. Because
of this change, you know, the annual demand for Cadillac
commercial chassis went from something like two thousand units or
more per year or two about nine hundred units per year. Um.
(24:37):
He says, with all the goofiness of the safety and
pollution standards at the time, new American car prices were
going up constantly at a time when people were used
to moderate consistency from year to year. This is this
is important. We talked about this a lot. There's a
point in our history where things just skyrocketed where um,
you know, it doesn't It didn't seem to keep up
with the standard rate of inflation. It just went it
(24:57):
went up, up, up, up, Like cars just continue to
get more and more expensive because of what they're adding.
So he says, in you know, the cost of new
car prices in general, we're going up. It was causing
sticker shock with the general public. So you can imagine
what that would do to the price of a new
Hearse because it was about thirty thousand dollars for one
of these at the time. They were talking about mid
(25:18):
nineteen seventies and thirty thousand dollar car. I haven't done
the conversion or anything. But that was a lot of
money back then, um, And downsize hearst prices held up
far better on the used vehicle market for far longer
than the older cars did, so it was a comparatively
long time before any downsized horses finally found their way
out of service with the mortuary. So he's saying that
the mortuary probably hung onto this thing for a long time. Again,
(25:41):
this is a speculation about what happened, not really what happened, um.
And he says other factors to consider would be that
in August of nineteen seventy seven, that was the first
major meat of the Professional Car Society and it was
held in Cincinnati, Ohio. And prior to that point, horses
at a car show were really kind of unacceptable. I mean,
they were there, but they were on the outskirts. They
weren't the the featured item. It was seen as kind
(26:03):
of I guess, morbid and undignified. Yeah, and you know, again,
Elvis memorability was not quite as popular back then as
it was now. You know, it wasn't as collectible at
the time. And uh again, grand if this thing held
his value, you know, even years later, people just weren't
gonna pay it, so cost. It keeps coming back to cost.
And there's another one here that mentions UM. Another another
(26:26):
PCs member. His name is Dennis Goth and Dennis mentions
that UM. The Elvis funeral was directed by the Memphis
Funeral Home and SCI, which stands for Service Corporation International
UM the most specific, non vague name. Yeah, I guess,
And I can tell you about se SEI in just
a minute. It's it's pretty interesting company, but they he is.
(26:49):
He says that they're a very large consolidator of funeral
home properties. They own literally thousands and thousands of funeral
homes and cemeteries across the world. I'll tell you numbers
in just a minute. Just how the biggest company is UM.
He says that UM, he thinks his opinion of what
happened here, because before in speculation was that it probably
just got lost in the shoffle. There's so many of
(27:09):
these cars out there, there's nothing really to distinguish this
one from any other person to fleet. And I'll have
an argument against that in just a but UM. He
says that SCI was notorious in those years for keeping
their cars until they fell apart. Now, this was back
in the seventies. Um, he said. Memphis Funeral Home is
a high volume firm, and so they have a lot
of funerals there, and they have quite a fleet of
(27:30):
identical cars. So all these all these horses that we're
talking about, there maybe ten or fifteen or twenty other
cars exactly like it. What what sets us one apart um?
He says, I wonder if after a few years anyone
even remembered which one of those verses actually carried Elvis
to his grave or from the hospital, or from the
funeral home to Graceland. Uh, you know, there's there's other
trips that were made as well, so you know, they
each had their own role, I guess. So that's his
(27:52):
ideas that maybe they maybe it was just lost in
the shuffle, and maybe it could be a barn find
or a junkyard. Yeah, and you would think, well, how
is that possible? How do you lose a hearse in
the shuffle? Well, as I said, you know, this company,
this s c i UM Service Corporation International, is founded
in the nineteen sixty two by a guy named Robert
waltrip and Um in Houston, right, Yeah, in Houston, Houston
(28:14):
Texas and it was it was started with just a
single location. He inherited a funeral home from his family
somewhere in Houston, and he began this, this SCI, which
is the world's largest funeral home and cemetery chain anywhere.
I mean, it's it's enormous. They've they've they've somehow remained
invisible to the public even though they're this large. I mean,
you probably don't know that you have an SCI funeral
(28:37):
home in your city, but you probably do because despite
the innocuous name like Service Corporation International, they could be
selling anything, right. Uh, this company is in almost all
fifty states. They're like forty three states, Um, most of Canada,
there in eight Canadian provinces and Puerto Rico. Yeah, parts
(28:57):
of Australia I think are looking at them as well,
and they're trying to branch out into Britain, France, Mexico,
you mentioned Mexico, Hong Kong, Taiwan. Uh, this is a
big company. It's it's I think it's well over billion
dollars in annual sales. Uh. They handle in America. In
the United States, they handle one in every eleven funerals,
which is quite a bit yeah, all to say that
(29:18):
it is completely feasible, it's completely plausible that they would
have left or lost a single hearse. Yet now they
have fleets of hearses in different cities and they go
from from place to place, and you wouldn't know this, uh,
you know if you're not in the in the business.
I guess and I read about this, you know, in
kind of a trade journal. Um in that they will assume,
(29:41):
like not assume, but I guess they will. They will
appear as if they are part of the small town
funeral home when they go there. They will even go
so far as to change the metal plaques that are
on the vehicle with you know, they slide into a
slot and they have a row after row of these
in different cities. Um, they may have anywhere from you know,
fifth different funeral homes down to just a couple if
(30:02):
it's a small town. But they are. But the idea
is that they're able to be on call for anything
that happens anywhere at any time, and they have a
large staff. Um. It just it helps out. It's it's
a very efficient way to do it. And again you
don't really know that it's happening when they're there. You know,
there's there's little subtle things that you can look for,
like a lapel pin that says s c I um.
But that's about it. And I think only the topics
(30:24):
X where that so you would know that, you know,
those people aren't aren't actually members of that small town
funeral home. Um. So all this leads into the idea
that you know that one hearse that one horse that
carried Elvis could be lost in the shuffle in a
town as big as Memphis, Tennessee, that that seems completely plausible. However,
that is not the case. And now that you have
(30:46):
heard some of the speculation, ladies and gentlemen, we are
going to reveal to you the definitive answer the actual
fate of the nineteen seven Cadillac curse. They carried Vis
Presley to his grave. Yeah. And the thing is that,
you know it was so simple. I mean, this guy
wrote in and said I know exactly what happened because
it was there. I was there. Yeah, I'm the guy,
(31:09):
and uh, it's so straight. I don't know exactly where
this original post came from because it's been it's been
copied several different places, but I found it a place
called uh, it's called find a Death dot Com. And
it just has the interesting history of a lot of celebrities,
you know, the celebrity deaths, and Elvis is one of those,
and this story popped up for that and again as
(31:31):
far as speculations where it went. This is the this
is the real deal, and we we are close to
this place. This place is just down the road from us.
Really the place we're gonna talk about. Um, here's the
story and I'll read it. We can stop any time
to talk if you want. The guy says, my name
is Chuck Houston. I'm president of Houston Brothers, Incorporated, a
funeral car dealer in Marietta, Georgia, and I've been to
(31:52):
this place. I've talked about this place in our previous podcast,
the graveyard of horses in the back, you know the
older ones. Yeah, like, um, alright, so funeral I'm a
funeral car dealer in Marietta, Georgia. Around four I was
the last person to drive the hearst that carried Elvis
to his grave. Our company, then known as Crane S
and S Sales, which my father owned, bought sold least
(32:14):
in traded cars with s C. I so that's the
place I just told you about. That's why that was
this corporation. So he again he bought and traded cars
with him, and he did so for many years. And
he originally sold the new car to s c. I.
So he knew this car personally, he had association with it.
He says, we came back into possession of Elvis's Hearst
when Memphis Funeral Home updated their rolling stock. And there's
(32:38):
a way that they know that in just a moment,
I'll tell you and people people were kind of tracking
which hearst was associated with Elvis. I'll tell you how
that happens. But he said, we were loaning the Hearst
to a funeral home in South Florida until their new
vehicle was ready for delivery. My father was reluctant to
loan the car out. He wanted to hang onto it.
It's the only car he ever wanted to keep in
his fifty years of business. So there's something special about
(32:59):
this one to his father, was a prize purse in
his collection. He says. The funeral home in Florida was
one of the biggest customers and needed a white on
white loner desperately Elvis's hearse happened to be the only
white horse on our on our lot, and another employee myself,
both of us about twenty one at the time. We
were going to drop off the car and then spend
a few days of spring break in Fort Lauderdale. Alright,
(33:21):
so he's taking Elvis's hearst to spring break in Fort
lauder Tell you about a road trip. So they leave
around what seven pm? Yea, seven pm. They're headed towards
Miami on and around ten o'clock says, we ran out
of gas just north of Valdos to Georgia. Amateurs. Yeah,
so that's the extreme southern end of Georgia. And he says,
what what was odd is that a tank of gas
(33:41):
in those days would carry you from Marietta, Georgia to
the Live Oak exit in Florida with gas left in
the tank. Now that's a clue right there, that'll tall you.
So he says that was based on the many, many
cars with my friends and I delivered to the to
the South Florida area and there were early nine so
there are no strangers. Yeah, and let me be clear
that I'm joking when I'm saying amateurs. These guys are
by no means amateurs. Oh no, no, not at all,
(34:03):
um so he So, therefore, we never checked the gas
gates until we were in the vicinity of Live Oak,
and of course they ran out before they got the
live Oak. Yeah, this is all a clue. Here's what's
going on. After running out of gas, we walked about
two miles to the next exit, bought a can and
some gas, and started back up the you know, the
northbound return ramp towards the Elvis hearst. So, after running
out of gas, he says, they walked two miles to
(34:26):
the next exit, and they bought a can and some gasoline.
They started back up the north bound return ramp towards
Elvis's Hearse. But before they got to the highway, sheriff
from Lounge County stopped them, asked him where they were
going and called him a cap right, and so he says,
we gotta go in again and headed for the gas
station to fill her up. We're heading south. We're on
our way. Just as the way station comes into sight,
(34:50):
the engine cuts off. I dropped during the neutrol while
traveling around sixty five miles per hour and turned the
ignition when I did, fire shot out from under the
hood on both sides. I eased her to the shoulder
next to the way station return ramp, and my friend
and I jumped from the hearse as the fire engulfed
the front end of the car. Oh Man, scary. So
(35:11):
there's a tail that's huge fuel lea, that's why it
has to be fire shooting out from both under like
both sides of the hood. Yeah, and it somehow got
in contact with the you know, the hot exhaust and
caused a fire. So and it's over at that moment,
it's over. I mean, it's it's done with at that point,
you're right. My friend and I met at the rear
of the car that they scrambled out and realized all
(35:33):
of our possessions were in the rear of the hearse
and the doors were locked. We couldn't get back into
the front to retrieve the keys. Do the do the
fire having already spread, A truck driver appeared with the
fire extinguisher, but it was just too late. Neither of
us wanted to get close with the fear of that
the hearse would blow up, so we stood stood by
and watched as Elvis's hearst went up in flames. A
fire truck finally arrived and all they could say was
(35:55):
the rear quarter panels, the rear door and bumper. Yeah, man,
that's that's something. So the place called Twin Lakes Towing
picked the hearse up around two o'clock in the morning
and head and carried it to their lot, and the
d O T enforcement officer carried us to the local
Ramada inn. And so we find the rest of the
story here. The next morning, the kids call a cab
(36:16):
over to this Twin Lakes place. They wait for the
record to show up from Marietta. While they're waiting at
the towing company, all this guy can think of, I'll
check to think of as they burned up Elvis's hearse,
and that his dad is going to kill Oh, no, kid,
I mean, this is the this is the only one
in his dad's as he said, his dad's fifty years
of service that he kept, that he wanted to keep,
that he wanted to hang onto, probably for the rest
(36:37):
of his life. Um. So now it's gone. And of
course here is a year old headed down to spring break.
Big big trouble, right, um, But you know, I mean,
clearly it wasn't his fault. Nothing to really happen. I mean,
it was just a mechanical failure, right. Yeah. And uh
again that goes back to, you know, the allegations that
s c I was riding their cars to the grounds. Yep,
I guess so. And he says, to kind of wrap
(36:58):
this up, he says, the remain sat on our back lot,
which is on Highway forty one, which is also called
Cob Parkway, which is where I went and visited that,
as I said, that graveyard of horses. Um. He sat
on the back lot until nine when it was finally
put through a car crusher and hauled off. My friend
and I sat there and watched as it was crushed.
The same guy from the road trip. Yeah, and he says,
(37:19):
and he says, other than the then the hearse was
um identifiable by a number on the lower right hand
side of the rear window. He says, I can't remember
that number at the moment right now, but I want
to say it was number seven. The number, whatever it was,
is visible on some of the footage of Elvis's funeral. Uh,
this is the one. There's one scene in particular where
the hearse is turning left where it's plainly visible. The
(37:39):
number sticker was still on the vehicle the day it
was crushed, so it matched. They knew it matched when
they had it. They knew that it was the one.
And they had also kind of been monitoring this one
because clearly his dad had some kind of um, you know,
association with us. He wanted to keep it, he wanted
to hang onto it. Um Again, he says, out of
the thousands of Hearses that my father has sold over
the years, this one was special. We always said that
(38:00):
Elvis didn't want his first end up in South Florida,
and so it didn't know. That's it, I mean, as
plain as that is. I mean that's what happened. I
mean it was just burned up and that was it.
But this is interesting because I don't know if if
other people along the way of claim to have owned
the hearse that carried Elvis Presley, because you've got to
(38:21):
assume that there's a whole fleet of cars that look
identical to that that came from the Memphis area, from
s c I, and people probably you know, would say, well,
I wonder if this was the one. I wonder if
that was the one. But they knew this one and
apparently it was number seven fleet from from that specific region,
from that specific company, and they again they had uh
(38:41):
not a tight hold on it, but they knew which
one it was, and and he somehow arranged to get
it back, and then this fate befell it. I guess.
So if you're on eBay, friends and neighbors and so
very close to buying what purports to be Elvis Presley's hearst,
be warned to be aware all is not what it seems.
(39:03):
Uh this is this is a very strange episode two
because I was surprised to find all the detective work
that people were doing online to figure out what actually
happened to this, because it seems it seems so strange.
Right in our modern age, where it's super easy to
(39:23):
take a picture of anything and we obsessively document everything,
it's strange to remember that this is one of the
only periods in human history where that ever happened, uh,
the human species, if you look at it as a
whole our track record, we're very good at losing stuff,
not just cars. We've lost cities, civilizations, civilizations. We are
(39:46):
very good at losing things. But but to borrow a
phrase from somewhere else. Now more than ever, it is
possible to find these lost things. Right, So, if you
have any lost vehicle of yesteryear that you'd like us
to look into, or any mysterious disappearances, I'll tell you, guys, honestly,
(40:06):
we love this stuff. Yeah, let me tell you, I
know we we kind of started this podcast off with
some non car stuff or sort of like a tan
gentally related car stuff, but we got around to the
hearse tail and and along the way, when I was
reading about Service Corporation UM International, I'll tell you that
that place is pretty fascinating. And if we dig into
the fleets of vehicles that they own, uh, there might
be something there. I mean, who else owns thousands of
(40:29):
hearses and thousands of limousines and thousands of you know,
suburbans that are intended to carry bodies and things like that.
It's it's a fascinating industry. And when I was reading
about how careful they are about not letting it be
known that they're kind of this this huge, huge corporation
that's running small town funeral homes, and how careful they
are about making sure that the family doesn't know that
(40:50):
that it's very seamless in the way that it's it's done.
Sure fascinating because people don't want to People don't want
to associate the death of a loved one with some
big corporation, right. People want to have, for lack of
a better word, a mom and pop kind of experience,
a personal experience, individual care. Yeah. And if you've seen
(41:11):
that show, oh, what's it called Scott six ft under HBO,
one of that show is about a family that runs
their own family mortuary and our funeral home. And uh,
one of the big antagonistic things is this other company
that wants to take over them in all but name,
and uh, it's it's strange. It's a story that a
(41:31):
lot of people don't know, and I would hazard to
say a lot of people would be interested in hearing
it really is. I mean, I was reading about it
and I had to I had to pull myself away
from that because it was fascinating, but I had to
do more work on the podcast. I had no idea. Yeah, yeah,
it's really fascinating. So if you wanted to dig into
a service corporation international, at some point, we can with
our fleets of vehicles, because I would imagine that upkeep
(41:53):
on stuff like that is is very difficult, tough to
manage all that, and when do you decide to decide
when to pull stuff out of rotation? Right, because if
you think about it, the service requirements for a hearse
are vastly different, right in comparison to something like an
ambulance or trucking fleet. Right, each one of the custom vehicle,
each one, Yeah, every hearse is a custom vehicle, and
(42:16):
they do short stints of service. You're not going to
see a You're not typically going to see a hearse
or a funeral procession driving across the country. But it's
a it's like a work beat. I mean it's in
a in a way, it's a work vehicle. Yeah, lots
of time idling. So I wonder if there's a considerations,
you know what, there's a lot to talk about. Maybe
we should maybe we should let us know what you
(42:39):
think as always, well, maybe enjoyed is not the right word.
But we hope this story fascinated you as much as
it fascinates us, And tell us what you'd like to
hear about in an upcoming episode, especially if you have
a missing car. You'd like us to try to track
down will play detective. You can find us on Facebook
and Twitter. You can check out every episode we've ever
done at car Stuff Show dot um, and you can
(43:01):
email your ideas to us directly. We are car stuff
at how stuff work dot com. For more on this
and thousands of other topics is at how stuff works
dot com. Let us know what you think, send an
email to podcast at how stuff works dot com. M
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from house stuff Works dot Com. I'd welcome
to car stuff. I'm Scott and I've been as always.
Scott and I are joined by our super producer, Noel
the hound Dog Brown and most important to you, which
makes that car stuff. And I'm wearing my blue suede
(00:23):
shoes too. You are wearing your blue suede shoes. Now
that's not an everyday thing for you, right, Scott? In
a special occasion, definitely a special occasion church here, maybe
a birthday party, sure, like at a nice J C. Pennies.
You know, I don't know if I have you ever
ever seen anybody in blue suede shoes? I have, but
(00:43):
you know I'm from Tennessee, so I have to match, right. Yeah.
I have seen some people, uh, wearing some blue suede
shoes before. I have yet to see somebody in an
all blue suede outfit, though I am sure those exist.
Is likely out there somewhere. Yes, and I have been
to Graceland as a wee tyke that I don't remember
too much of it, really, Okay? That okay, You've answered
(01:06):
one of my questions. I was gonna ask you real, yeah,
I was gonna ask you if you ever been there,
because I've never ventured over there now, you know, I
wonder what it would be like going back as an adult,
because you know, so many things that you do when
you're a kid seem entirely different when you're an adult,
from watching a film to visiting a theme park or memorial. Sure,
(01:27):
you probably had you couldn't really grasp what you were
looking at there. You couldn't understand what you were seeing.
Probably if you're really really young. I don't know how
what age you were. I mean nineteen it was. How
how old do you think you were? Just roughly well, gosh,
we moved up. We moved around the age of eight,
so I was younger than eight, and it's probably maybe
(01:48):
six seven. But the thing there is, when you're a kid,
if your parents are taking you to museums or places
where figures of note used to live, and one of
the first things that you notice and remember about the
place is that it's just like a house with a
bunch of velvet ropes that you can't cross. Sure, and
you weren't like you weren't really looking to see. Uh,
(02:10):
just what makes up the jungle room, or or how
opulent the bathroom was there, or anything like that. Right,
I wasn't walking with a guy booking hands going interesting
at seven whatever? Okay, I get it. I probably shouldn't
take another visit back and just and see what you think. Hey,
you should you should go to while we're on the way.
We can make a road trip of it. Definitely, it
seems like it's close enough to us that we could
(02:32):
do that. I think so. By now, ladies and gentlemen,
if you haven't read the title of this podcast, and
why would you spoil the fun? Uh, you may think
you know what our episode is going to be about today,
but I'm not sure you know. I think this is
this is kind of a left field one for us,
you know what. I'll be honest. You can read the title.
There's so there's other stuff going on in this story.
(02:52):
As always, it seems like recently when we've been you know,
kind of researching a topic, digging up some information. Uh,
it just takes us in so many different direct and um,
and the focus of this one really is whatever became
of Elvis Presley's first That's that's Truely, We're gonna get
to it I promise you we we have the definitive answer.
We know what happened to it, but we're not gonna
get to it straight away, not right away, as as
(03:13):
is our typical routine here. I guess because we've got
a lot of information. I think, where do you want
to start with all this? Because I've got a couple
of sidebars that I think are pretty interesting. Um there's
some speculation about what happened that I want to talk
about just before we tell you what actually happened to it,
which again, we do have the answer. Yeah, we do
have the true answer. And um man, maybe we should
just kind of set the scene because wait, you know,
(03:36):
how about this, Let's let's do something else. Okay, why
is this even important? Why are we been talking about
this today? Because? Um, who really cares? What? You know?
Herst Elvis Presley was was, you know, given his last
ride in? I mean, does it really matter? I mean,
he's he's in there for just a couple of minutes. Oh,
come on, there's a symbolism too, I guess, yeah there is.
But think about I mean, there's gonna be celebrity hearses
(03:57):
all over the place, right, I mean, the chance that
you know some plays out in Hollywood, California has got
a hearse that has carried countless celebrities in it. I
mean likely, it's likely there. I mean I would think
that like the Burbank area, Hollywood Hills, that area. So
what makes this one so special? Why is there so
much injury around this this hearse? And it's got an
(04:18):
interesting tale that goes along with it. Yes, and we
will will start with just a couple of dates, just
to catch everybody up if for some reason you are
not familiar with the person we're talking about. Elvis Pressley
was born in nineteen thirty five. Uh, world famous American
senior actor. You may have heard him at times called
(04:39):
the King of rock and roll or simply the King. Uh.
And if you are from the U s. You definitely
know about him. Heck, I would have a hard time
believing someone doesn't know about him. However, despite his legendary status,
Mr Pressley did pass away in August of nineteen seventy seven,
which is kind of where our story today starts. Yes,
(05:02):
we've already talked about Elvis with his his car collection.
Did some of his eccentricities right? Because he really wasn't
he really was truly eccentric, the way he would just
buy you a cadillact well to do that. And then
he also had other like he would shoot his cars,
and he just he had quite a temper on him.
And it seemed like, like we said, he seems like
a fun guy to know, really, I mean the Shenanigans
(05:24):
that he and his his group would get up, the
kind of guy he could have a beer with. Yeah,
exactly right. I forget the name of his group. I'll
have to remember that as we talk. Yeah, yeah, I'll
think of it as we're as we're going through here.
But yeah, so, so we're talking about nineteen seventy seven
and a particular vehicle and why it's why it's kind
of something that we want to focus on today because
(05:44):
there's there's some lare out there about what happened to it,
and you wouldn't think that would happen, but people try to.
You know, he became such a celebrity, um, you know,
during his life and then even after his his you
know was untimely passing and seven there were you know,
numerous reported Elvis sightings all the way through present day
really well until recently, I guess and on islands or whatever.
(06:08):
And of course all of his uh you know, the memorabilia.
Everything is so um um collectible these days, yeah, and
it wasn't so much in nineteen seventy seven. So the
car that was used to you know, to take him
to the to the graveyard really wasn't anything that anybody
particularly wanted at the time. It was just another car
in the fleet of vehicles that this uh, this funeral
service offered. Um, I don't know where, I don't We're
(06:31):
getting scattered here. Let's start this way. Let's focus on
the car. Let's do that. Okay. So this car at
the time was brand new. It was a white nineteen
seventy seven Miller Meteor Landau traditional Cadillac Hearse. If you
have not heard our earlier episodes that touch on hearses,
please to do, by all means check them out, because
there's some fascinating stuff here. So we've got that. We've
(06:52):
got the hearse right, the one hearse that's a Cadillac
and in white of course, white, of course, of course,
and leading the charge are the leading the procession rather
is a silver Cadillac limousine. But that's not the only
limousine in the entourage. Right, Oh no, this is this
is a huge entourage. And if you haven't seen the
the Elvis Presley funeral, the film footage of this, you
(07:14):
might want to just check out a clip of it,
because it's pretty impressive. Really, sixteen white Cadillac limousines carrying mourners,
uh you know, to the cemetery from uh you know,
the ceremony that happened to Graceland, um down the street
and and their mourners lining the pathway the entire way.
We're talking eighty thousand people that line the streets. Thousands.
(07:35):
I mean, that's unbelievable. This is what a big deal
this was. I mean, he was a huge pop star
at the time, and I would I would say that
I think in the time, just after his death even
became more popular. I think, Um, it seems that way.
But again, eighty thousand people um the line this this
final route I guess, you know, from Graceland to to
the place called the Forest Hill Cemetery in Memphis, and um, okay,
(07:58):
here's here's how how enormous the ceremony was. I guess. Um, now,
they had to remove all those flowers that were at
Graceland and bring them with them to the cemetery for
the second part of the ceremony. It took one hundred
vans five hours to move the flowers, the flowers alone
from Graceland to the to the cemetery and the CEO
(08:20):
of ftd Um, I forget the guy's name. I think
it was Bud something, Bud Lepinski, I think it was. Um.
He flew to Memphis to personally handle what they called
the flower problem that was going on there. Yeah, amazing,
So this is a really big deal. I mean a
lot of people turned out. Um um. It was just
a uh a well covered news story at the time. Right,
(08:42):
people that that's a larger funeral attendance than some members
of royalty have. Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah, And
this is just people that just showed up and they
weren't really invited to the ceremony or anything. It was
just people that lined the street as the procession procession
went past. And uh, you know, there's so much that
(09:02):
goes on around this whole thing. There's uh, um, vigils
being held at the Graceland. Sure, there's of course, you know,
some people are let into view Elvis's body while he's there. Uh,
there's a lot going on around the death of Elvis,
and it all happens within about two or three days
again mid August of nineteen seventy seven. Right, that viewing
stuff was primarily for celebrities like the Kennedy's or James Brown. However,
(09:28):
interesting fact here, the the police department actually had a
code specifically for Elvis sightings. Right, They had like a
one hundred for um, homicide or two hundred for something else,
and three hundred was the code for an Elvis side range,
isn't it now. They did allow some of the just
general populace to come in and see him as well,
(09:48):
but very limited. I think. You know, people were lined
up for so long that you know, if you were
not right there when the gates open, you probably didn't
get in to see them see him. Rather, um, what
is a strange thing to do though? I mean, to
be there and then to suddenly at the gates open
and you're invited in for a viewing of of your right,
that's exactly right. So I think there's one thing, there's
(10:09):
a sidebar here that we need to talk about before
we get much farther. And um, maybe to tell me
which one you want to hear. First, there's a there's
an interesting story that goes along with the vigil that
evening the evening of the funeral. There's also a sidebar
that has to do with other horses that have kind
of been in the news recently. Let's do the vigil
first and then the other horses. Okay, let's do that.
(10:31):
So we'll talk about the vigil first, um, and then
we'll go onto some of these other horses that have
kind of been the news recently. I think it's worthwhile mentioning. Alright,
So this is a kind of a strange bit of
history that is often ignored when we're talking about the
vigil and a huge gathering of people outside the gates
of Graceland the night of the of the funeral. Oh yeah,
that's right. Hundreds of people, right, I think they're like
(10:53):
three hundred or so, depending on where you read, uh
the you know, the accounts go from like I think
two fifty or something like that. But the hundreds of
people holding an all night vigil in front of the
you know, Elvis's mansion there Graceland. And this is in
how what's this would be August I believe at eighteenth
(11:13):
in the nineteen seventy seven and among the mourners were
three um individuals that we're talking about right now. Alice
over to her, Juanita Johnson and uh and Tammy Bater
and they were aged nineteen, nineteen and seventeen, respectively. And
uh so they're outside the gate there and they're talking
with us in policemen, I think some you know, local authorities,
(11:34):
and they hear some screeching tires behind them, and someone
just plows right into the crowd, going like fifty miles
per hour something in a in a nineteen sixty three
white Ford. Um, Now, this is crazy. The guy, um
it was apparently driving south on Elvis Presley Boulevard, but
he turned off onto into some lots on the right,
(11:54):
and he turned back around and to head north and
drove straight into the crowd intentionally. Now they found out
this guy was drunk eventually, because he tried to run
from the police about a block later, but he struck
two two of them. Alice and Juanita both died on
the scene and Tammy Uh lived. She was this is
a horrible bend. She was drug underneath the car for
like a block, but lives. She's she's the one who survived.
(12:17):
And the reason I'm telling you all this is because
this this story takes another twist as well. So she
survived this and was in a coma for like three
weeks and had brain surgery and all kinds of stuff
like this happened to her, bad bad stuff. When she
wakes up from the coma, Uh, there's a guy there
who Um, a guy on the phone. Brother. His name
(12:37):
is um Donald Batty, Donald Donald Beatty. Now Donald Beatty
is important because the night of that accident, there was
a sort of famous photo that was taken and he
is one of the first responders on the scene. There
he's helping her out. Now it's Tammy laying on the ground.
It's not too graphic or anything. He's laying on there
on the ground and he is I believe he's touching
(12:58):
her knee. And there's another good samaritan who's there helping her,
but he's closer up by her head, you know, he's
talking to her. And all right, So again she wakes
up and Beatty is there. He's on the phone. Um,
and I guess she said, he just kept calling me,
kept pestering me, she said, So I'm reading this news
story what happened later and this this is where it
takes another twist. Um. So she had undergone brand surgery,
(13:19):
you know, all this other stuff, and and she accepted
Beatty's invitation to come and visit her because you know,
he had helped her out at the scene. So she
said it reorse but um along with some other family
members from Arizona, and she said it was a mistake.
Now looking back, I wasn't thinking clearly, um My. Um,
the guy he starts to almost harass her over you know,
(13:40):
at the hospital. Well she's still at the hospital. And afterwards,
and he goes so far as to follow her from
like where where she lives. He follows her from city
to city. So you know, the accident happened in Tennessee.
She lived in Arizona, I guess, with with family. Um
or maybe she was she lived in Missouri, I guess,
but she had been in Arizona to stay with family.
Then she moved back to um, Missouri, her home, and
(14:04):
then he went with her. He moved back with her, Um,
you know, not with her, but near her. And then
she moved to Indiana. And then he moved to Indiana.
And yeah, they said, okay, that the the finally the
family got together and said, no, we're buying you a
one way ticket. And they did. They bought this guy
one way ticket to air back to Arizona. And they
thought that was the end of his this twisted romantic pursuit.
(14:25):
As they and he was saying things to her like
and the reason that they were upset was not only
the following her and stalking her. Um, he's saying things like,
you know, you should marry me, you had in fact,
you really should marry me after what I did for
you at the accident scene. He's saying like, you owe me,
you owe me your life. Yeah, that's kind of what
he's saying. Right. So, so as as she improves, as
(14:48):
her condition improves, uh, she realizes that his only role
in assisting her at the crime scene was he he
like knelt by her and I think he put his
hand on her knee. The other guy was the one
who really helped her out. He was just there. He
even he just happened to be there. So she realized
that he didn't necessarily help. And then when he moved
back to Arizona, you know, the family gave him this
(15:08):
this trip back to Arizona, and I promised we're getting
back to her a minute. But um, this is all
car related, right somehow? Um So, a guy claiming to
be a U. S. Marshall shows up at her home
and asked her to sign a petition asking the Arizona
governor to pardon Batty. Now she doesn't know anything about this,
and she says, well, no, I'm not going to sign that.
(15:29):
I don't know for what. For what. He has been
arrested for murder in Arizona like a thirteen year old girl.
And so this is a bad guy. And she said,
when I think about this now, like the stocking that
went on after this this whole thing happened, Um, he
could have flipped at any minute. He could have you know,
flipped the switch and and overpowered me. It could have
been over for me as well. Um. So she narrowly
(15:50):
escaped that. I think her family did a good job,
you know, realizing what was going on there. But this
guy was on death row and he was actually put
to death for that murder in Arizona shortly after you know,
he had been involved with uh with um Tammy Bader
talked about Double Jeopardy. She was dragged under the car
for a block and then I guess spent the next
(16:10):
what months years after that, years on the run from
this guy. I think the murder happened in eight four,
so that was seven years later. So she spent about
seven years being harassed by him and then kind of
out of touch with him for a long long time.
And of course he was in prison on death row.
And not to be not to be flippant, but it
does remind me of one of those, uh, one of
those famous quotes the police director E. Winslow Chapman at
(16:34):
the time of the at the time of Elvis's funeral
and death, said, uh, I'm afraid we're gonna have people
trying to get into the mall's limb tomorrow and the
day after that and the day after that. There's nothing
like an Elvis fan. And he was saying this in
the context of multiple strange behaviors by fans of Pressley
(16:55):
after after Pressley passed on and was interred um, including
you know, people getting drunk and running up shirtless or
even new to try to vault over the gates of
Graceland or to break into the tomb. One interesting thing
about the sidebar there with the with the drunk driver
at the funeral is It reminds me of a novel
(17:17):
recently recently published by Stephen King, who I know is
not for everybody, but he has some good car related
horror stories, and he had this one that came out
recently called Mr. Mercedes, which is more like a detective
crime book than it is horror. There's nothing supernatural really
in it, uh as far as I know, but in
(17:38):
that in that story, Mr Mercedes is the name of
a killer who drives through a procession of people. Yeah,
it just seems like and I just mentioned that in
case somebody's interested in reading some detective fiction. But Christine,
you could read Christine. I mean you could read Christine.
There's also from a Buick eight, which is another evil
(17:59):
car thing, but not quite the same. They're different kinds
of evil cars. It's just strange how surreal the entire
situation was surrounding Elvis's hearse. And I know that was
a little bit off track there, but I found it
so interesting that all that was going on, and then
as I just found this little bit of you know,
like a side note typically and in the in the
story of like what happened that evening, and then it
(18:21):
goes on to this tale that lasts all the way
up until um, what year was at two thousand and eleven,
I think when he was finally put to death. Of
this guy, so it was like twenty seven years later,
very very strange. So let's let's talk before we get
into the speculation and again the definitive answer to the
mystery of Elvis's hearse. It's time for a word from
our sponsor and we are back. Uh, let's talk about
(18:46):
some of those other celebrity hers. And now there's other
celebrity hearses that have been on the news, and it
doesn't happen too often, but this does happen. Um. In
two thousand eleven in North Carolina, man sold the hearse
that was used for Dale Earnhardt's seniors funeral. He's old
on Craigslist for eight thousand, eight hundred dollars UM, and
I think he said he immediately regretted the decision to
get rid of it. Um. The it was a nineteen
(19:09):
The car itself was a nineteen nineties six Lincoln Town car.
Hearse UM had a hundred and fifteen thousand, one hundred
fourteen miles in the odometer as as they said it
in his Gelatanic article. And the new owner almost immediately
tried to sell it honey Bay for one point five
million dollars. So he buys it for you know, eight thousand,
eight hundred bucks. He puts it on eBay immediately for
(19:31):
one and a half million dollars. It did not sell. No,
he didn't sell. And if it did sell, it didn't
sell for one and a half million. I'll tell you that, um.
And then there was also this, Now that was the
real deal. That was that was the one that really
was used in that funeral, But there was a fake
JFK funeral hearse that was also put on eBay for
one and a half million dollars as well another one
that failed to sell. But see see what I mean
(19:53):
here that this is like this, This is kind of
a big business. I guess if you have something like this,
you could make quite a bit of money. Not a
million and a half as no one's paying that obviously,
But if you attach a famous name to a vehicle,
oftentimes that vehicles sell for a lot more. I mean,
celebrity owned cars sell for a lot more money than
a car of the same make and model. Absolutely in
better condition. Yeah, exactly right. And so you know this, uh,
(20:15):
this JFK. Funeral Hurst that you can look up the
story about that, you know, the fake and how somebody
faked it. Um. Also you know, this reminded me of
them the hot Rod Hurst that we talked about recently,
the nineteen sixty seven Boothill Express. You remember that one,
which that was at the Peterson Museum in the in
the basement, and that one. The reason that one is
maybe famous, I guess, but more for one they made
(20:36):
it into a hot rod, which is are but it
was supposed to have carried a James Gang member to
the Boothhill Graveyard in Tuston, Arizona. The guy's name was
Bob Younger allegedly allegedly. Yeah, that's right. And see it
adds value to it though. That's why that hers stands
out in people's mind as being somewhat historically significant. Yeah
and if okay, so I'm gonna be maybe a little
bit abstract here, but one thing that's interesting at least
(21:00):
us about society today here in the West where we
live is that the role that once upon a time
would have been taken up by you know, heroes of
stories or mythological figures or real life saints, things like that.
Celebrities occupy all those roles at once now and just
the way that saints would have relics or reliquaries. Now
(21:23):
celebrities after they pass away. Um. First off, if they're
famous enough, no one wants to admit that they passed away. Right,
the doesn't the legend go that Elvis Presley, Kurt Cobain, um,
who else, Jimmy Hendrix um and uh Michael Jackson are
all living in a in a time share somewhere some islands,
(21:45):
somewhere remote island. Right. But this, this idea that there's
some sort of um, non tangible spiritual importance to things
that famous people possessed, is kind of crazy because you
start to see the bizarre things that people will do
for them, But then also you start to see the
(22:08):
bizarre stories that tend to coalesce around these things. I've
been thinking this ever since we did our very first
episode on a Cursed Car, which was James Dean's cursed Porsche, right,
and whether or not it was an actual curse. Now
it just full disclosure for everybody I don't know about,
I don't know about you know, but Scott, I know
that you and I aren't really the kind of people
(22:30):
who buy into that stuff, not me, but but it
is interesting nonetheless, especially when we start talking about what
happened to this hearse because speculation ran wild, it did,
and you know that's before we got the true answer,
and which we're getting to. We're gonna the true answer
here in just a minute. But the speculation is kind
of interesting to read and there's some good, you know, opinions,
(22:51):
here's some good thoughts. Uh So some of these uh,
some of these people that wrote into the site, and
I think that um, I gathered the stuff from a
site called Elvis Elvis Cadillacs, and uh, it had some
comments from people I don't know if they were gathered
from elsewhere, you know, these were you know, kind of
uh combined into one article here for for the Elvis
(23:11):
Cadillac site or not. But um some of the comments
from the Professional Car Society members were pretty interesting because
these are people that have a deep interest in hearses
and they know a lot about them, they know how
many of them are out there, really, which is another
factor that we haven't really talked about yet, but we
will get to Um, here's an opinion of a member
by the name of Bernie de Winter. And you know,
(23:33):
first of all, Bernie describes, uh, you know, the the
purse itself, and you know that it was, Um, I
think we talked about it was in the seventies seven
Miller meteor land out traditional Cadillac curse and it was
the first the new downsized Cadillac curses, the new chassis design. UM.
I don't know if the King would like that being
in a smaller caddy. No, it doesn't sound like him anyway.
It's still a big hearse as a huge hearse. Um.
(23:56):
But his opinion, and this is just the generalization of
what he says here. It's a long, long article. But Um,
the cost was the was the big factor in this one.
He says, the hearse itself was not particularly desirable. Uh.
The chassis change led to a higher load floor. Um,
it's something like five or six inches higher than the
previous design. So that meant that you had to lift
(24:16):
the casket the body five or six inches higher, which
is not easy when you're talking about something in the ways,
you know, like nine hundred pounds combined. It's it's very
very difficult. Um. Also the annual demand for cattle. Because
of this change, you know, the annual demand for Cadillac
commercial chassis went from something like two thousand units or
more per year or two about nine hundred units per year. Um.
(24:37):
He says, with all the goofiness of the safety and
pollution standards at the time, new American car prices were
going up constantly at a time when people were used
to moderate consistency from year to year. This is this
is important. We talked about this a lot. There's a
point in our history where things just skyrocketed where um,
you know, it doesn't It didn't seem to keep up
with the standard rate of inflation. It just went it
(24:57):
went up, up, up, up, Like cars just continue to
get more and more expensive because of what they're adding.
So he says, in you know, the cost of new
car prices in general, we're going up. It was causing
sticker shock with the general public. So you can imagine
what that would do to the price of a new
Hearse because it was about thirty thousand dollars for one
of these at the time. They were talking about mid
(25:18):
nineteen seventies and thirty thousand dollar car. I haven't done
the conversion or anything. But that was a lot of
money back then, um, And downsize hearst prices held up
far better on the used vehicle market for far longer
than the older cars did, so it was a comparatively
long time before any downsized horses finally found their way
out of service with the mortuary. So he's saying that
the mortuary probably hung onto this thing for a long time. Again,
(25:41):
this is a speculation about what happened, not really what happened, um.
And he says other factors to consider would be that
in August of nineteen seventy seven, that was the first
major meat of the Professional Car Society and it was
held in Cincinnati, Ohio. And prior to that point, horses
at a car show were really kind of unacceptable. I mean,
they were there, but they were on the outskirts. They
weren't the the featured item. It was seen as kind
(26:03):
of I guess, morbid and undignified. Yeah, and you know, again,
Elvis memorability was not quite as popular back then as
it was now. You know, it wasn't as collectible at
the time. And uh again, grand if this thing held
his value, you know, even years later, people just weren't
gonna pay it, so cost. It keeps coming back to cost.
And there's another one here that mentions UM. Another another
(26:26):
PCs member. His name is Dennis Goth and Dennis mentions
that UM. The Elvis funeral was directed by the Memphis
Funeral Home and SCI, which stands for Service Corporation International
UM the most specific, non vague name. Yeah, I guess,
And I can tell you about se SEI in just
a minute. It's it's pretty interesting company, but they he is.
(26:49):
He says that they're a very large consolidator of funeral
home properties. They own literally thousands and thousands of funeral
homes and cemeteries across the world. I'll tell you numbers
in just a minute. Just how the biggest company is UM.
He says that UM, he thinks his opinion of what
happened here, because before in speculation was that it probably
just got lost in the shoffle. There's so many of
(27:09):
these cars out there, there's nothing really to distinguish this
one from any other person to fleet. And I'll have
an argument against that in just a but UM. He
says that SCI was notorious in those years for keeping
their cars until they fell apart. Now, this was back
in the seventies. Um, he said. Memphis Funeral Home is
a high volume firm, and so they have a lot
of funerals there, and they have quite a fleet of
(27:30):
identical cars. So all these all these horses that we're
talking about, there maybe ten or fifteen or twenty other
cars exactly like it. What what sets us one apart um?
He says, I wonder if after a few years anyone
even remembered which one of those verses actually carried Elvis
to his grave or from the hospital, or from the
funeral home to Graceland. Uh, you know, there's there's other
trips that were made as well, so you know, they
each had their own role, I guess. So that's his
(27:52):
ideas that maybe they maybe it was just lost in
the shuffle, and maybe it could be a barn find
or a junkyard. Yeah, and you would think, well, how
is that possible? How do you lose a hearse in
the shuffle? Well, as I said, you know, this company,
this s c i UM Service Corporation International, is founded
in the nineteen sixty two by a guy named Robert
waltrip and Um in Houston, right, Yeah, in Houston, Houston
(28:14):
Texas and it was it was started with just a
single location. He inherited a funeral home from his family
somewhere in Houston, and he began this, this SCI, which
is the world's largest funeral home and cemetery chain anywhere.
I mean, it's it's enormous. They've they've they've somehow remained
invisible to the public even though they're this large. I mean,
you probably don't know that you have an SCI funeral
(28:37):
home in your city, but you probably do because despite
the innocuous name like Service Corporation International, they could be
selling anything, right. Uh, this company is in almost all
fifty states. They're like forty three states, Um, most of Canada,
there in eight Canadian provinces and Puerto Rico. Yeah, parts
(28:57):
of Australia I think are looking at them as well,
and they're trying to branch out into Britain, France, Mexico,
you mentioned Mexico, Hong Kong, Taiwan. Uh, this is a
big company. It's it's I think it's well over billion
dollars in annual sales. Uh. They handle in America. In
the United States, they handle one in every eleven funerals,
which is quite a bit yeah, all to say that
(29:18):
it is completely feasible, it's completely plausible that they would
have left or lost a single hearse. Yet now they
have fleets of hearses in different cities and they go
from from place to place, and you wouldn't know this, uh,
you know if you're not in the in the business.
I guess and I read about this, you know, in
kind of a trade journal. Um in that they will assume,
(29:41):
like not assume, but I guess they will. They will
appear as if they are part of the small town
funeral home when they go there. They will even go
so far as to change the metal plaques that are
on the vehicle with you know, they slide into a
slot and they have a row after row of these
in different cities. Um, they may have anywhere from you know,
fifth different funeral homes down to just a couple if
(30:02):
it's a small town. But they are. But the idea
is that they're able to be on call for anything
that happens anywhere at any time, and they have a
large staff. Um. It just it helps out. It's it's
a very efficient way to do it. And again you
don't really know that it's happening when they're there. You know,
there's there's little subtle things that you can look for,
like a lapel pin that says s c I um.
But that's about it. And I think only the topics
(30:24):
X where that so you would know that, you know,
those people aren't aren't actually members of that small town
funeral home. Um. So all this leads into the idea
that you know that one hearse that one horse that
carried Elvis could be lost in the shuffle in a
town as big as Memphis, Tennessee, that that seems completely plausible. However,
that is not the case. And now that you have
(30:46):
heard some of the speculation, ladies and gentlemen, we are
going to reveal to you the definitive answer the actual
fate of the nineteen seven Cadillac curse. They carried Vis
Presley to his grave. Yeah. And the thing is that,
you know it was so simple. I mean, this guy
wrote in and said I know exactly what happened because
it was there. I was there. Yeah, I'm the guy,
(31:09):
and uh, it's so straight. I don't know exactly where
this original post came from because it's been it's been
copied several different places, but I found it a place
called uh, it's called find a Death dot Com. And
it just has the interesting history of a lot of celebrities,
you know, the celebrity deaths, and Elvis is one of those,
and this story popped up for that and again as
(31:31):
far as speculations where it went. This is the this
is the real deal, and we we are close to
this place. This place is just down the road from us.
Really the place we're gonna talk about. Um, here's the
story and I'll read it. We can stop any time
to talk if you want. The guy says, my name
is Chuck Houston. I'm president of Houston Brothers, Incorporated, a
funeral car dealer in Marietta, Georgia, and I've been to
(31:52):
this place. I've talked about this place in our previous podcast,
the graveyard of horses in the back, you know the
older ones. Yeah, like, um, alright, so funeral I'm a
funeral car dealer in Marietta, Georgia. Around four I was
the last person to drive the hearst that carried Elvis
to his grave. Our company, then known as Crane S
and S Sales, which my father owned, bought sold least
(32:14):
in traded cars with s C. I so that's the
place I just told you about. That's why that was
this corporation. So he again he bought and traded cars
with him, and he did so for many years. And
he originally sold the new car to s c. I.
So he knew this car personally, he had association with it.
He says, we came back into possession of Elvis's Hearst
when Memphis Funeral Home updated their rolling stock. And there's
(32:38):
a way that they know that in just a moment,
I'll tell you and people people were kind of tracking
which hearst was associated with Elvis. I'll tell you how
that happens. But he said, we were loaning the Hearst
to a funeral home in South Florida until their new
vehicle was ready for delivery. My father was reluctant to
loan the car out. He wanted to hang onto it.
It's the only car he ever wanted to keep in
his fifty years of business. So there's something special about
(32:59):
this one to his father, was a prize purse in
his collection. He says. The funeral home in Florida was
one of the biggest customers and needed a white on
white loner desperately Elvis's hearse happened to be the only
white horse on our on our lot, and another employee myself,
both of us about twenty one at the time. We
were going to drop off the car and then spend
a few days of spring break in Fort Lauderdale. Alright,
(33:21):
so he's taking Elvis's hearst to spring break in Fort
lauder Tell you about a road trip. So they leave
around what seven pm? Yea, seven pm. They're headed towards
Miami on and around ten o'clock says, we ran out
of gas just north of Valdos to Georgia. Amateurs. Yeah,
so that's the extreme southern end of Georgia. And he says,
what what was odd is that a tank of gas
(33:41):
in those days would carry you from Marietta, Georgia to
the Live Oak exit in Florida with gas left in
the tank. Now that's a clue right there, that'll tall you.
So he says that was based on the many, many
cars with my friends and I delivered to the to
the South Florida area and there were early nine so
there are no strangers. Yeah, and let me be clear
that I'm joking when I'm saying amateurs. These guys are
by no means amateurs. Oh no, no, not at all,
(34:03):
um so he So, therefore, we never checked the gas
gates until we were in the vicinity of Live Oak,
and of course they ran out before they got the
live Oak. Yeah, this is all a clue. Here's what's
going on. After running out of gas, we walked about
two miles to the next exit, bought a can and
some gas, and started back up the you know, the
northbound return ramp towards the Elvis hearst. So, after running
out of gas, he says, they walked two miles to
(34:26):
the next exit, and they bought a can and some gasoline.
They started back up the north bound return ramp towards
Elvis's Hearse. But before they got to the highway, sheriff
from Lounge County stopped them, asked him where they were
going and called him a cap right, and so he says,
we gotta go in again and headed for the gas
station to fill her up. We're heading south. We're on
our way. Just as the way station comes into sight,
(34:50):
the engine cuts off. I dropped during the neutrol while
traveling around sixty five miles per hour and turned the
ignition when I did, fire shot out from under the
hood on both sides. I eased her to the shoulder
next to the way station return ramp, and my friend
and I jumped from the hearse as the fire engulfed
the front end of the car. Oh Man, scary. So
(35:11):
there's a tail that's huge fuel lea, that's why it
has to be fire shooting out from both under like
both sides of the hood. Yeah, and it somehow got
in contact with the you know, the hot exhaust and
caused a fire. So and it's over at that moment,
it's over. I mean, it's it's done with at that point,
you're right. My friend and I met at the rear
of the car that they scrambled out and realized all
(35:33):
of our possessions were in the rear of the hearse
and the doors were locked. We couldn't get back into
the front to retrieve the keys. Do the do the
fire having already spread, A truck driver appeared with the
fire extinguisher, but it was just too late. Neither of
us wanted to get close with the fear of that
the hearse would blow up, so we stood stood by
and watched as Elvis's hearst went up in flames. A
fire truck finally arrived and all they could say was
(35:55):
the rear quarter panels, the rear door and bumper. Yeah, man,
that's that's something. So the place called Twin Lakes Towing
picked the hearse up around two o'clock in the morning
and head and carried it to their lot, and the
d O T enforcement officer carried us to the local
Ramada inn. And so we find the rest of the
story here. The next morning, the kids call a cab
(36:16):
over to this Twin Lakes place. They wait for the
record to show up from Marietta. While they're waiting at
the towing company, all this guy can think of, I'll
check to think of as they burned up Elvis's hearse,
and that his dad is going to kill Oh, no, kid,
I mean, this is the this is the only one
in his dad's as he said, his dad's fifty years
of service that he kept, that he wanted to keep,
that he wanted to hang onto, probably for the rest
(36:37):
of his life. Um. So now it's gone. And of
course here is a year old headed down to spring break.
Big big trouble, right, um, But you know, I mean,
clearly it wasn't his fault. Nothing to really happen. I mean,
it was just a mechanical failure, right. Yeah. And uh
again that goes back to, you know, the allegations that
s c I was riding their cars to the grounds. Yep,
I guess so. And he says, to kind of wrap
(36:58):
this up, he says, the remain sat on our back lot,
which is on Highway forty one, which is also called
Cob Parkway, which is where I went and visited that,
as I said, that graveyard of horses. Um. He sat
on the back lot until nine when it was finally
put through a car crusher and hauled off. My friend
and I sat there and watched as it was crushed.
The same guy from the road trip. Yeah, and he says,
(37:19):
and he says, other than the then the hearse was
um identifiable by a number on the lower right hand
side of the rear window. He says, I can't remember
that number at the moment right now, but I want
to say it was number seven. The number, whatever it was,
is visible on some of the footage of Elvis's funeral. Uh,
this is the one. There's one scene in particular where
the hearse is turning left where it's plainly visible. The
(37:39):
number sticker was still on the vehicle the day it
was crushed, so it matched. They knew it matched when
they had it. They knew that it was the one.
And they had also kind of been monitoring this one
because clearly his dad had some kind of um, you know,
association with us. He wanted to keep it, he wanted
to hang onto it. Um Again, he says, out of
the thousands of Hearses that my father has sold over
the years, this one was special. We always said that
(38:00):
Elvis didn't want his first end up in South Florida,
and so it didn't know. That's it, I mean, as
plain as that is. I mean that's what happened. I
mean it was just burned up and that was it.
But this is interesting because I don't know if if
other people along the way of claim to have owned
the hearse that carried Elvis Presley, because you've got to
(38:21):
assume that there's a whole fleet of cars that look
identical to that that came from the Memphis area, from
s c I, and people probably you know, would say, well,
I wonder if this was the one. I wonder if
that was the one. But they knew this one and
apparently it was number seven fleet from from that specific region,
from that specific company, and they again they had uh
(38:41):
not a tight hold on it, but they knew which
one it was, and and he somehow arranged to get
it back, and then this fate befell it. I guess.
So if you're on eBay, friends and neighbors and so
very close to buying what purports to be Elvis Presley's hearst,
be warned to be aware all is not what it seems.
(39:03):
Uh this is this is a very strange episode two
because I was surprised to find all the detective work
that people were doing online to figure out what actually
happened to this, because it seems it seems so strange.
Right in our modern age, where it's super easy to
(39:23):
take a picture of anything and we obsessively document everything,
it's strange to remember that this is one of the
only periods in human history where that ever happened, uh,
the human species, if you look at it as a
whole our track record, we're very good at losing stuff,
not just cars. We've lost cities, civilizations, civilizations. We are
(39:46):
very good at losing things. But but to borrow a
phrase from somewhere else. Now more than ever, it is
possible to find these lost things. Right, So, if you
have any lost vehicle of yesteryear that you'd like us
to look into, or any mysterious disappearances, I'll tell you, guys, honestly,
(40:06):
we love this stuff. Yeah, let me tell you, I
know we we kind of started this podcast off with
some non car stuff or sort of like a tan
gentally related car stuff, but we got around to the
hearse tail and and along the way, when I was
reading about Service Corporation UM International, I'll tell you that
that place is pretty fascinating. And if we dig into
the fleets of vehicles that they own, uh, there might
be something there. I mean, who else owns thousands of
(40:29):
hearses and thousands of limousines and thousands of you know,
suburbans that are intended to carry bodies and things like that.
It's it's a fascinating industry. And when I was reading
about how careful they are about not letting it be
known that they're kind of this this huge, huge corporation
that's running small town funeral homes, and how careful they
are about making sure that the family doesn't know that
(40:50):
that it's very seamless in the way that it's it's done.
Sure fascinating because people don't want to People don't want
to associate the death of a loved one with some
big corporation, right. People want to have, for lack of
a better word, a mom and pop kind of experience,
a personal experience, individual care. Yeah. And if you've seen
(41:11):
that show, oh, what's it called Scott six ft under HBO,
one of that show is about a family that runs
their own family mortuary and our funeral home. And uh,
one of the big antagonistic things is this other company
that wants to take over them in all but name,
and uh, it's it's strange. It's a story that a
(41:31):
lot of people don't know, and I would hazard to
say a lot of people would be interested in hearing
it really is. I mean, I was reading about it
and I had to I had to pull myself away
from that because it was fascinating, but I had to
do more work on the podcast. I had no idea. Yeah, yeah,
it's really fascinating. So if you wanted to dig into
a service corporation international, at some point, we can with
our fleets of vehicles, because I would imagine that upkeep
(41:53):
on stuff like that is is very difficult, tough to
manage all that, and when do you decide to decide
when to pull stuff out of rotation? Right, because if
you think about it, the service requirements for a hearse
are vastly different, right in comparison to something like an
ambulance or trucking fleet. Right, each one of the custom vehicle,
each one, Yeah, every hearse is a custom vehicle, and
(42:16):
they do short stints of service. You're not going to
see a You're not typically going to see a hearse
or a funeral procession driving across the country. But it's
a it's like a work beat. I mean it's in
a in a way, it's a work vehicle. Yeah, lots
of time idling. So I wonder if there's a considerations,
you know what, there's a lot to talk about. Maybe
we should maybe we should let us know what you
(42:39):
think as always, well, maybe enjoyed is not the right word.
But we hope this story fascinated you as much as
it fascinates us, And tell us what you'd like to
hear about in an upcoming episode, especially if you have
a missing car. You'd like us to try to track
down will play detective. You can find us on Facebook
and Twitter. You can check out every episode we've ever
done at car Stuff Show dot um, and you can
(43:01):
email your ideas to us directly. We are car stuff
at how stuff work dot com. For more on this
and thousands of other topics is at how stuff works
dot com. Let us know what you think, send an
email to podcast at how stuff works dot com. M
CarStuff News
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Scott Benjamin
Ben Bowlin
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