A flower car is a type of vehicle

Vehicle

A vehicle is a device that is designed or used to transport people or cargo. Most often vehicles are manufactured, such as bicycles, cars, motorcycles, trains, ships, boats, and aircraft....

 used in the funeral

Funeral

A funeral is a ceremony for celebrating, sanctifying, or remembering the life of a person who has died. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from interment itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor...

 industry, used to carry flowers for the burial service, or sometimes to carry the coffin

Coffin

A coffin is a funerary box used in the display and containment of dead people – either for burial or cremation.Contemporary North American English makes a distinction between "coffin", which is generally understood to denote a funerary box having six sides in plan view, and "casket", which...

 under a bed of flowers. Built on the same commercial chassis

Chassis

A chassis consists of an internal framework that supports a man-made object. It is analogous to an animal's skeleton. An example of a chassis is the underpart of a motor vehicle, consisting of the frame with the wheels and machinery.- Vehicles :In the case of vehicles, the term chassis means the...

 as a hearse

Hearse

A hearse is a funerary vehicle used to carry a coffin from a church or funeral home to a cemetery. In the funeral trade, hearses are often called funeral coaches.-History:...

, the flower car has half-height rear bodywork on the rear similar to a pickup truck

Pickup truck

A pickup truck is a light motor vehicle with an open-top rear cargo area .-Definition:...

 bed. The bed contains a liner to hold the flowers, normally built of stainless steel

Stainless steel

In metallurgy, stainless steel, also known as inox steel or inox from French "inoxydable", is defined as a steel alloy with a minimum of 10.5 or 11% chromium content by mass....

 so that it does not rust from the water. Some flower cars have a raised, flat tonneau cover across the bed at the top, upon which the flowers sit; the center portion sometimes is designed to raise and lower, hydraulically or by hand. If the flower car is designed to carry a casket, it will be stored under the tonneau cover in the space beneath, behind the opening rear gate.

In the early years of the automobile

Automobile

An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...

, open-topped luxury cars were used for this purpose, but as enclosed vehicles became the norm, specially built vehicles began to be used for this purpose from approximately the 1930s onward. Not every funeral provider owned a flower car; they were an added luxury item offered as an extra-cost option for extravagant funerals. The quantities built were low; it is estimated that fewer than a dozen were built each year by each coachbuilder

Coachbuilder

A coachbuilder is a manufacturer of bodies for carriages or automobiles.The trade dates back several centuries. Rippon was active in the time of Queen Elizabeth I, Barker founded in 1710 by an officer in Queen Anne's Guards, Brewster a relative newcomer , formed in 1810. Others in Britain included...

 in the funeral market.

Flower cars are still built and used but in lesser numbers than previously. Old flower cars are considered quite collectible due to their rarity, especially by collectors of hearses and other "professional car

Professional car

A professional car in modern times is an automobile that has been modified with extensive coachwork for service in livery transportation or in funeral home operations...

s".

External links

• Professionalcar.org An enthusiast community specializing in hearses, flower cars, car-based ambulances, limousines. Open to anyone with an interest in these vehicles.