A professional car is loosely defined as a vehicle based on a special long wheelbase commercial chassis and sometimes, though rarely, on modified passenger car chassis, for use as a

hearse A hearse is a large vehicle, originally a horse carriage but later with the introduction of motor vehicles, a car, used to carry the body of a deceased person in a coffin at a funeral, wake, or memorial service. They range from deliberately ano ...

flower car A flower car is a type of vehicle used in the funeral industry of the United States, frequently under the Cadillac brand.https://www.hemmings.com/stories/article/you-dont-bring-me-flowers/amp It is used to carry flowers for the burial service, or ...

, service car,

ambulance An ambulance is a medically equipped vehicle which transports patients to treatment facilities, such as hospitals. Typically, out-of-hospital medical care is provided to the patient during the transport. Ambulances are used to respond to medi ...

limousines A limousine ( or ), or limo () for short, is a large, chauffeur-driven luxury vehicle with a partition between the driver compartment and the passenger compartment. A very long wheelbase luxury sedan (with more than four doors) driven by a prof ...

or for a combination of purposes (e.g. combination hearse-ambulances, sedan-ambulances or invalid coaches). The term is mostly used in the United States. Until the 1980s, there were many

coachbuilder A coachbuilder or body-maker is someone who manufactures bodies for passenger-carrying vehicles.Construction has always been a skilled trade requiring a relatively lightweight product with sufficient strength. The manufacture of necessarily ...

s in the United States that produced professional cars. The cars were built on long-wheelbase versions of American full-size chassis, such as the 1931–1976

Cadillac Commercial Chassis The Cadillac Commercial Chassis is a chassis that was built by the Cadillac division of General Motors. Produced from 1931 to 1979, the Commercial Chassis was constructed as an incomplete vehicle intended for use by coachbuilders for final asse ...

, 1937–1954

Packard 180 The Packard Custom Super Eight One-Eighty was introduced for the 1940 model year (18th series) by the Packard Motor Car Company to replace the discontinued Packard Twelve as their top-of-the-line luxury model. The car was derived from the Packar ...

and 1965–1975

Oldsmobile 98 The Oldsmobile 98 (spelled Ninety-Eight from 1952 to 1991, and Ninety Eight from 1992 to 1996) is the full-size flagship model of Oldsmobile that was produced from 1940 until 1942, and then from 1946 to 1996. The name – reflecting a "Series ...

. Since the 1970s, ambulances began to provide increasing levels of on-scene care, which required more equipment to be transported and therefore larger vehicles. It was no longer feasible for ambulances to be based on passenger car chassis, therefore the use of professional cars as ambulances declined. The downsizing of American full-size passenger cars to smaller chassis from 1977 also reduced the feasibility of professional cars.

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See also