default

"Deine schritte sind so schon-tanzen wir das wiederseh'n...uns're korper sind so heiss-strobofeuer, stolzer scheiss...hier kommt der panzermensch"

This is Abby, my 1964 Olds Ninety Eight Cotner Bevington hearse.

There are a lot of stories associated with this hearse, and I have included a few here, as well as the history

I was driving a 1967 Miller Meteor hearse for the longest time. It was this bitch of a hearse that hated me for some reason. I kid you not, this car loved to break down on me every time it knew it was important for it to be running. Once the M&M broke down while I had spent 2 hours washing and detailing her and another hour and a half getting ready for a club. She broke down as I was leaving the driveway. One year she developed massive electrical problems the day before Halloween, my holy day, and she also decided to break down on the way to Canada for a car meet I had been waiting for all year long.

I was in a local stereo shop returning a stereo that refused to function in my 67 M&M. They were listening to one of those rap stations that plays songs like 'Big Booty Ho's' and "Shake That Azz Around", you know the type. Anyway, there was a commercial where they were talking about their haunted house at a local amusement park. Halfway through, they mention that they are giving away a 1964 Oldsmobile hearse for a raffle at 10:00 PM Halloween night. I decided to go check it out.

The moment we pulled up I knew I had to have her. First of all, she was a full window hearse with all black tinted windows. I had never seen that before, and it was sexy in ways I cannot begin to describe. We were 10 minutes late for the drawing and they informed me that some lady had been picked as the winner. I convinced the people at the park to start her up and let me sit inside of her for a while. While I was sitting inside I wrote a note and stuck it into the dash where I knew the promoters from the station would not see it, but the new owner would. It was an offer to buy the hearse.

Two days later I got a call from a guy named Jesus who told me his mother won the car even though she did not wish to be entered in the contest. They found the note and wanted to sell me the car at an asking price of $4,800. This was back when I was still routinely seeing pristine hearses direct from service selling at less than $2000, so I declined. Later that night he called back.

"Look," I told him "I left the note on the off chance that the winner just wanted to unload the hearse quickly and cheaply. $4,800 is a bit much for me, so I will have to pass. Sorry"

He called back the next 3 days, as did his mother who won it in the first place.

Finally I heard it in her voice when she said "Just come down and take it for a test drive, PLEASE!" I recognized that tone, it was DESPERATION TO SELL!!!

When we drove up, I could see her over half a mile away from the highway. It was a largely Hispanic part of town, and even though there were cars and kids everywhere, there were NONE around my future hearse. She was like a little black plague everyone was hoping would go away.

I went down with me $1,000 tax return at the time and took her out. Being used to Cadillac hearses, I was greatly pleased and surprised at the acceleration on the smaller bodied hearse. The interior was gone. The seat and carpet looked like camel bedding, and all the vinyl was hard and cracked. I drove back to the house and told her I had $1,000 to my name and if she wanted to sell it to me, I would take good care of the hearse.

"Uhm, yeah...can you drive it out of here TONIGHT?"

Less than 10 minutes later I was driving her home. I was shouting at the top of my lungs and flashing the headlights on and off from my ecstatic revelry. People thought I was insane.

These are a few pics of her early times with me. Not much had been done at this point...

The original engine was a 394 High Compression Rocket. The 394 is a good engine, but because of the design, parts were not only hard to find, but performance upgrades were impossible. I wanted a more powerful engine in her, so I decided to find a 455 and drop it in. This is not as easy as it sounds.

I ended up buying an old green 1971 Delta 88 for the engine. I had never seen this car run, but the seller wanted only $100 for the green beast and I figured that at $100 I would at least have a fairly good chance the block was not cracked and could build it from there if necessary. The terms of the sale were that the seller wanted nothing more to do with the Delta and if I wanted it, he would hand me the keys and never see it again, so a test drive was not an option. To my extreme pleasure I started the diner car after 3 tries and drove it home. 4 days later the engine was out and I had the local junkyard tow it away and they even paid me $35 for the car!

Click the above picture to see some restoration pics of Mrs. Abby.

This pic is from when my brake lines burst and I ended up on a church lawn. The irony is, I was on my way to pick up a spare tire for another hearse in the club that had gotten a flat when the brake line failed. There was an Englewood police officer behind me who saw me as I did not brake approaching the intersection, swerved to avoid the cars waiting at the light into oncoming traffic (The only open lane at that point to avoid rear ending anyone) and jumped the curb to their front lawn.

As the officer approached, he yelled "What the hell are you doing!?" to which I threw out my arms and re-assured him "I am not on drugs!!!" Don't ask why, it seemed like the logical thing to say at the time. Luckily no damage was done to the hearse.

Abby and Sorrow at my parents house. This was about the time I was really into ICP and I decided that it would be a nice change of pace to cover my entire hearse with mud. For some reason, people really loved this and I got a lot of thumbs up on the road. Still not sure why I did this, and it only lasted about 4 days until it rained.