JFK hearse to be auctioned
The 1964-model Cadillac hearse that carried President John F. Kennedy’s body and casket after his assassination is to be auctioned Saturday in Scottsdale, Arizona, the auctioneer’s representatives said.
Following his 1963 assassination in Dallas, the white hearse carried Kennedy’s body from Parkland Memorial Hospital to Love Field, where Air Force One was waiting to transport the casket to Washington. First lady Jacqueline Kennedy was a passenger in the car during the ride, auctioneer Barrett-Jackson Auction Company said.
The car, which has a green-and-white interior, was built for display as a new model year introduction at the National Funeral Home Directors Association Convention in Dallas in October 1963. The O’Neal Funeral Home in Dallas bought it at the close of the convention. The car is listed as having eight cylinders and a four-speed automatic transmission.
Kennedy was slain on November 22, 1963.
The funeral home had the contract with Parkland for both the hearse and ambulance service, and it provided the casket and hearse for the drive from the hospital, where Kennedy was pronounced dead, the auction house said.
The O’Neal Funeral Home owned the hearse until the late 1960s when Arrdeen Vaughan, believed to be an employee, bought it. Vaughan sold it more than four decades later to its current and third owner, whose name wasn’t disclosed.