Cadillac Lyriq gets the hearse treatment
Words: Richard Edwards
Die-hard combustion fans who said they’d only go electric “over my dead body” may want to reconsider their phrasing.
Florida-based Wolf Coach Builders has launched two hearse variants of the Cadillac Lyriq, bringing the funeral industry’s long relationship with the American brand into the electric era.
Wolf Coach, which has more than 30 years in the coachbuilding business, is offering the Lyriq in two formats. The Flagship Legacy is the traditional configuration with a raised black roof and rollers for coffins in the rear. The Panorama features wraparound rear glass for a more ceremonial send-off. Both are built on GM’s rear-wheel-drive Lyriq platform, supplied direct to coachbuilders as part of GM’s professional vehicle series.
Cadillac has a long history in the funeral trade. From the 1950s onwards, the Cadillac Commercial Chassis was the go-to rolling base for specialist builders like Superior, Eureka, and Miller-Meteor. It came as running gear, a backbone, and a front clip, leaving coachbuilders to finish the rest. Those cars served double duty as both hearses and ambulances before emergency vehicles were standardised in the late 1970s.
An EV hearse makes a lot of practical sense. These vehicles don’t rack up big kilometres but they do long years of service. Low maintenance requirements, silent operation when it matters most, and smooth, unobtrusive performance all suit the job well.
New Zealand’s funeral industry has traditionally favoured stretched American iron for the task, so a big, quiet Cadillac EV would be a surprisingly natural fit, more so than some of the Tesla-based hearses that have already followed out overseas.
No local plans have been announced, but given the rate BEVs are turning up here in unexpected body styles, stranger things have happened.
