Classic Car Collector Eric Bell Lives with One Foot in and One Foot out of the Past

July 2022

When you feel of another person who is a funeral director and proprietor of a funeral property, I’m ready to bet that your initial description wouldn’t be of a witty and jovial human being by advantage of their relatively peculiar profession. Over the decades, I have observed Zionsville resident Eric Bell is not what I would expect a funeral director to be. He is outgoing and participating but is truly compassionate when obligation calls. Lots of know Bell to also be a talented trumpeter, a doting partner and a father with a penchant for gathering common cars.

As the 15th Annual Artomobilia is cruising up on the calendar, I assumed it was proper to element Bell on this month’s address. Bell has demonstrated his 1955 Buick Roadmaster, which gained its class at Artomobilia, and owns a extraordinary collection of vintage autos — and hearses— that he refers to as “anchors to reminiscences.”

I spoke with Bell about his life as a typical car collector and how it has tied in with his career path as the director and owner of Eric M.D. Bell Funeral Property situated in Pittsboro, Ind.

An Uncanny Synergy concerning Automobiles and Caskets

Bell was lifted in the little town of Frankfort, Ind. Bell, his father and his uncle would leaf by way of the web pages of the automotive buyers guides that have been common and posted in the pre-internet era. The Bell men would bond about their aspirations, and as Bell shared, it’s one particular of his most cherished memories from his youth.

Unaware of his future, Bell would cling about the town’s funeral household, Goodwin Funeral Residence, to admire its typical auto selection.

“My ‘career’ really began at 13 when I started off hanging close to the funeral residence,” Bell explained. “I was just fascinated with the common automobiles. I was actually a nuisance — for a lack of greater phrases — and had to discover a little something [productive] to do, so I started off mowing the [funeral home] property, washing cars and trucks and spreading gravel. By the time I was 16, I was in a fit and parking cars. In point, just one day soon after I bought my driver’s license, I was tasked with picking up a human being at a nursing residence who had handed — by myself.”

As a proficient trumpeter, Bell picked up the honorable gig of enjoying Faucets at the regional funerals for the funeral home when he was in superior college.

“They would arrive decide me up in the funeral property flower van from college, and we’d go to the cemetery and participate in Taps,” Bell recalled. “Then they’d fall me off back again at the college for the exorbitant sum of $10. And that was my substantial university experience.”

After graduating higher faculty, Bell attained a bachelor’s diploma in business enterprise from Marian University in Indianapolis and an associate’s diploma of Funeral Services from Mid-America University of Funeral Support in Jeffersonville, Ind. Just after serving the communities of Carmel, Ind., and Indianapolis, Bell acquired the historic David A. Corridor Mortuary, which is currently the Eric M.D. Bell Funeral Property.

“I’m so content currently being a state undertaker,” Bell expressed. “It’s easygoing out in this article, and by way of a collection of activities, I’m just joyful to personal my possess location. It is given me an chance to sort of replicate my childhood, and I have my personal minimal common vehicle collection. We’re often a person foot in and one particular foot out of the earlier, and that genuinely resonates with what helps make my funeral home special and the traditional cars.”

The Joy of Amassing Vintage Cars and trucks

Bell and I reviewed his selection and the significance of exposing the more youthful generations to common auto collections in hopes of cultivating long term stewards and fans of typical automobiles.

“We have three generations of hearses,” Bell shared. “I’ve acquired a manufacturer-new Cadillac [hearse], a 1948 Packard and a 1907 horse-drawn [hearse] that is built from hand-carved wood,” Bell claimed. “The Packard was initially used in a small minimal funeral house in South Dakota.”

All of Bell’s cars and trucks appear with background and intriguing tales, from their originations to how they finished up in Bell’s garage, which is a person of the factors Bell fancies the typical autos more than newer productions that appear clean off dealers’ heaps.

“The ’55 Roadmaster is a really unique vehicle to me,” Bell claimed. “I was 26 or 27, and I took out a $20,000 personal loan — from my uncle — and did a good deal of restoration, putting it back again to all unique. That’s how I bought commenced [collecting and restoring], and it is been with me ever considering that. To me, it’s the most beautiful car that GM at any time manufactured, and it usually will be.”

Showcased alongside with Bell’s 1955 Roadmaster in this report is his 1955 Cadillac Fleetwood.

“Now, the rationale why I’m drawn to the ’55 Cadillac is since that was the car in ‘Driving Skip Daisy,’ and that motion picture was a large offer to me when I was a kid,” Bell shared. “It was also in ‘The Godfather.’ This motor vehicle was at first owned by a funeral dwelling in California, and which is why it has air conditioning, which was an $800 selection on a $3,000 auto at that time. So, somebody really wanted that [option]!”

Bell ongoing, “The restoration of them has become less complicated due to the fact I was in large university, with the online. The great issue about owing vintage GM cars and trucks is that they employed sections across 15 diverse cars and trucks for 30 many years, so a whole lot of things is interchangeable. The sections for my ’55 Buick, the break cylinders for instance, are like $4 parts and are $4,000 for a Ferrari. I have each unique revenue brochure and magazine advert for my cars and trucks for the reason that that stuff is pretty appealing to me. What I wish younger people today realized about vintage autos is that the cars in my assortment are not expensive. You can buy a Buick like mine for $25,000 effortlessly. And the satisfaction and pleasure that you get out of just jogging all around in these cars and trucks — encountering background in your palms — is so amazing.”

To get in touch with Eric Bell, visit ericmdbellfuneralhome.com.