As the Professional Car Society is celebrating its 40th anniversary as the old car hobby’s premier advocate for authentically-preserved and presented funeral vehicles and ambulances that truly honor the craftsmanship, aesthetic acumen and dedication of the specialist body builders serving the emergency, livery and mortuary trades, a record turnout is anticipated for the 2016 International Meet that’s being co-hosted by the PCS Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Tri-State and Henney Chapters in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania from Monday-Saturday, August 15th-20th.

The itinerary and fees are fully-detailed on the official PCS website at www.TheProfessionalCarSociety.org, which also offers a downloadable registration form and a dedicated link for reserving specially-discounted, $109 pre-tax nightly rooms at the Wyndham Gateway Center headquarters hotel that’s conveniently-situated at 95 Presidential Circle (online map search zip code 17325) where north-south U.S. 15 crosses under the historic U.S. 30 east-west Lincoln Highway.  Accommodation-seekers can also phone the Wyndham directly at (717) 339-0020 and mention the Professional Car Society, while Meet Chair John Ehmer can be reached for general queries at (412) 969-7240 or vintagemotors811@yahoo.com.  “We have hit a home run with this historic town,” Ehmer says of Gettysburg.  “There’s so much to do within a 15-minute drive of our host hotel, even the full slate of tours we’ve spent two years planning won’t get to everything worth seeing and doing.”  The official schedule will feature area antique shops and funeral homes on Monday, August 15th; an August 16th Maryland bus tour touting the Pry House Field Hospital Museum at Antietam and the National Fire Heritage Center in Emmitsburg; a fully-guided Gettysburg Battlefield tour on Wednesday, August 17th; the Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA) Museum in Hershey, PA on Thursday, August 18th; and President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farm on August 19th, followed by a Friday evening cruise-in encouraging local auto hobbyists to join the PCS at their hotel.    

The Professional Car Society’s formal Concours D’Elegance on Saturday, August 20th, 2016 should nonetheless stand out as the Gettysburg Meet’s main draw, especially as the PCS’ ambulances, limousines, flower cars, “first call” coaches, hearses and hearse/ambulance “combinations” -  joined by unmodified civilian classics belonging to delegations of specially-invited single make car clubs - will be occupying the Gateway Center’s “high ground” in full view of passing Lincoln Highway motorists.  Funeral vehicles, in strict accordance with the PCS Constitution, must be shown empty without coffins, cobwebs, skeletons or other morbid miscellany that would distract from the skilled handiwork of such esteemed specialist firms as Eureka, Flxible, Henney, Pinner, Siebert, Sayers & Scovill, Miller-Meteor, Cotner/Bevington and Superior.  Saturday evening's awards banquet will conclude with a dignified lights-only show by the ambulances’ roof and fender beacons, spurring anticipation for future PCS International Meets that have already been scheduled for the Lebanon, Missouri Ozarks in 2017; Detroit in 2018; the South Dakota Black Hills in 2019; the Upstate New York Adirondacks in 2020; and eastern Ohio in 2021.