Armbruster Stageway cars for sale
About these listings
Every Armbruster Stageway listed on MotorLoop.
United States
Overview
Armbruster Stageway is a professional-vehicle coachbuilder in Fort Smith, Arkansas — limousines and funeral coaches, built by cutting and lengthening a production chassis rather than designing a car from scratch. Its lineage runs back to 1887, which makes it the oldest name in the American professional-vehicle trade.
For a buyer this means the badge describes the body, not the car underneath. The chassis, engine, gearbox and most of the running gear come from the donor vehicle, so servicing and parts follow that manufacturer, while the stretched section, the doors added in it and the rear compartment are Armbruster’s own work.
History
Tom Armbruster, Charles Kaiser and Walter Walkford started out in 1887 building and repairing horse-drawn vehicles in Fort Smith. When a bus company asked whether an ordinary vehicle could be lengthened for short passenger runs, the firm took the job on and built what it describes as the first combustion-engine limousine.
In 1974 Armbruster-Stageway worked with Cadillac to build the first six-door modern super-stretch limousine on a Cadillac chassis — the shape that defined the airport and funeral trade for the next two decades. The company still builds limousines and funeral coaches in Fort Smith.
Buying one in Australia
These are left-hand-drive American vehicles and almost none were sold new here, so an example in Australia has been imported. That makes the import approval and compliance paperwork the first thing to ask for, and it is worth confirming what the vehicle is registered as — a stretched vehicle can fall outside ordinary passenger-car registration depending on its length, seating and use.
The practical questions are length and access: whether it fits the driveway and the parking you have, and whether an inspection pit or hoist near you can take it.