I Can’t Stop Staring At This Ford Mustang Mach-E Hearse

Etive Hearse Top
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I have never owned a hearse. I’m far too normcore to be that guy. I’m not even being judgmental. If you can pull off a hearse, you know, good for you. I’m as dark as a summer day in Greenland. I can pull off a Volvo wagon. I’m not sure I could pull off this Mustang Mach-E-based “Etive” hearse from the UK’s biggest hearsemaker, but I’d maybe give it a shot. This thing looks great.

Coleman Milne is a big deal when it comes to hearses in the United Kingdom, making more deceasedmobiles and limos than anyone else in the country. I know the UK is a small place, relatively speaking, but people have been dying there for thousands of years. Shakespeare died there!

Etive Electric Hearse 2

And an electric hearse is a sensible idea. Not only do hearses drive slowly over prescribed routes that don’t require long ranges, they are also most often used in scenarios when being quiet and peaceful is generally considered a positive. (I know it’s hard to believe, but not everybody wants sick GT500 burnouts in the parking lot for a final sendoff.) A Mustang Mach-E is an affordable, attractive choice and making it longer somehow accentuates the crossover’s bodyline in a way I find pleasing to the eye.

This is designed in the British style of hearses, which has a gigantic aquarium-style “deck” in the back to show the casket off like it’s a Maisto model of a Shelby Cobra. They call it the “Etive,” which I took to be some sort of terrible portmanteau, but it’s actually a river in Scotland.

“We have long championed the electric hearse at Coleman Milne,” said Graham Clow, National Sales Director at Coleman Milne, “and we’re proud to welcome the Etive hearse and limousine as the latest additions to our range. The excellent, longstanding relationship that we have with Ford enabled us to model the range on its Mach-E platform. The Mach-E is the perfect base for a comfortable, quiet and respectful hearse and limousine, while also providing funeral directors with all the benefits and innovations found in today’s electric vehicles.”

Those “benefits” include the usual fast charging you’d get with a modern EV, as well advanced driver-assistance systems like lane-keeping and collision warnings. Safety is important with a hearse so you avoid the ironic fate of dying in one.

I dropped this in slack this morning and our own Adrian Clarke, who is double qualified as a car designer and a goth immediately shat on it:

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I hope to never need a British hearse because that means I didn’t die as I intended: Having a heart attack while blasting down the Mulsanne Straight in a vintage Mazda 787 rotary in the Le Mans Classic. Who is right here? Boring dad or skinny goth?

Etive Electric Hearse

My favorite factoid from the company’s press release is that it’s going to undergo 40,000 miles of testing because that means someone’s gotta drive this thing around all day to validate it, presumably in the slow lane going 15 mph under the speed limit. They even included a very slow tracking shot of it driving through a cemetery so you get the idea.

Photos: Coleman Milne

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66 thoughts on “I Can’t Stop Staring At This Ford Mustang Mach-E Hearse

  1. As a hearse? Meh. I’m with Mr. Clarke, there. However, looking at this thing gives me other ideas. I think the Mach-E would look great stretched out as a wagon, or as a ute minus the rear doors (or a set of little half suicide doors in back).

  2. The tree reflections in the top photo create some very unfortunate optical illusions. It looks like someone said “Hey, I need to convert this Mach-E to a hearse. Anyone have some spare poster board and Saran Wrap?”

  3. Adrian is right, however no modern vehicle really looks good as a hearse.
    The Ford Panther chassis was about the last one that looked decent as a hearse, and most of my feelings towards that are because it was around for so damned long. Maybe the Caddy hearse that carried Ronnie Ray-gun from Andrews was ok but barely (I was stationed there at the time, got a look at the hearse as it drove down Arnold Ave. Weird time in my life)

    The Queen’s Jag hearse? Ugh.
    Shinzo Abe’s landau-endowed Century? No.
    Seen the Chrysler 300 based hearses? Looks like someone turned one into a Ute and then put a glass lid on the back.

    None of ’em look good. Modern cars aren’t designed to be hearses.
    Now, the ones that are based on crossovers? They seem to fit better. The Kingsley Hearse, based on the Caddy XT5? That works.

    That being said, there’s a ’70s Caddy hearse in FULL-BROWN with a 500ci near me that has steadily been dropping his price in online ads. I’m slavering to get ahold of it and do evil bad things to it.

    1. I always liked the looks of the Lincoln Town Cars when they were stretched out for hearses or limos. The front has the right stance/lines to be extended gracefully, in my opinion.

  4. Maybe an ID.4 would have lines that could better adapt to a hearse? But with the stretching and bodywork, I feel like they had the ability to make this better, they just chose not to. It’s like they wanted to be sure it was obvious it was a Mach-E hearse and not something purpose-built from the get-go.

  5. Based on the fact that only Adrian called this out as hideous, I have to assume our subscription dollars are not going toward quality eyecare for the staff. 😛

    1. Although…that side view is making me kind of want someone to build a Mach-E ute. If you just chopped the whole hearse part and gave it an open bed, it _might_ work. I reserve the right to change my mind if/when someone actually does that though.

  6. An electric hearse makes sense. The honored occupant of the vehicle is already arriving late, so it won’t matter if the driver has to charge for an hour or two along the way. I don’t know about this particular EV hearse, though. I wouldn’t be caught dead in a vehicle this ugly.

  7. Fellow Goth dude here. Looks like a hearse out of a Pixar movie but it’s only designed purposefully so yeah. I’m more of a Toyota Century/Crown hearse guy or early 60s Cadillac hearse

  8. What? Where’s the carriage lamps and faux landau bars? That’s how people know a hearse is a hearse, what’s the point of even building a hearse if you’re not going to bother giving it carriage lamps and faux landau bars?

  9. I like it, but mostly because I like every unexpected hearse conversion.

    If they could have paneled over the rear doors and glass, it would’ve been 100% better. And by doing that, they wouldn’t have needed to stretch the wheelbase quite as much.

  10. The added bodywork to get the required height in the back looks pretty awkward over the rear side doors. As much as I like the looks of the big glass areas on the British-style hearses, I wonder if this would look better as an American-style with no windows in the back and a lower height. I’m trying to envision it that way, but the result in my mind keeps looking like a late-’90s Taurus.

    I’m not sure the swoopy curves are conducive to a hearse or any lengthened vehicle really. It’s difficult to extend the existing curves to accomplish the design objectives, and any additions feel extra “tacked on” in situations like those.

    Or maybe I’m just used to boxy Cadillac hearses, and this one only looks “wrong” because it’s different. Time will tell, I suppose, because there are fewer and fewer boxy-shaped cars on the market available for hearse conversions, so a transition to some level of swoopiness seems inevitable.

  11. I am most definitely with the skinny goth here. The area over the forward windows is just awkward and I’m not too keen on the rear fender lines, either. Nothing about this works.

  12. “And an electric hearse is a sensible idea. Not only do hearses drive slowly over prescribed routes that don’t require long ranges”

    Hearses do have a tendency to undertake long journeys at times though when someone has to be transported to their grave site – and that’s a couple states over. I recognize this is about the UK – but it’s worth saying that not EVERY hearse can do with a short range.

    1. Or when you need to pick up a body at the county morgue, which could be in the county seat 100 mile round trip away, or at the closest large airport, or whatever. But, a lot of funeral homes seem to use standard minivans or SUVs for more utilitarian transport purposes and just save the hearse for the ceremony

    2. An old lady died in the UK last year and the hearse had a 500 mile one way trip.

      The whole thing was televised live in the UK, might even have made the news in the US.

  13. Eww. If my family put my carcass in something that ugly I would make it a point to haunt them.

    I don’t even believe in ghosts, but if they put me in that abomination of an insult to funerary vehicles, I will find a way.

  14. Adrian is correct, none of the lines look right, and the fastback window line and Mustang details are having a massive fight with the upright hearse bits.

    Not sure what the best choice would be for a hears-ev, but it ain’t this.

      1. Actually, you know, it probably wouldn’t be hard to pull that off. It’s already angular and the weird rear 3/4 view is pretty easily adapted to American style.

    1. While I agree with Tim Cougar’s inevitable Lyric hearse, I think a Polestar 2 with the casket extension carrying on the straight-edge, Scandinavian-minimalist design motif would work.

      Also, I think your EV hearse question deserves a design challenge to Adrian and/or the Bishop.

  15. There is probably no way to gracefully meld the declining former-fastback roof line with the terminal transport van-butt.
    Looks about as natural as Airbus’ “Beluga” cargo plane. (I.e: not much.)

  16. That part where the conversion van fiberglass roof stapled to the back of this thing doesn’t quite line up with the rear door/window just looks awkward to me.

      1. The scoopy bit needs to be accentuated more, all the way down the rear door cutline, down to the rocker panel. Then the original parts of the Mach-E need to be in Grabber Blue, leaving all the new hearsy bits in black. Then behold the all-new Ford Chiron Afterlife Edition!

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