JFK ambulance sells for US$120,000
Source: Agencies |
January 25, 2011, Tuesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
A CAR collector who wanted a "piece of history" paid US$120,000 at an -auction in Arizona for a 1963 ambulance that purportedly carried the body of US President John F. Kennedy after he was assassinated, auction officials said.
Addison Brown of Paradise Valley, Arizona, bought the gray Pontiac Bonneville despite reports claiming the vehicle being sold at the Barrett-Jackson auction was a fake, auction president Steve Davis said.
The United States Navy ambulance was advertised as the vehicle that met Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base and transported Kennedy's flag-draped casket to Bethesda Naval Hospital for his autopsy and later to the US Capitol to lie in state.
Barret-Jackson officials said they had independently verified the -authenticity of the vehicle.
Photos from Andrews on the night of November 22, 1963, show the newly widowed first lady, Jackie Kennedy, looking dazed, her dress still stained with her husband's blood, holding the hand of her brother-in-law Robert F. Kennedy as they watched JFK's casket being placed into an ambulance.
Another, posted on the auction website advertising the sale, shows Jackie reaching to open the rear passenger door of the ambulance, with Robert Kennedy just behind her.
But the vehicle's authenticity was questioned days before the auction in a report from automotive website Jalopnik.com, which said the real ambulance had been crushed in 1986.
Brown said she is -convinced the ambulance is as advertised and feels fortunate to own "a piece of history."
She said she plans to keep the vehicle in her collection for the time being and will see if the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC is interested in the ambulance.
"It belongs somewhere people can see it and experience it," she said.
Addison Brown of Paradise Valley, Arizona, bought the gray Pontiac Bonneville despite reports claiming the vehicle being sold at the Barrett-Jackson auction was a fake, auction president Steve Davis said.
The United States Navy ambulance was advertised as the vehicle that met Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base and transported Kennedy's flag-draped casket to Bethesda Naval Hospital for his autopsy and later to the US Capitol to lie in state.
Barret-Jackson officials said they had independently verified the -authenticity of the vehicle.
Photos from Andrews on the night of November 22, 1963, show the newly widowed first lady, Jackie Kennedy, looking dazed, her dress still stained with her husband's blood, holding the hand of her brother-in-law Robert F. Kennedy as they watched JFK's casket being placed into an ambulance.
Another, posted on the auction website advertising the sale, shows Jackie reaching to open the rear passenger door of the ambulance, with Robert Kennedy just behind her.
But the vehicle's authenticity was questioned days before the auction in a report from automotive website Jalopnik.com, which said the real ambulance had been crushed in 1986.
Brown said she is -convinced the ambulance is as advertised and feels fortunate to own "a piece of history."
She said she plans to keep the vehicle in her collection for the time being and will see if the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC is interested in the ambulance.
"It belongs somewhere people can see it and experience it," she said.
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