JFK Ambulance Up for Auction Was a Fake

This Saturday’s auction of the ambulance that carried President John F. Kennedy’s body has garnered worldwide attention. The only problem? It’s a near-perfect fake. Here’s how a group of historians discovered the truth about what happened to the real ambulance.

UPDATE: The Barrett-Jackson auction house backed slightly away from its initial claims of authenticity and attacked Jalopnik during today’s press conference. Our response here.

In a probe with as many twists as one might expect from a JFK assassination artifact, the history buffs of the Professional Car Society were able to not only poke holes in the documentation provided by the seller of the ’63 Pontiac Bonneville ambulance, but produce photographic proof that the real vehicle ceased to exist in 1986. After weeks of its own research, and its original touting of the ambulance’s history, we’re now told that Barrett-Jackson will hold a press conference Friday to reveal the findings we lay out below.

Touted since late last year by the auction company, the slate gray JFK ambulance received hundreds of profiles