service in the late 1970s. The downsizing of America's biggest luxury cars, beginning with the 1977 model year, forced major changes upon professional car builders, who were dependent upon car frames purchased from General Motors and Ford Motor Company to begin their conversion processes. Cotner-Bevington was closed in 1975, with Thyssen selling off its assets; Miller-Meteor was closed at the end of 1979. Downsizing Alongside the rest of the full-size Cadillac product model line, the Cadillac commercial chassis was downsized for 1977 to reduce vehicle weight and fuel consumption. The Cadillac Division built 1,299 commercial chassis for 1977; of that total, only 21 Lifeliner Cadillac ambulances were manufactured by Wayne's Miller-Meteor subsidiary. For 1978, Cadillac's commercial chassis production further declined to only 852 units; Miller-Meteor received orders for only 4 ambulances. There were no 1979 Miller-Meteor ambulances. On December 13, 1979, the company, with roots tracing back to 1853, closed its doors. The company laid-off 252 employees and terminated the contracts of their 34 North American distributors. By the late 1970s, as the situation became critical, Wayne Corporation, the parent of M-M and C-B, and Wayne's Thyssen owners chose not to invest heavily in either firm as would have been required in the uncertain futures of the diverging professional car and ambulance building industries. There were no buyers for either subsidiary as a going business. In 1980, Cotner-Bevington ambulance product line was sold to Gene Knisley, owner of Mid-Continent Conversion Co., which was an ambulance and medicar builder in Kansas City, Missouri. The C-B plant in Blytheville, Arkansas was closed. A few years later, the rights to the Miller-Meteor name were acquired and resurrected by another professional car builder in Norwalk, Ohio which in 2004 was producing a line of funeral coaches and limousines on Cadillac and Lincoln chassis under the Miller-Meteor brand name. Regulatory Changes At the same time coachbuilders met downsizing in the automotive industry, the federal government in the United States updated its requirements concerning minimum width, headroom, and equipment levels of emergency vehicles. These changes were part of the 1973 National EMS Systems Act, which was passed by Congress in 1974, and implemented four years later (in 1978). In order for communities to receive federal funds, their ambulances were required to meet updated federal specifications. Passenger-based vehicles were purposely excluded from legislation and the last American-made automobile-based ambulance was built in 1978. Three design styles meet