It’s a death ride with a stiff price.
A former Manhattan salesman is cashing in on morbid curiosity, taking New Yorkers on a tour of the city’s most famous deaths.
Drew Raphael, 44, ushers passengers in his tricked-out hearse past the scenes of mob rub-outs, celebrity overdoses and grisly musician murders.
“It’s an interesting way of telling the history of New York through infamous and macabre events,” said Raphael, who started his bone-chilling business, Dead Apple Tours, a month ago.
The route begins with a swing by the Empire State Building and a ghoulish account of its history of suicide jumpers.
Tour-goers are also carted past the West Village apartment where Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious died of an overdose in 1979. And they’ll see the Chelsea Hotel, where he stabbed his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, to death a few months earlier. Vicious was arrested for the murder, but was out on bail when he kicked the bucket.
Raphael was inspired to start the tour after strolling past Heath Ledger’s SoHo pad after the actor’s death in January 2008.
“I see all these people taking pictures and I said, ‘Man, there’s gotta be something to this,’ ” Raphael recalled. Ledger’s place is also on his tour.
Raphael researched high-profile deaths and paired with a comedy writer to come up with his script.
He then spent $12,000 on a 1960 Cadillac Superior Crown Royal hearse he found online. He coughed up thousands more to outfit the death-mobile with five plush seats, a plasma TV and, of course, suicide doors, which have hinges closer to the rear of the car.
The two-hour, 30-stop trip costs $45. Passengers are even welcome to bring booze.