Over my dead body

(quote) Although the great lady had arrived at the cemetery in a black Packard hearse, ("One of those outrageous contraptions --- over my dead body" but as it turned out under it), her only criticism of William's orchestracion of her departure would have concerned this unsound mode of transport.(unquote)
This appears in the novel Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer, which I am using now as a teaching material to college kids. This is a part of the scene when the grandmother of the central hero named William passed away and he "orchestrates" her funeral. She's dead so she arrived there in a hearse. But can you figure what the part in the brankets refers to? Packard hearse is an automobile hearse when cars started to get popularity among high-class people but she hated this kind of gismos (=contraptions=automobile hearse) since it lacks atmosphere (maybe she would prefer a hearse of horse drawn coach.)
I would translate something like「"私の目の黒いうちはあんな気狂いじみたものは使わせないよ”しかし実際は（死んで）乗るはめになった」. But this is a greatly unsatisfactory translation because this has no contrast between "over" and "under". The latter part should be meant that [this outrageous contraption was "under" her dead body when it should have been "over" her dead body]. This witty description is completely lost in the Japanese translation. I will go to a book store today to check out how a professional translator manages to deal with it.
When we read translated novels, we miss all these subtleties. Sometimes translators manage to reflect those descriptions of the originals in their translation but the results are mostly laughable.
A great work is great work even if it is translated into other languages. But we also must not forget we are missing out on something that passes only among people with close realtionship, with similar culture, with same language, that is, a kind of inside jokes. "Go to the original" somebody said. It is really true.
For me, translated Shakespeare is no interesting at all.
The picture above is Packard hearse 1940 copied from a used car dealer on the Web.