When I lived in Iowa in the early sixties, I spent quite a bit of time in the country, but I never saw a station wagon at a farm. It was always a sedan and a pickup. The station wagon’s booming popularity in the 1950s was with suburban families, but farmers liked a sedan for the missus to drive and with which to go to church on Sundays.
Given this guy’s clothes and hat, he’s probably a salesman or such.
Did I possibly miss one? Possibly, but the overwhelming ubiquity of sedans and pickups parked by the garage or shed made a lasting impression. And no; no convertibles or hardtops.
Meanwhile my school friend’s family had a ’56 Ford wagon like this, but the upscale version.
It looks like a very subtle two-tone at that, as though they started with a B&W picture of a 2-tone car and it was hand-colored in solid yellow.
I was probably still in utero when that car was new, so I can’t base this statement on my actual memories, but the combination of full wheel covers and black wall tires seems unusual for the time. And perhaps the guy in the overcoat is a veterinarian?
I find it odd that the edge of the tailgate that we can see isn’t painted body color. I wonder if the interior was that shade of red.
A rare realistic ad picture. The Ford isn’t shiny clean; it’s clearly been driving on dirt roads. And the farmer is appropriately skeptical of the salesman.
This appears to be the Custom Ranch Wagon based on the side trim from this picture. Always thought 2-door wagons were cool!
The small medallion on the left front fender signifies this car also has “the thunderbird v-8” which was basically a 4bl and dual exhaust.
I know this because a cousin has the identical ranch wagon in his collection only done in a rather eye popping “meadow mist green”
I had always questioned who would order such a baseline model with a performance v-8, bright colour and literally nothing else and figured it was a weird one off.
Now I’m just confused by the fact Ford used the same model and options in one of their ads.
You make an excellent point – as I think about it, I’m not sure I ever saw a station wagon on a farm either.
I imagine farmers got enough squeaks and rattles from their pickups. Every old wagon I was ever in had far more squeaks and rattles than a similar sedan.
I suppose that if you had a pickup for the heavy or large loads a 2-door sedan would be much less expensive and as such more logical. I wouldn’t bet on finding this station wagon with a T-bird V8 in a farm, and the salesman also wouldn´t order it…
The side windows behind the B pillar of that ’56 Ford Wagon remind me of the widows on the side of a New Look GM Bus…
Hat and overcoat really dates it. For all those who think men’s apparel didn’t change much in the 20th century.
I grew up on a farm with 8 children and we never had a station wagon, only 4 door sedans. and you could always ride in the back of the pickup or even better the flatbed.
Gotta love 2 door Ranch wagons. Yes, there were various salesmen stopping by in vehicles like that.
Photo shows windshield moldings, V-8 emblem and Custom Ranch Wagon trim. This is a mid range model. My father owed a red one with Fordomatic and dual exhausts. Nicest sounding stock exhausts I remember. I think all the V-8 Ford wagons came with factory dual exhaust that year.
My dad was a farmer and Minneapolis Moline tractor salesman. In 1956 he traded his pickup for a new Studebaker wagon that he drove for 10 years, followed by a succession of cheap sedans and then finally a 59 Chevy pickup in 1969.
I’d completely forgotten about overcoats until a recent president wore one regularly.
’56 would have been the 272/292/312 which had an unusual firing order and consequently a different sound. I had a plain jane ’61 with a 292. Even basic single exhaust had a distinctive sound, and not a bad one at that.
I’m sure a few veterinarians drove something similar when visiting farms and such.
Here’s our Country Sedan in ( I think) Meadowmist Green with Colonial White window surrounds when it was probably less than a year old, on Grand Island, above Buffalo, NY on the Niagara River. Dad had just become a Salesman for an industrial bag and packer company, promoted from a bagging machine mechanic in early 1956. As you can see, the rockers are already rusting, although the car may well have been mounting up the miles by then– Salespeople got their cars new, and traded them in at 60,000 miles. For Dad, that between a year and a year-an-a-half. So the Ford probably did significant time on salted roads. Populating the front yard are son #2, Bruce, age 8 (leaning), and #3, Scott in the barbershop stripe jacket (age 3), with oldest, Terry, age 10. As usual, I’m the 6-year-old sitting behind the wheel, dreaming of driving. Grand Island was newly built up– see the steam shovel at back right, with new foundations going in all the time. Looks like an American Motors standard-size car at right, and a couple of Chevies owned by the Checks, next store. It’s possible that Dad facilitated the purchase of the blue ’55, which might have been his company car before he was assigned the wagon, which he used, part – time to sell brooms, door-to-door to supplement our income. Way in the back, looks like a late ’40s Mopar, with a ’55 Chrysler Corp. car showing only its greenhouse in the distance.
My limited experience backs up your theory that farmers do not drive station wagons. My uncle lived on a farm just outside a small city in Ontario and he owned a 1957 Ford wagon with a similar specification. The thing is that although he lived on a farm and kept various animals, he was not a full time farmer but rather a hobby farmer. He was an aeronautical engineer and that is how he earned his living. My cousins both rode, so they kept their horses there. One year when I was still a toddler they had a flock of geese. When you are only a little kid they are quite large and intimidating.
There was a distant cousin who lived about an hour away from my uncle who was a real farmer. He grew apples and had lots of trucks. His choice for personal transportation was a decidedly impractical Karmann Ghia coupe. I do remember it had “reserve” tank instead of a gas gauge, so I think that makes it 1961 or earlier. It was an unusual choice for rural Ontario in the fifties and early sixties.
The 57 Ford was the first car I remember that had seat belts. Later I wondered if it was due to my uncle’s involvement with planes. During the war he worked at De Havilland on Mosquito production at Downsview Airfield in Toronto.
There’s a ‘56 Ford Park Lane for sale now on BaT, it’s a tricked out version of the one Paul shows us. Ford’s answer to the Nomad and Safari!