Maybe it has something to do with my fondness for old station wagons, but I feel as if they’ve been missing from our pages lately. Their absence is no mystery, we all know old-style wagons are very scarce on today’s roads. Even at the Cohort, they rarely appear.
But I can always fix that situation with a quick look into the past. A few months ago I posted a similar collection, and luckily, I still have a few images to share. Today’s gallery covers wagons in day-to-day activities; most are earning their keep, while a few are just posing and looking good. Whatever the case, these shots should reawaken a few memories from the days when these were a common sight in our neighborhoods.
Nice selection. There were numerous wagons to be found in my Suburban St Louis neighborhood. But My sibs and I were apparently some of possibly few boomer kids to have no family wagon to remember. we had to deal with A Ford Victoria hardtop. Mercury Monterey hardtop. then starting in 59, a succession of Bonneville 2 dr hardtops and Grand Prix hardtops. We never felt deprived.
In the ’70s my mother’s family grew up with an El Camino and a full-size GM or Ford wagon, but my father’s side only had Ford sedans, even with a family of 6.
Back when four could ride in a 2dr. coupe and have plenty of room!
That guy in the back of the old white Chevy wagon looks like he’s just being roused from slumber, and not too happy about being photographed.
I wonder what was the story with that long line of wagons; two identical new Plymouths in the same color scheme, no less?
It’s easy to forget that wagons were essentially a whole new thing in the ’50s, and the hot new thing at that. And it’s easy to see why, as they were so much more practical for the typical suburban family. The minivan-SUV of their time.
The long line of wagons: Looks like they were all headed for a camping trip?
I can image something like this when heading out for a Boy Scout Jamboree with the whole town’s troops.
I was thinking it was a baseball team when I saw the kids hanging out of the 1st Plymouth wagon.
When I reflect on the station wagon in my life, only one appears, that 1963 Plymouth you have seen in a past COAL issue. I have to say that I am not one to be inclined to run out and by a station wagon, but this ’63 has survived through 3 marriages and many, many miles of driving. I only have fond memories of owning it and think of all the memories that car has driven me through.
It ranks in a tie for “The Most Practical and Useful Vehicle” I have ever owned Award along with my current SUV, my faithful 1985 Plymouth Voyager.
Ah, station wagons. The SUV from the past, or should I say that the SUV’s of today are nothing more than jacked up station wagons? haha.
I’m too young (was too young) to remember it, but the only station wagon my parents had was a Chevy from the early 70’s in red. My only true memory of it was riding in the 3rd back seat on the way to a lake for the day and dad driving up this hilly highway and going faster over the “humps”. That’s it. Just that it was a red 70’d Chevy and that ride. All the rest was sedans.
Fond memories riding from Chicago to Walla Walla, WA in our red 1954 Ford Custom wagon with Overdrive. Team of 5 of my brothers $ sisters and mom & dad up front. To save time our “#1 Pit Stop” was not a stop. It consisted of a sheet to hide under and a milk bottle w/lid. Lunch was a fold down tailgate and a small cook stove, Kool Aid, and hot dogs. Flawless performance round trip. Our AC? A pull cord swamp cooler tucked into the side window. Worked fine as I recall!
I’m pretty sure the photo with the Valiant wagon (and photobombed by a ’61 Olds Dynamic 88 sedan) was taken at Memorial Bridge, connecting Arlington Cemetery across the Potomac River with Washington, DC, right at the Lincoln Memorial.
Confirmed by Google Street View, Sept, 2023. You can no longer drive on the circular portion of the roadway shown off to the right side in the current photo.
Been that way for “years and years”…
The good old days when people could just drive up and park outside the Lincoln Memorial!
The golden equestrian statues (representing Valor and Sacrifice) were pretty new when this photo was taken – they were installed on the bridge sometime in the early 1950s.
Yes, before all the added security measures, especially after 9/11.
My first trip to DC was in the summer of 1957 when I was 5 years old, so those statues would have been almost new then. We walked UP all the steps in the Washington Monument (now the steps are totally off limits).
As I recall, we also walked the length of the National Mall, and I threw up somewhere along the way due to the intense heat and humidity.
We were able to walk down the steps in the 70s, but you had to elevate up. It’s too bad no one can see all the commemorative stones in the stairwell.
When we first moved back to NoVa in ’70, my dad was stationed at Main Navy (“temporary” construction for WWI), about where the Vietnam Memorial is now. You could still turn left off the bridge onto Constitution Ave. then. I remember them stopping it, maybe in the early 80s, and re-gilding the statues.
Turning hard right would loop you onto the Rock Creek Parkway under the bridge and headed for the Kennedy Center and the original riverside Watergate (outdoor) Theater, made useless by vehicle and air traffic. The Parkway actually went between the stone seating and the stage, even dumber than putting open-air Wolftrap theater next to Dulles Airport.
You are correct ; “Prospect House” , mid century modern, highrise in “Rosslyn VA” is visible in the background.
Oops!! Correction..Buildings in background are the three closer to the Key Bridge and “Arlington Blvd”, also in “Rosslyn”.
“Prospect house, is higher up the hill, on the opposite side of Arlington Blvd.
Prospect House wasn’t finished until 1966, so it might not have been in the photo anyway, if it isn’t behind the righthand statue. For some reason, I looked at some PH ads last year–most apartments are two stories with a ~14′ tall living room facing DC and bedrooms facing west. The common hallways are somehow squeezed through the middle. The “Top of the Town” restaurant closed, but the space is available for events.
The building is surprisingly, poorly soundproofed!! The two level apts are pretty cool as they have windows on the front/back or the building.
Those buildings in the background are the River Place condo development. It was built in 1953, with over 1,500 units. Oddly enough, River Place was built on a 99-year ground lease, meaning that in 2052 (only 29 years from now), the developer that owns the ground will be able to take complete control of the complex, and theoretically demolish the whole place regardless of whether the condos are owned or not.
It’s a very odd situation, and since it’s built on some extremely valuable real estate the chances of it all being bulldozed are pretty high.
There’s been lots of articles on River Place Condo’s perilous situation, but this is a good recent one that summarizes this issue:
https://www.arlnow.com/2022/07/14/is-river-places-time-coming-to-an-end-in-rosslyn/
As long as National Airport is open, they can’t rebuild much taller. I was green when my plane landed after snaking down the Potomac River.
Two much higher building have sprung up in that area over the last ten//fifteen years..
Looked at two units there while “condo shopping” in the early “90’s”.
Came close to getting the one unit.
Settled on an equally old, waay smaller building in NW DC.
Absolutely.
So many of the locations look familiar, but the one with the Valiant at Memorial bridge was the only one I could readily identify.
In fact, I was just there about 6 hours ago!
It would have been nice to see an old Valiant there.
The picture I’m really curious about here is the Pontiac wagon in what looks like an industrial area underneath a bridge. Not a typical vacation spot.
Also, in the third picture (of the woodgrain-trimmed Ford wagon), I wonder what the chances are that they forgot the camera (or whatever it is) on the roof, and just drove off with it up there?
Looks to me like the MacArthur Bridge in St Louis. It had those random-looking posts on one side.
The “bridge” is a dock for loading coal or ore into the boat below. You can see the prow of the freighter just to the left of the car. I’m not sure which city, but it is almost certainly somewhere on the Great Lakes. Might be an Illinois plate on the wagon, it is definitely not Michigan.
Aha – that makes sense. I’m thinking the license plate may be a 1963-64 Ohio plate. They were dark blue, and Ohio was one of the only states to use the unusual 1234-AB sequence that this plate appears to have.
I’m going to ID the woody wagon in the 3rd shot (with the camera on top) as a 56 Mercury, instead of a Ford.
I have owned a couple of wagons over the years, my last was a 2017 Subaru Outback.
Now my choice is mid size SUVs…
Almost bought a “used Saturn wagon” ((2004 model)) in/about “2012”.
Held to my price and lost it to another buyer.
My dad’s first two “cars” were Willy’s Jeep wagons. I suspect it was more because he could get them than for any other reason. One was decked out in the color scheme like the pic from the net. I don’t remember if it was his first or second one as I was only 3-5 years old depending on which one and just when he bought the second one?
Still, a very early post WW2 station wagon, and as I remember them: bare bones! DFO
What a fantastic selection of everyday the “way it was” shots. They capture the time perfectly. And, I just relized that until now I never knew what the rear of a 61 Pontiac wagon looks like. Perfect CC all round.
My family always had a station wagon as its main transporter. First that I remember was a ’55 Pontiac that had a forward facing third seat. As the fourth of 4 children, that was where I got stuck on family outings. To access it, the middle row was narrowed down, creating an opening to sqeeze back to the thinly padded third row. BTW, the second row did not fold down, so to open up the area behind the front seat the entire second seat had to be taken out.
Later we had a ’63 Dodge 440 wagon with a rear facing third row seat. That’s the car on which I learned how to drive.
Wagons still rule in some ways. My folks had to ditch the wagon ride to get a van to transport my brothers wheelchair properly.
The moment I graduated reform school I bought a new Escort SS wagon. Not exactly brilliant move, but I’m not judging.
The moment I carved out from 1.0, I got my current Legacy GT and if I could figure out how to change my profile picture, I would update it a bit.
Me and my siblings with the Country Squire.
I saw a recent Volvo wagon on my walk last night. It was so low, long, and sleek compared to the common crossover. Not your father’s station wagon!
But actually a pretty decent-looking wagon IMO. Certainly no “brick” but I like it.
You’ve got to hand it to Volvo for hanging on to wagons for a while. I doubt that it’ll be around that much longer.
In its time the station wagon was an integral part of Americana. I loved them.
Date wise, they generally weren’t the best vehicle to make a good impression on a first date.
I made a habit of telling prospective dates beforehand we’d be traveling in a wagon.
Many said “that’s OK my family also has a wagon”.
One said going out in a wagon made her feel “kinda married”.
Cool! The first car I remember was our family’s ’58 Plymouth Suburban (pink/white) like the two in the 4th picture!
Pushbutton automatic, mirror on the dash (what a dumb idea!), fins, two-tone, no child safety seat, and my dad would let me sit on his lap and help steer when I was 4 or 5. Yikes!
I love all of these shots.
When I was a tot, my family actually had two wagons at the same time – a 61 Olds F-85 which was ours and a 63 Chevy Bel Air which was Dad’s company car. I think we were the only 2-wagon family on the street!
Does a 76? Plymouth Fargo count as a station wagon. My dad drove us from upstate Michigan to DC, Plilly, NY to Cape cod. 440 stick. We stopped at alot of gas stations.
Really nice 1967 Vista Cruiser. This and the similar Buick Sportwagon with the glass roof panels were probably the pinnacle of stylish wagons of the time.
Curiously missing among these photos is perhaps the most long lived, iconic wagon of all time – the Ford Country Squire.
My first car was a wagon. Not cool back then but I didn’t care. 3 1/2 years later my fourth car was a wagon and fifty years later (as of this coming February) I still have it. I have owned many more over the years and still have two more wagons besides the fourth car.
The ’61 Pontiac is sweet.
It does look to be about “brand new”!
All of the 1949-’50 Chevrolet station wagons I ever encountered were the stamped steel bodied version. And all had the faux wood-grained stamped features that imitated the wood-bodied versions. One wonders if the solid off-white station wagon in the second image might have been an early production car painted to differentiate them from the wood-bodied version that were still in the 1949 model run.
Nice ;
Wagons are wonderfully utilitarian and so I’ll always remember mine fondly .
-Nate
We had a 68 impala wagon and a 68 Olds Vista cruiser..both great cars and great for our family in the 1960s and 70s…my next car in 1972.was a 66 chevelle ss…so as times changed ..we changed..next was nixon gas and a 73 vega.in 74.
Before my Dad met my Mother, he bought a new ’56 Plymouth Plaza with no options (OK, maybe a heater?) but it was a standard, and my Mother though she learned to drive a semiautomatic Chrysler never was comfortable with anything but an automatic…and we came along, and that started a string of family wagons with automatic that stretched from 1961 to 1984 (partly because wagons started becoming scarce but mostly because the oldest (my sister and I) moved out on our own by then and their need for a wagon was reduced…plus they’d moved to Texas from Vermont, and a wagon had bigger area to cool, so it was natural for him to “downsize” from a wagon to a sedan.
Still, I like roomy, practical vehicles. Some have stated that SUVs/crossovers are the new wagons, though I see their point, but these old wagons were 2wd only (mostly except for International, or if you include Suburban), and some of the space for the AWD is likely taken for AWD even if yours only has 2WD….even the exhaust system can’t go down the transmission tunnel, has to hang down and takes away ground clearance. I’m a fan of 2wd wagons and minivans, but I don’t need complexity of AWD where I live, unfortunately we’re being “directed” to buy crossover or SUV if we want enclosed vehicle without trunk or pickup bed as the fomer vehicles are being withdrawn from new offerings.