Text by Patrick Bell.
For today’s gallery, we are going to look at some more station wagons, the people haulers of the past. We have a good variety so let us proceed.
Our first one is a new looking ’74 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme Cruiser in Sage Green and dressed up with the optional wire wheel covers. This was the least expensive Olds wagon for the year. I worked at an Oldsmobile/Cadillac dealer collision center in the mid-eighties, and while we still saw some of the Colonnade generation come through the shop, I don’t recall any wagons. They really weren’t that popular. Olds was second behind Chevrolet in the GM store, but the wagons were only 6% of the total Cutlass production. All four GM divisions built about 300 more than the Ford Torino alone.
This lady has arrived at her destination and the driver is waving goodbye.
Here we have a young man standing by the family wagon, a ’60 Pontiac Catalina Safari with a license plate I can’t read. The six passenger version of the Catalina was the least expensive and most popular in that year, and all wagons comprised just over 10% of production.
In keeping with the ’60 mode we have this Chevrolet Parkwood from California driving through a tree tunnel. Chevrolet wagons actually outproduced Ford in ’60 by almost 20%, and it accounted for nearly 16.5% of full size units for the year. I can’t quite see enough of the car following to ID it.
Compact wagons often did well as this ’61 Ford Falcon Deluxe 4 door can attest. It consisted of a full 25% of Falcon production that year. It is wearing a license plate that I can’t quite read the state.
1963 was an odd year for the full size Mercury wagons like this Colony Park nine passenger. It was the only year in at least the sixties where they only offered the Colony Park; no lower priced model was available. The nine passenger was the most expensive and popular and both models accounted for 11.5% of full size sales.
A ’63 Dodge 330 wagon towing a small camp trailer with some good weight in the back of the car. It has a license plate that may be Utah and is parked in a campground. In the resource I have Dodge did not show productions numbers for individual models for this time period.
Someone is caught by the photographer while sitting in a ’63 Chrysler Newport. This was the least expensive and most popular of the two models offered and amounted to over 6.5% of the year’s production. On the other side of it is a ’60 Valiant V-200 4 door sedan, and across the street is a ’58 Chevrolet Biscayne 2 door sedan. It looks like a winter day with some recent rain (or maybe a water leak) still in the street.
In ’63 and ’64 Ford moved the Ranch Wagon model to the midsize Fairlane line leaving the Country Sedan such as this ’64 the least expensive full size offering. They changed their minds and moved it back in ’65 where it remained until its demise after the ’77 model year. A shade over 15% of their full size production for ’64 were wagons. I see a suit or coat hanging in the backseat so this may be a business man checking on the progress of the building project in the background.
This ’68 Plymouth Satellite is wearing some custom touches and has a little damage on the right fender. It was the middle trim of three, and the wagons comprised a little over 13% of the midsize production. The Chevrolet Camaro going away is a ’70-’72 model. In the background from the left a ’75 or ’76 Oldsmobile Delta 88 2 door, ’75-’78 Cadillac Eldorado, and perhaps a Ford Pinto roof line.
More than likely it is Dad who is taking a photo of his wife, baby and their new ’69 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser with its unique (along with its cousin Buick Sportwagon) roof windows in a nice shade of blue. My parents bought a ’68 Vista Cruiser in ’69 from National Car Rental because we knew the manager and supposedly got a pretty good deal. The Olds outsold the Buick by a two to one margin, and the Vista Cruiser along with the Cutlass wagon represented over 17.5% of the Cutlass line production.
The Country Squire was always at the top of the heap in the Ford garage and this ’70 LTD from Texas is holding up very well under quite a load with a roof rack carrier and a boat. The eight passenger model was far and away the most popular and of course the most expensive. Both of the Country Squires (six and eight passenger) comprised 43% of ALL wagon sales. And over 14.5% of full size production was wagons. Up the hill is a blue ’70 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Town Sedan and a white ’71 or ’72 Mercury Marquis 4 door sedan.
In this photo we actually have three wagons. In the foreground is a tired looking ’73 AMC Matador with a twisted front bumper and some rust holes. My resource material does not show production numbers on this one either. On the other side of it are two Volvo wagons, most likely 240 or 245 DL’s. And the building looks like a dormitory.
The Matador has almost certainly found itself in Sweden, as that apartment building has all the hallmarks of northern European apartment buildings, including the casement and even some hopper windows (hinged at the bottom). One did not see those in the US, especially back then.
I remember our ’65 Dodge Coronet wagon (in the same color) squatting like that in the rear like that ’63, when we were fully loaded on our vacation trips to the Rockies. We had a roof carrier which was attached to the roof rack, which was at the rear of the roof. Roof carriers on wagons should be at the front, not the far rear.
Having lived in a German apartment building, called a block, this is most likely stairwell housing (what military personnel called apartment base housing) perhaps at one of the military bases in Germany.
Perhaps. It’s the same as hundreds of thousands of new post-war apartment blocks built all over northern Europe. But given that there’s two Volvo wagons (which were decidedly not common in Germany, especially among US military) my guess is still an apartment block in Sweden. American cars were relatively more common in Sweden (and Switzerland) than any other European country. But who knows for sure?
Here’s a photo from the other side of the Matador showing that it (and the Volvo) have US Forces in Germany license plates – so I’m guessing it was at a military installation.
My mother had a 1968 Satellite wagon and it is the car I took my DMV driver’s test in come December 1969.
The Ambassador station wagon is a 1973 model. The Di-Noc wood grain is opposite what the 72 is. Rich, don’t you recall my 72 was written up here a year ago. Below a 73.
The dark green Volvo in the second to last picture is a 145. You can tell by the headrests.
Of the red Volvo, you can hardly see anything. However, due to the color, I would rather see a 145 than a 245. Of course it’s a bit risky if you want to classify a color from an old color-print on a laptop monitor.
The favorite of all the station wagons presented here would be – of course – the Vista Cruiser. But: The silver-green metallic of the Olds in the lead photo fits so “on the spot” that this is the one I would take home (despite the spoked wheels).
With the exception of the Country Squire, the other cars seem uninteresting to me. Too old, the other sheet metal. I’m probably more of a child of the 70s…
The ’69 Olds Vista Cruiser and the ’70 LTD County Squire are my favorites of this lot.
Never being a fan of station wagons while I was younger, I’ve learned to appreciate them more and more through these very pages. The two I cite above had style for miles, IMO, especially that Oldsmobile.
Here’s Mom’s ’63 Country Sedan around 1966 with the whole family inside (4 kids) pulling our MFG boat at Squam Lake NH for our annual vacation. This Ford wagon became my first car in 1969 during my sophomore year at college. I sold it the following year to buy a Suzuki motorcycle, and boy was Dad pissed… ’nuff said!
Paul this car lived just a few blocks from your old school Loyola for 5 years, 1 block over from Chestnut Ave… the first car I ever drove (well before getting my license in ’67!).
I used to walk that way every day to and from Loyola, but I can’t say I remember yours. Let’s just say a Ford wagon wasn’t exactly the most memorable thing back then for a kid to remember; they were everywhere!
That’s quite a load it’s hauling.
Paul we were in the 600 block of Piccadilly up near Joppa Rd, you probably walked Allegheny to Eton to lower part of Piccadilly to Chestnut, so wouldn’t have walked by our house. You would have gone right by the Crabtree’s house on Allegheny, the guy with a bunch of big old M-Bs.
My best friend Chris Kiefer on Round Oak Rd (2 blocks East) went to Loyola (Blakefield) from Sept ’63 to May ’66 but you may not have been there at that time I think. I used to ride my bike around in there and sled on the hill out front.
Man that seems like such a long time ago now, and I guess it is!
We moved away in Aug ’68.
Yup, that’s how we walked, most of the time. Yes, I saw him take out his rather less-than-pristine 300SL Gullwing out of the garage and take it for a spin in the neighborhood.
I wrote about Loyola and Towson here:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-asian/curbside-classicautobiography-1972-toyota-corona-coupe-fortieth-high-school-reunion/
There were three of us; if the one that lived on W Chesapeake wasn’t coming, we’d take Boyce, as it was quicker from Colonial Court.
I went to Loyola ’67-’69; then Towson Sr. Got booted out; wouldn’t do my homework! 🙂
I grew up in the back of the 1960 Ford wagon pulling the boat in the third photo, but ours pulled my father’s home built folding travel trailer that slept 6. We called it the Casa Mobile. I always get excited when I see a photo of the 1960 Ford wagon as it was a single year model in 1960 at 80.9 inches wide. In 1961, regulations limited width to 80 inches so the 1960 model was only made that one year. Ours was yellow!
and while we still saw some of the Colonnade generation come through the shop, I don’t recall any wagons. They really weren’t that popular.
Their one-piece lift up “hatchback” tailgate was a major mistake, and was undoubtedly a factor.
The devolution of the station wagon began with the minivan craze of the mid 80s, and totally collapsed with the advent and proliferation of the SUV in the early years of the 2000s. Want proof? In the USA, you can count all the remaining sedan type vehicles of all manufacturers on one hand.
That’s it. A portrait of the wagon’s rise and fall:
I own a Colonnade (El Camino), so I can’t really throw much shade, but the station wagons were the most bland boxes on 4 wheels ever. No wonder the Torino wagon outsold them.
First pic was my neighbors wagon (the “70’s Olds”). Theirs had the “faux wood” though.
Man! That car “rusted”, big time!
Pic # 2..wish I had it next to the conv Bonneville..!
Pic # 4..lost mine in Kentucky..406 & M21 rock crusher….holy hell….at least I can remember
Sort of
Small point..isn’t the Satellite wagon a ’69?
Reason being, I thought the side light markers at the corners were produced one year later than GM. Not certain about Ford
The ’68 Mopars had little round side marker lights like this one; in ’69 they went to larger rectangular units.
This ’79 C-P was the wife’s first of the Mom wagons. The vehicle must have had every conceivable option including the AM/FM quad 8 track with scanning CB radio. The interior had the look found in Lincolns. Must have been a Wednesday build.
The major problem was the EEC II ignition system / VV carburetor. The system from hell. It became so unreliable I finally made a move backwards by installing a DuraSpark /2150 carb. Problem solved! The mileage before and after, 10 MPG city or highway, At least it was now reliable.
It met its demise when it collided with a cop car in town. The wife says the cop pulled in front of her. Moot point as our insurance paid for the cop car damage. At least no one was hurt.
Speaking of AMC station wagons: Last year when IndyCar returned to The Milwaukee Mile for the first time since 2015 My Lovely 🥰 Mrs. and I went up to catch the Saturday night race. We saw this nicely preserved 1972 Matador Station Wagon in the parking lot of our hotel in Brookfield, WI.
I found the owners and talked to them. It was a California car they bought unrestored and drove from California to Wisconsin to attend the race. I love the avocado 🥑 green paint. 👍🏻
Have ALWAYS loved wagons, even as a kid; esp the “squire” type, with the woodgrain on the sides AND on the air deflector to boot (I guess I’m just weird!). I even had a “Pint-Cat” (half Pinto, half Bobcat) similar to the one in the last photo. You can tell that the front door & fender were replaced with Pinto parts cuz the woodgrain is slightly different, and the Pinto’s “woody” trim was replaced with Bobcat chrome trim. Have always wanted a Vista Cruiser too, but never bought one (prices are as high as the car’s roof, nowadays!). I wonder, btw, if GM “borrowed” the idea of roof windows on a station wagon from the East German Wartburg automobile of the late 50s – early 60s. The look is too coincidental. Update: just Googled Wartburg station wagon & it looks like your site has already covered this topic! Thx.
My favorite wagons were the Clamshell models from GM. These cars were high art at its best. For those reading this younger than forty, the Clamshell wagons ( called that because of the Clamshell tailgate) were longer and more than likely heavier than a modern day suburban. These suburban scooters could do all the hauling duties of today’s Pick-ups. Boats being towed by Kingswood estates, Colony Parks and Royal Monaco’s was a common sight!
my first car as a college student was a ’69 vista cruiser exactly like the one here!….that color was Nassau Blue, beautiful!…. I loved that car and kept it till it was 15: years old with 154,000 miles…. really miss it!
100% agree on the 69 Vista Cruiser and the 70 Ford LTD. We had that identical ’69 OLDS.