Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Wagons Ho! - American Station Wagons - Part I of 4







Station wagons used to be the main choice of travel for family vacations as they were quite large and could hold everything but the kitchen sink. As the gas shortage of the 1970s caused us to re-evaluate our priorities, they got smaller to the point where new opportunities would arise for car companies to come up with something different such as Chrysler's Minivan. The introduction of the Caravan along with several competing entries started the long death spiral for the popularity of our beloved wagons. And depending where one lives, they could also be known as an Estate, Caravan, Break, Combi (Kombi), Tourist, Touring, Shooting Brake, Variant, Traveller, Countryman, Woody, Avant, Weekend, Sportswagon or even as Chevy Chase called his in the movie 'Vacation', the Family Truckster.

Thankfully, not all wagons went away, the Europeans continued to produce very nice offerings while we in the states were offered only entry level versions such as Escorts and the like. Station wagons still have a niche in the market and mostly all luxury brands have them available in the US, but not as many that are still offered in other parts of the world where Opel, Holden, Ford, BMW, Mercedes, Fiat, Citroen etc all have nice cars available. In the US, Volvo and BMW are struggling to sell them, but Cadillac has just released the new CTS and CTS-V station wagons and they are beautiful. For more information on the history of Station wagons, please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Station_wagon for some wonderful pictures of the real things as I will show you some cool American 3inch versions below. Until next time, Tot Ziens!

JL '41 Special Deluxe
1954 Chevy Corvette Nomad
Hot Wheels Woody

RC '40 Ford Woody
Johnny Lightning (JL)




 

JL '55 Chevy Nomad
HWs Ford 8 Crate
HWs Classic Nomad
HWs Custom 59 Chevy
HWs Custom '57 Chevy Nomad
JL Custom '57 Chevy Nomad
JL Olds Vista Cruiser
HWs Custom 66 GTO Wagon
JL '73 Chevy Caprice
Yatming Mercury Station Wagon
JL '60 Ford Country Squire
'79 Chrysler LeBaron

Matchbox Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser
JL '65 Ford Falcon Wagon
Matchbox Mercury Commuter
JL Chevelle Wagon
HWs Custom '70 Sportswagon
Maisto Chevy Biscayne
Matchbox Studebaker Lark
HWs Packin AMC Pacer
HWs Dodge Aries K Wagon
Matchbox Mercury Sable
Matchbox Dodge Magnum
Pre-pro Matchbox Cadillac CTS-V Wagon
For part II, I will be dedicating this blog to European Station Wagons. I hope you have enjoyed this update.

KEY:
JL - Johnny Lightning
RC - Racing Champions
HWs - Hot Wheels

1 comment:

  1. Great collection of wagons. Really like the JL '55 Nomad.

    ReplyDelete