The start of another week. The morning is cold, my coffee is hot. That's a good beginning to a new day! As my mind usually does, I think of cars, old cars that is. As a little kid in the fifties, cars were my excitement wherever I was.
In 1957 I was only 6 years old and I didn't know anything about who produced them or that there were several different companies. I just knew names of cars and that they all looked different from one another. I could tell a Plymouth from a Ford or a Chevy, but didn't have the faintest idea that they were all produced by different companies. And to be honest, it didn't matter, as I wouldn't have understood it if I did.
My Grandfather (on my mothers side), was a Station Wagon guy. I remember him having a 1956 Plymouth Sport Suburban, which was in the Belvedere line. The big news (for me anyway) was when he traded in that Plymouth for a BRAND NEW 1957 OLDSMOBILE FIESTA STATION WAGON! I remember the first ride in it, standing on the floor in the back seat....yup, standing up! No seat belts in those days folks. I had my arms and chin on the front seat as I stood and thought it was a really cool car. I remember liking the dashboard. It seemed so long as it stretched across from door to door.
Facts I learned later were that the Fiesta name had been carried over from the low production 1953 Fiesta Convertible. And it was also newsworthy, because this '57 Fiesta Station Wagon was the first wagon produced by Oldsmobile since 1951. I guess in hindsight, had I known that when I was 6 years old, my grandpa would have been pretty cool for owning it.
As I said above, he was a station wagon guy, and he bought another new one in 1958, and yes, it was another Oldsmobile. No doubt these two cars helped fuel my love for Oldsmobile's.
Through the 50's and 60's there were many incredibly beautiful wagons. As I pour my second cup of coffee, I'm curious, "Which Station Wagons were your favorites?"
Where I grew up in a neighborhood of about 2 square miles and 6 miles from the nearest town center. There were about 200 families on this hill called Pine Rock Park and everybody was lower middle income factory workers or construction workers. New cars were out of the question [money] and station wagons were virtually non-existent there, I don't know why being a kid back then. I therefore have no interest in them. People moved up to middle or even upper middle incomes and the cars in the middle to late '60's were recent used or even new with very few wagons.
Another memory of a Station Wagon that comes to mind for me is when in the mid-1960's having a newspaper route, I could load up all the Sunday papers for my route in the back and have him drive up and down the neighborhood streets so that I could deliver them. Without that '59 Chevy station wagon, my job on Sunday mornings would have been a lot more difficult.
Plenty of great looking station wagons in past. One of the lookers that come to mind is this one: a 1957 Mercury Colony Park.
I guess we have the station wagon to blame for today's onslaught of SUVs.
I totally agree with you John, about the Mercury '57's. Normally, station wagons weren't as nice to look at as regular passenger cars, but the General Motors Hardtop wagons and those Mercury's were stylish beasts of beauty.
I am a great lover of station wagons, post war thru 1972. My Dad bought a new dark green 1955 Chevy 2dr. wagon when we lived in Nova Scotia. The next year we moved across Canada, driving all the way to Vancouver Island on the west coast. As I was only 4 years old at the time I have no memory of that trip, or of the Chevy, at least until the evening we arrived at our new home in Victoria, British Columbia. My Dad who, I years later realized was a terrible driver, drove through a stop sign that first evening and I recall seeing the flash of glaring headlights, the a crash, a big bump on my noggin, my mother's scream and then the noise of a hub cap rolling in the street. We had been T-boned by a city bus. I had broken the interior light with my head, not a big deal, no injuries at all; but the Chevy passenger side was badly damaged. The car was repaired and kept until 1957 when it was traded in for a new Pontiac Safari wagon, light green and white. It was one of those Canadian Pontiacs with a Chevy chassis and a 6 cylinder engine and manual trans...but man was it reliable. It wasn't the 2dr. Safari we all know but just the ordinary body shell; still it was a beauty in its day and we kept it until its end. It was handed down to my sister then I got what she left of it for my first driver. I worker at a Texaco station part time in early 1969 and vividly remember towing it to the city dump; where it was flattened and buried by a bulldozer....so much for environmental issues! That was a sad day.
My favorite wagons are the tri-five Chevy Nomads, the 55 Pontiac safari and the '56 Ford Park Lane. I also love the Country Squires and Colony Parks and early GM tin woodies.
That was quite a step up for your grandfather in 1957 from a Plymouth to an Oldsmobile!
In my early teens I worked as a delivery boy for the local fruit store. It must have been a successful business as this high-end station wagon was used for bringing the fruits and vegetables from the market and deliveries to customers:
That was quite a step up for your grandfather in 1957 from a Plymouth to an Oldsmobile!
In my early teens I worked as a delivery boy for the local fruit store. It must have been a successful business as this high-end station wagon was used for bringing the fruits and vegetables from the market and deliveries to customers:
My experience with station wagons is much different than yours. Growing up in the 50s and 60s in the west side of Chicago, there were not a lot of station wagons. My parents and relatives did not own any. Station wagons were more common in the suburbs. This may sound strange, but I do not think I ever rode in a station wagon.
What I find most interesting is that back in the day of the station wagons, they were generally considered a car for the working class guy. And most people didn't want them because the allusion was that if you had a wagon, you had to get it for the family and gave up your hardtop or convertible.
However, in today's world, EVERYONE (well just about everyone) owns an SUV or MINI-VAN, which by all accounts are both just bigger station wagons. And according to a news report I heard recently, they outsell passengers 8 to 2. Funny how times change.
