NYT article on old station wagons.
February 7, 2003
A Wagon Like Dad's, but Now I'm in Front
By KIMBERLY STEVENS
For Steve Barnes, the search for the Brady-Bunch-mobile of
his dreams became an all-consuming passion. After months of
surfing the Web and culling through car magazines and
newspaper advertisements, he decided to take the ultimate
step and hire a private detective to find the elusive 1971
Dodge Monaco station wagon he was looking for.
"I knew I needed professional help," he said. "It sounds
wacky, but I really wanted to find that particular make and
model, and I wasn't getting anywhere on my own." Mr.
Barnes, 41, a mail carrier from Littleton, Colo., was
shocked when just a few weeks later the detective presented
him with a list of owners all over the United States.
After paying the detective $250, he bought a wagon, which
was in mint condition, in Florida for $8,000. He and his
wife, Cathi, drive it around town regularly, he said, and
there's always enough room for their three English
sheepdogs.
"Some people have a midlife crisis and buy Porsche
convertibles," Mr. Barnes said. "I went the other way."
He is not alone. In the cult of the station wagon, owners
and enthusiasts often go to great lengths to find the
wagons they grew up with, had their first dates in or owned
in the years when they were starting their families.
For Mr. Barnes, it wasn't actually a desire to duplicate
the car that appeared on "The Brady Bunch" (though it was
the same model), but a quest for the car that got away.
When he was 10, his father almost bought a bright white '71
Monaco wagon for $5,000 but at the last moment decided
against it. "I remember playing with my brother in that car
on the lot," he said. "We thought it was ours. I guess that
car has been on my mind ever since."
And after all, didn't everyone have a station wagon?
Classic models started gaining popularity in the 50's. By
1959, 17 percent of the cars produced in the United States
were station wagons, according to Stationwagon.com, and
their popularity held in the 60's and early 70's. The
station wagon was synonymous with the postwar economic
boom, large happy families and good times. Ozzie and
Harriet whipped around the block in a brand new Pontiac
wagon in their first season.
Then, when the gasoline crisis hit in 1974, station wagons
lost some of their appeal. Manufacturer after manufacturer
dropped them from product lines, and in a few more years
minivans and sport utility vehicles began filling their old
niche. By the 1990's, even station wagons from the 70's had
mostly been driven into the ground and junked. Just when
many boomers were looking for the vehicles that they
associated with the happy days of childhood, those wagons
had become rare.
That made the cars eligible to become collectibles, and
gradually they did. They began appearing at auctions; clubs
and Web sites sprang up; devotees held shows and meets.
"Those wagons are classics," said Chris Winfrey, a
41-year-old history teacher from St. Louis who searched for
months on the Internet before finding his 1966 Mercury
Colony Park wagon. He bought it for $2,000 three years ago.
"Just 10 years ago you'd have to pay a junkyard to come
take it off your hands," he said, but now "things have
turned around very quickly and the values are beginning to
rise."
Mr. Winfrey's wagon passion, like Mr. Barnes's, has a
nostalgic connection. As a teenager he drove his
grandfather's dark blue 1966 Pontiac Catalina wagon. "It
was the ultimate party wagon as a teen," he said. "I could
cram 15 friends in it and just cruise around town."
Rekindling happy memories is probably the best reason to
buy an old station wagon, according to Richard Lentinello,
editor of Hemmings Motor News. "No one should buy a station
wagon for investment purposes, or they'll get burned," he
said. "These cars were mass-produced, and they were just
everyday cars that people took for granted. They've been
used and abused." Values are rising because there are so
few in good condition, he said, but the typical suburban
station wagon will always stay at the bottom end of the
ladder for serious car collectors.
The most prominent exception may be the woody wagons, which
had wooden panels on the sides. The original station wagons
go back to the turn of the 20th century. They were called
depot hacks and were designed to transport luggage and
passengers to and from train stations. Typically, they had
partial wooden construction, a legacy of the horse-drawn
wagons they replaced. From the 1930's to the 1950's, some
station wagons made for family use had genuine wooden
panels reminiscent of the utilitarian depot hacks, and they
are the woodies many older Americans now fondly remember.
(Later imitators had fake wood painted on, or even decals
akin to adhesive shelf paper.)
According to Ken McDaniel, the president of the American
Station Wagon Owners Association, a woody from the late
1940's, in mint condition, can fetch as much as $75,000.
Rob Kneen, 50, the owner of a travel agency in Mentor,
Ohio, was motivated in his two-year search for a woody by
fond memories of his mother driving a 1949 Ford woody
(original cost, $1,300). He tracked down the same wagon in
rural Tennessee about five years ago and paid $30,000 for
it. A father and son team had meticulously restored it.
Now, Mr. Kneen and his wife drive it in the summer and
often have tailgate picnics, which attract a lot of
attention.
His parents' woody wasn't always luxurious to ride in, he
remembers. "Sometimes it smelled like rotten wood, because
my parents never had a garage, so the car sat out in the
harsh Midwestern winters, exposed to the elements," he
said. "We had bees that actually would drill holes in the
wood and make little nests in the car. I remember sitting
in the back seat swatting at bees."
David Lee, a heavy-equipment mechanic from Fontana, Calif.,
said he has been searching for a 1959 two-door Ford Country
Sedan for the last 20 years. "It was the car my parents
owned when I was born," he said. His most recent buy was a
1959 Ford Edsel Villager. "There was this urban legend
going around about a station wagon in mint condition that
was sealed in the back of a truck in Riverside, Calif.," he
said, chuckling. "It took me a year by word of mouth to
find out that it was a true story, and I now own the car."
DAVE ZAPPONE, a 35-year-old actor, drives a 1977 Buick
Estate Wagon that he has managed to get into two films:
"Before Night Falls" and "Hysterical Blindness," an HBO
movie. He also owns three Estate Wagons from other years,
which he stores. He recently bought an eight-track tape
player on eBay and put it in the 1977 model as a period
accessory. His fondness for the cars goes back to high
school, he said, when he inherited his family's 1976 Estate
Wagon. "I remember I got teased a lot for driving the
thing," he said. "Station wagons got no respect, but it was
part of my identity."
The respect factor has changed. Mr. Kneen, who owns the
woody, said what he liked most about driving a station
wagon today was the warm response he got from strangers. He
also owns a 1964 Oldsmobile station wagon, the same model
as one he drove in high school. "It was a great date car,"
he said, pointing out that there is quite a bit of room to
roll around in the front seat of a classic wagon. "Of
course, in those days it was all G-rated activity," he
added.
"I remember what it felt like to eat French fries in that
car with my friends," he said. "It often all comes rushing
back when I'm driving that car."
"I think we live in challenging times," he continued. "When
people see me driving the wagon, they stop and smile and
wave, and it clearly brings it all back for them as well."
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company. |
