I’ve only been to Red Hook a handful of times, but this Brooklyn neighborhood has a somewhat ethereal quality. It feels like no other place in New York City: detached and distant, with no subway coverage, and yet surprisingly close to Manhattan. The expansive neighborhood has a peculiar charm, with industrial buildings on one block but cute rowhouses with gardens on another, and cobblestone streets scattered throughout. On one meandering walk through Red Hook, I spotted a pristine Checker Marathon. It wasn’t my only curbside sighting: two classic Fords were parked amongst the ubiquitous Camrys and CR-Vs.
There once was a time, long before the birth of the minivan and the crossover, when seemingly ever middle- and upper-middle class household in America had a woodgrain-panelled station wagon. This 1974 Ford LTD Country Squire was Ford’s priciest wagon, positioned above the more pedestrian LTD Wagon, Galaxie 500 Country Sedan and Custom 500 Ranch Wagon (and the smaller Torino and Pinto wagons).
Engine offerings consisted of 400 or 460 cubic-inch V8s, although a 351 V8 was available on the Galaxie and Custom wagons. The following year, Ford ceased selling the Galaxie and Custom wagons to retail buyers.
The Ford brand’s position at the bottom of the Ford Motor Corporation totem pole was no barrier to success in the full-size wagon segment. 1974 was a bad year for full-size vehicles, but the Ford full-size wagon range remained at the top of the pile. In fact, the ritzy LTD Country Squire weathered the storm of high gas prices better than all its rivals, including the usually similar-selling Chevy Caprice wagon. Ford produced 64,047 units of the LTD wagon for 1974 (along with 12,104 Custom and 22,400 Galaxie wagons); total production of Chevy full-size wagons was close, but a greater proportion of Ford wagons were of the most upscale trim level. A few hundred bucks extra bought you a Buick, Mercury or Chrysler wagon, but the LTD Country Squire obliterated them in sales, especially in 1974. Ford’s wagon mojo was strong in the 1970s.
Often when one spots classic cars in such amazing condition in NYC, there is invariably a sign nearby indicating that a TV show or movie is filming and that they are rented background cars. While parts of Red Hook could pass for a bygone era without requiring many set decorations, I spotted no filming sign near the Country Squire or this exquisite 1962 Thunderbird.
I would be sweating bullets parking such a gorgeous classic like this on the street, even if it was in relatively quiet Red Hook. This ‘bird looked as though it rolled right out of a showroom. You can spot it is a ’62 because of the decorative vents on the rear quarter panels, whereas ’61 and ’63 models had different side ornamentation. I consider this generation to be the ne plus ultra of Thunderbirds: no generation before or since is as beautiful to behold as this Bill Boyer design. Stripping away the extraneous chrome and bird logos could actually serve to enhance the design, such is the beauty and simplicity of the shape.
I don’t know if Red Hook is usually such a hotbed of beautiful classics (I didn’t even mention the brown Benz!) but if it is I need to go for another stroll there someday.
Such a beautiful Country Squire and in amazing condition. I prefer the later years of this generation with hidden headlights, but this one is tough to pass up.
Wagon. Must have. Now.
Loving that wagon. Not that I’d want to own one, mind you — it’s just nice to look at. From afar.
Country Squire: WOW! Strictly brand-new. Only needs the price tag on the left rear window.
Concours, or maybe Grand Concourse, condition.
One thing I remember from my time living in Metro NYC…
When it snows, people panic and just stay home. Therefore the cars aren’t necessarily as rusty as you might think.
Dents and dings? Another story…
Funny that the LTD Country Squire has a PA license plate. Looks like you found someone who had a buddy register the car for them out of state even though the car lives in New York City. Though the car could be visiting, we can only speculate. Better get some registration on that lovely Thunderbird before it gets towed.
About 10 years ago I photographed a 93-96 Caprice 9C6 that had this thick paper note in one of its windows and the New York City Film Commission (or whatever it is called) logo on the bottom. The note said something about filming and to call a number before towing or ticketing.
Love them both. Might take the next gen. for the T-bird, though. Country Squire looks good though; whoever owns it took good care of it.
Count me as a fan of both. Nice find, thank you
Wish a manufacturer would make a real station wagon as opposed to “crossovers”, SUVs or minivans.
Totally agree. Love love love wagons! Have owned more wagons than sedans in 20+ years of driving; my current ride is a 2004 Ford Focus Wagon. I don’t want a crossover, an SUV or god-forbid, a minivan.
This ’74 Ford Country Squire wagon is gorgeous in the dark green with the woodgrain. So much more elegant than the Panthers that replaced it, they were ugly boxes on wheels. Growing up in the ’70s I remember a lot of these on the roads, they were very popular indeed.
Every automaker makes real station wagons, right up to the E-segment (Audi A6, Mercedes E-Class and the like). They’re just not offered in the US.
Since we’re talking Ford here, this is the Mondeo (Fusion) wagon.
When we were wagon-shopping back in the ’90s, the only foreign models that we knew offered a 3rd row were Toyota’s Camry & the Volvo 740. I liked the Volvo’s boxy design, but feared its cost of ownership. The Indiana-built Camry did serve us well; BTW it was rare enough to elicit remarks from strangers.
This generation of Toyota Camry wagons is the last one I can remember, it was on our market circa 20 years ago. It was called the Camry Customwagon and it had a 2.2 liter 4 cylinder or a 3.0 liter V6.
Same body & engine choices as ours. This was the last US-market Camry wagon; in a way, the Highlander is its successor. I suspect all XV10 Camry wagons were built Stateside. It wasn’t agile, but cornered pretty well. The 2.2 with auto was weak under load, no wonder later Camrys have larger 4-bangers. Recently, we rented an XV40 sedan with 2.5L & 6-spd auto, & it has lots of punch, a V6 would be extravagant.
“built Stateside” means built in the US ? That confirms what I also just read when looking for some more info: the Customwagons sold here were all built in the US.
I’m pretty sure Toyota built them in Australia, as well as the following model. On the other hand our Honda Accord wagons were imported form the US, but Honda did not have a manufacturing plant in Australia.
Only the larger local wagons were offered with dealer-fit 3rd row seats that installed on top of the cargo floor, they weren’t a great option but I suppose beat walking in a pinch.
And this is Toyota’s current biggest wagon here, the Avensis Touring Sports. It’s a D-segment car, so about the size of the Ford Mondeo pictured above.
Gasoline engine options: 1.6 -1.8 – 2.0 liter.
Diesels: 1.6 (a BMW engine) and Toyota’s own 2.0 liter.
About the same size as our old US-made Camry, but looks like it has no 3rd seat. Maybe Europeans prefer vans for >5 occupants, which makes sense; even the Country Squire’s rear seating was fit only for small kids.
Toyota UK’s [fancy but shallow] website features Avensis “Business Edition,” which I suppose is their “Executive Saloon.”
That’s correct, station wagons mostly don’t have a 3rd row of seats. Some models are (or were) available with optional extra seats, or a bench, which theoretically makes them a 7-seater. Below an older model Peugeot 308 wagon (a C-segment car), but I guess it doesn’t seat 7 big guys….
Neil, I checked Toyota’s Dutch website. I found the Avensis “Executive Business” and even the Avensis “Executive Business Premium”.
Fancy names for a typical rep car (as discussed on CC the other day) with all the options available.
The Toyota Avensis is a D-segment car, thus too small to be an “executive saloon” in the UK. The Lexus GS, that’s Toyota’s executive saloon (aka E-segment).
I also wish the choice in wagons were greater. Pretty sure my next car will be one. And, though I’ll likely buy used, the selection is still not that great. There are the German entries, nice but repair costs on a used example will likely keep me away. And beyond that, staying in the ~10 year old range, there aren’t a lot of options in this country. Focus, Impreza, and IS300 are too small…don’t want a Taurus/Sable for a variety of reasons…that basically leaves the Volvo V70, Mazda 6, and Subaru Legacy (non-Outback).
Ford always did wagons right. They just always seemed to pay more attention to them than at GM, where wagons often looked like an afterthought. Innovations such as the 3 way magic doorgate and dual facing rear seats helped as well. The Country Squire had a high level interior as well, comparable to the LTD Brougham/Landau.
As for the ’62 T-Bird – just stunning. The best of all its generations, IMHO. And, as incredible as it may seem, the interior is even better than this gorgeous exterior. Four bucket seats and luxury everywhere.
I will agree that Ford did give more attention to station wagons, however, the dual facing rear seats was not a great innovation in my opinion. This also was more of an engineering solution to Ford’s fuel tank location, rather that a better solution to rear seating. As a former wagon owner, the rear facing third seat was a much better and more comfortable option than Ford sideways jump seats.
Well, not exactly four bucket seats because the rear seat has full width upper andl lower seat cushions, but that “hump” on the lower cushion kind of restricts the back seat to two passengers.
Red Hook looks like a likely home for two classics that I have repeatedly spotted in New York over the years: a 1972 Ford Galaxie sedan (dark blue) that appeared frequently in Brooklyn Heights in the early 2000s, and a mid-60s Chevrolet Chevelle coupe (light blue) that I saw several times in the Grand Central/Bryant Park areas of Midtown in the late 2000s/early 2010s. All of those sightings were long before I was aware of this site, or carried around a camera phone.
You do get above average CC per square mile in Red Hook, sadly, not so much anymore in Brooklyn Heights, although until a few years ago a work in progress ’63 Studebaker GT Hawk often turned up on my block. More recently in RH I’ve seen a sad ’67 Cadillac DeVille convertible and a well maintained colonnade El Camino – Have pics of that somewhere. Best recent sighting was a ’56 Plymouth Belvedere on Hicks Street in Cobble Hill.
And here’s a ’67 Chrysler 300 4 door hardtop nearby in Carroll Gardens.
“This 1974 Ford LTD Country Squire was Ford’s priciest wagon, positioned above the more pedestrian LTD Wagon, Galaxie 500 Country Sedan and Custom 500 Ranch Wagon (and the smaller Torino and Pinto wagons).”
When was the regular LTD wagon introduced? At one time, every fullsize Ford wagon had a wagon-specific model name. From 1955 to 1968, the fullsize wagons were actually marketed as distinct models from the rest of the line, i.e., it was just a Ford Country Squire, not a Ford LTD Country Squire. As of 1968, it was Ranch (equivalent to Custom), Ranch 500 (equivalent to Custom 500), Country Sedan (equivalent to Galaxie 500), Country Squire (equivalent to LTD), with no “nameless” wagons.
“1974 was a bad year for full-size vehicles, but the Ford full-size wagon range remained at the top of the pile…a greater proportion of Ford wagons were of the most upscale trim level…Ford’s wagon mojo was strong in the 1970s.”
When we looked at this some time back, we found that Ford’s fullsize wagons outsold Chevrolet’s every year from 1966 to 1976, often by a sizable margin, even though Chevrolet’s overall fullsize sales were almost always higher. Fullsize Ford wagon production was over 200K every year from 1968 to 1973 (fullsize Chevrolet wagon production never seriously threatened 200K after the early ’60s), in some years accounting for a full 25% of Ford’s total fullsize production. Both brands saw their fullsize wagon sales drop in the wake of the energy crisis, but Chevrolet began to draw closer in the mid ’70s. Chevrolet finally overtook Ford with the downsized 1977 B-bodies.
Ford seemed to emphasize the top end of its fullsize line more so than Chevrolet across the board, not just with the wagons. The LTD usually accounted for a much larger proportion of fullsize sales than the Caprice. This may have been a matter of GM having more of a presence in the middle-price market that it wanted to protect, whereas FoMoCo seemed much more willing to let the Ford brand make incursions into that market space, going all the way back to the 1958 Thunderbird.
“The following year, Ford ceased selling the Galaxie and Custom wagons to retail buyers.”
I’m not sure what happened to the wagons specifically, but the Custom 500 became fleet-only in 1975. The Galaxie name disappeared, but the model range it represented didn’t. It was instead absorbed by the LTD. What had been the Galaxie became the base LTD, while what had been the LTD became the LTD Landau. Though both were badged under the same model name, they retained the noticeably different front-end styling that had previously distinguished the Galaxie and LTD from each other. This arrangement would continue through 1979. For 1980, the Crown Victoria replaced the Landau, and the base and Crown Victoria now had the same basic front-end appearance.
In a recent article on a 1986 LTD Crown Victoria wagon, poster Stumack stated that 1974 was the last year the Ranch Wagon and Country Sedan names were used. Of the wagon-specific model names, only Country Squire continued for 1975 and beyond.
“When was the regular LTD wagon introduced?” Spring 1973, I remember Ford dealers promoting it. And was into’d at Chicago Auto Show.
And what is true is the base LTD’s after 1975 were really Galaxies with hood ornaments.
What a couple of great finds. I grew up with wagons, as my Dad always liked something that could carry cargo and the family at the same time. He also had a Chevy Greenbrier passenger van and a 1960 Suburban with three row seating before he bought a truck in 1975. Then he added two 1980 Chevy Malibu wagons to the fleet.I like the higher end wagons the best. The Ford Country Squire was always able to bridge the status gap with buyers and many affluent buyers had no problem with parking one in their driveway. That Thunderbird, what a beauty. These models best display the panache that the Thunderbird embodied. Say it slowly while looking at this car and you feel were really looking at something special. While it is a shame that Ford never offered these outfitted with GT level running gear, there is nothing to stop you from doing that yourself now. GM offered a more athletic version of the early 60s Riviera that was a better runner than a base Bird. I think that Ford got the luxury aspect of these Thunderbirds right and the sales numbers seem to bear this out.
Nice wagon. Wrong wheel covers for the year though.
That Thunderbird is a stunner; such a striking color! My younger son lives fairly close to Red Hook, and we go there often when we visit him. Here are a couple of Oldsmobiles spotted there behind a chain link fence: 1962 Starfire coupe and 1958 Eighty Eight 4-door sedan.
my favorite thunderbird is like the one below. I do not know what this particular body style is called but it has no side window for the rear seat passenger. The 64-68 with a 428 engine is the best in my opinion.
With such gems as those to look at, I never even noticed the brown Benz until you mentioned it. Especially that lovely Thunderbird.
They just don’t do style like they used to.
With those rowhouses topping out a two stories,rather than the “typical” taller NYC row (or brownstone), This looks like a Pittsburgh neighborhood!
Those Fords are in great shape… Ford really was good with rustproofing on their exteriors back in the day.
Now their floors are another story.
I remember, flying on the freeway, in my 72 428 Cobra Jet swapped T-Bird, and hearing a swoosh of air, from the rear of the car.
I moved the rear floor mat, just to see the highway asphalt flying by. The T-Bird had a large hole in the rear floor. 🙁
I’ve noticed a lot of Falcons and Galaxies were also victims of the tin foil floor pans used by Ford.
Nice finds!
The Country Squire is a great example of why Ford called themselves the “wagon master” for years. a ’74 seems especially rare–I’m more used to seeing the hidden headlamp models from ’75-’78. Also, I think the wheel covers are from a later Ford–I don’t think these were offered in 1974.
Bullet birds are one of my favorites. The extra chrome trim/body side moldings on the sides of this one are too much (and not stock), but otherwise it’s perfect.
Beautiful finds! It’s a rarity to see an old wagon in such great condition; that one is amazing. And the Thunderbird is simply gorgeous. I go back and forth as to whether these bullet ‘Birds or the next generaton flair ‘Birds are my favorite, but I know I’d be thrilled to have either one in my driveway!