Wikipedia’s definition of a sedan:
A sedan /sɨˈdæn/ (American, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand English) or saloon (British and Irish English) is a passenger car in a three-box configuration with A, B & C-pillars and principal volumes articulated in separate compartments for engine, passenger and cargo.[1] The passenger compartment features two rows of seats and adequate passenger space in the rear compartment for adult passengers.
Who would argue with that? Ford’s Department of Vehicle Naming, that’s who. I don’t know where the got the idea for that, but starting in 1953, their wagons one step below the Country Squire started to be called Country Sedan. This was during the reign of the “Whiz Kids”, so presumably we can blame them. Well, at least the stripper version below it was named properly: Ranch Wagon. How hard was that?
Posted at the Cohort by John Lloyd
Ford’s Department of Vehicle Naming has been around a lot longer than Wiki-anything. That alone should give it credence.
Naming patterns go from periods of fairly tidy consistency (Fury I, II, III) to the incomprehensible. I always took from this name that a refined sedan was modified for refined country use, fitting the motif that a lot of wagon names looked to invoke at the time.
Beats Ford Flex.
GM’s divisions seems to have been slightly better than Ford or Chrysler in how they separated the different tiers on their carlines. In fact, GM’s ability in this area could explain their better success, too, since car buyers could more easily figure out exactly what they were looking for.
It’s ironic to mention the Plymouth Fury as an example of how well Chrysler addressed the situation, since Chrysler bounced the Fury name around all over the place over the course of a couple decades.
Of course, GM has had issues, too, like the whole Chevrolet ‘LS’ designation. It was originally the highest trim level but, nowadays, a Chevy ‘LS’ anything is the lowest trim.
And, yeah, the Ford Flex isn’t the best, like it’s short for the Ford ‘Flexible’, something you would definitely think a manufacturer would not like a vehicle to be known as.
And then there’s the upcoming Honda Vezel. Maybe it’s to capitalize on the Kia Soul hamster theme.
I would agree with your comment in the context of the ’65 Chevy and the ’65 Ford. Chevy wagons were named for their sedan and coupe counterparts, making it pretty easy to understand the hierarchy.
The Country Sedan and Country Squire walked fuzzier ground in their alignment with the Galaxie 500, but Ford wagons were outselling Chevy wagons so it didn’t seem to matter.
In ’69 Chevy decided to go with Ford’s approach to naming their wagons by using different names that had some alignment to their mainstream names. Ford was “The Wagonmaster”, and Chevy was chasing them in this segment.
All of the “low price three” were prone to going back and forth from clean to murky naming schemes. Plymouth’s days as the “Fury Division” in ’75 to ’77 pretty much killed the brand.
I’ve always sort of assumed the “Country Squire” name came first, since “Squire” came to be Ford shorthand for “woodgrain trim”; then they came up with “Ranch Wagon” to express the base model’s humbler working-vehicle vibe, with “Country Sedan” as an afterthought intended to make the mid-level trim sound more like the pricier version than the cheaper one. Since it sold like mad, after that, nobody really cared.
I have no idea if this is actually true or not, but that’s how I think about it…
“Fury” is one of my all time favorite names for a car. You have no idea how much Id like to see the 300C spawn a Hellcat-powered 2 door pillarless hardtop based on the sedan’s lines. A 707 hp Hellcat Fury. The very thought of that makes me need a cold shower!
I never understood the reason behind it there again they also had the Edsel Citation(named after something a traffic cop writes you for having bald tyres).Been in plenty of full size Ford wagons on family holidays in America & Canada in the 60s & 70s(and little sister blew chunks at least once every holiday)
When the Citation name returned on an ’80 Chevy and the car developed a poor reputation in its second year, jokes about “why would you buy a car named after a traffic offense” were pretty rampent.
That name is something that’s always puzzled me too.
Why do they call any model by what ever name? The pre ww2 wagons were woodies and were call station wagons, so perhaps they were trying to distance the new wagon’s, with steel bodies from the old ones? They were also playing cute with the sedans by calling them Tudor Sedans (2 doors) and Fordor Sedans (4 doors).
Bit rough around the edges, but still a nice looking Country Sedan. All the original M-series plates should be off the road by now so guess they wanted to keep their number.
Sedan was a type of chair suspended on poles carried by servants. That being the case, it ought to be used to describe 2-seater cars at most.
Some early carmakers used letters at first. So I’d rather they just had a model number, like aircraft manufacturers & Benz. Of course nerds like me •would• say that.
It’s no worse than what Mercedes-Benz currently calls a four door automobile with room for four and lousy headroom for the two in the rear.
I agree, the Country Sedan has always been a puzzle. The three model lineup of Country Squire, Country Vassal and Country Serf would have been so much more consistent.
This is a very authentic example, with apparently each of its flat, flex-prone wheelcovers having made a break for greener pastures. In my adolescent days of hubcap collecting, the 65 Ford wheelcover was one of the ones most commonly found along roadsides.
I was pretty small fry when these wheel covers were still prolific. But, the simple design caught my eye for some reason. It’s one of my earliest car memories that didn’t involve my parents cars. This could be the reason I eventually gravitated to the ’65 Ford as whole, and thought it the best of Ford’s tri six cars until personal ownership of a ’67 Galaxie coupe shifited my bias.
I also love those wheel covers! I didn’t know about their proclivity to disassociate themselves with the mothership. 🙂
Nice old Wagon ;
Hopefully someone will save it soon else it’s crusher bound for sure .
I loved my $150 1962 Ford Ranch Wagon…
-Nate
While by far not an expert, I assume that car-based delivery vans were called “sedan delivery” in the same time. So, it seems, this word used to have a somewhat different meaning, presumably dating back to the time when a station wagon was, indeed, a horse-powered wagon that carried people from a train station to town. Packard also used the term “Packard Station Sedan” in the early 50-s.
By the way, I always liked the ’65 fullsize Ford frontal styling for its rough, “truck-like” look. There is a red plain-Jane sedan in Moscow, purchased brand new by some lucky guy in the 60-s, sadly with a retrofitted Diesel engine – hope on day I’ll have it ) Would have to rebuild my garage to park it, though…
I think you nailed it. A vehicle named Country Sedan could, indeed, have been viewed as an updated variation on the old sedan delivery since a station wagon was essentially a sedan delivery with a rear seat and rear side windows.
Who knows, maybe Ford had contemplated building a 1965 Sedan Delivery with blanked off rear side windows and came up with this, instead.
I agree with you Stanislav, there is nothing wrong with calling this middle of the line car a Country Sedan. That designation came out in 1952 when people were not ‘Politically Correct’ yet. I grew up in the 50s and found it perfectly natural. I certainly liked them better than want Chevrolet was putting out then and since.
By the way, I like your name as well.
Actually, sedan delivery was originally just what it says: a sedan with blanked-off windows for delivery service. This goes back to the 20s and 30s, at a time when real station wagons were primarily commercial vehicles with long and tall wood-framed bodies seating 7-8 passengers. Back then they were often built on light-truck chassis too.
The original sedan delivery used a standard sedan body, because it was much cheaper than a station wagon. Only in much more recent times (50s) did sedan deliveries start to share anything with station wagons, after the wagons started to be built out of steel. So historically speaking, a sedan delivery from the 50s up, and station-wagon based is also a misnomer. FWIW.
Here’s a picture of a Ford Model A Sedan Delivery. A Tudor body with filled in rear windows and a rear door.
And here’s a Model A station wagon. Two very different vehicles.
“Back then they were often built on light-truck chassis too”.
Boy, that went full circle about 1990.
Yes, and Chevy surely “hit one out of the ball park” with the “Kingswood Estate” moniker for their station wagon….. #RollEyes
Paul, time to take your meds.
🙂
Are you taking me seriously again? You should know better than that 🙂
I unfortunately let several 1965-1966 similar cars / wagons get away. I’d love to own standard versions of my 1966 National Ford Ranch Wagon Ambulance. I have several more pics of this car in my Flickr albums.
Well, have heard of a pickup truck referred to as a ‘Country Cadillac’. But not by the manufacturer.
I owned a 58 Country Sedan. I thought it was odd as well.
Some other Ford Motor Company wagon names to consider:
Edsel: Bermuda; Villager; Roundup; Amblewagon
Mercury: Colony Park; Commuter; Voyager; Country Cruiser; Villager (used on Montego, Bobcat and even one year on a Cougar)
Confusing, definitely.
But if theres one thing I absolutely HATE with a fiery passion its the VW CC and BMW Gran Coupe. 4 forward swinging doors, 4 exposed door handles, A/B/C pillars, and a trunk with a fixed rear window. That’s a SEDAN, folks. Lowering the roofline a bit in a flaccid attempt to make it a bit more sporty/less formal doesn’t make it a coupe any more than red lipstick and fingernails would make Rosie O’Donnell a supermodel.
I can’t help myself……
Why does a chicken coop have 2 doors?
If it had 4 doors it would be a chicken sedan.
I do wish there were still 2 door wagons out there. My inner marketing genius says that Ford should have made a Probe (or Mustang) wagon, or Buick a Reatta wagon.
When this Ford was new, our family car was a 1960 Ranch Wagon. I loved the new look of the Fords with the stacked headlights. The 65 Ford became my favorite wagon until one day I came home from school and found a 1966 Country Sedan in the garage. I had to pinch myself! We had moved up from a Wagon to a Sedan. The name Country Sedan alone exuded station wagon luxury. When you’re an eleven year old guy who’s gone from a Studebaker Scotsman to a Ranch Wagon, a ’66 Country Sedan was the next logical step. It was Bronze and beautiful.. A real man’s car! Yeah Dad. Way to go! That car was so quiet and smooth that to call it a sedan seemed entirely appropriate. That car was, and still is, my favorite wagon ever!
Wow, from a Scottsman to a Country Sedan in two jumps – there was some upward mobility! 🙂 I felt the same thing (but a few years younger) when my father left for work in a 63 Bel Air wagon and returned with a 66 Country Squire. Livin’ Large!
This is a good article to include Chevrolet’s 2004-2007 Malibu MAXX 5-door. 5-door…what? I would call it a “hatchback”, but that, in North America, is considered un-cool. So is “station wagon”. Why, I don’t know. The Europeans have no silly hang-ups over those terms, nor body styles. Chevrolet marketed the Malibu MAXX as an “Extended Sedan”. Yeah, whatever. It’s a hatchback to me, so get over it.