We’ve recently passed the end of an automotive era, one that surprisingly went unheralded on this site. Well, that just won’t do, as it is our job here at CC to observe automotive milestones that other sites miss. Specifically, with the demise of 2015 Ram Cargo Van, the last sedan delivery vehicle (by my definition) has disappeared from the US market.
1931 Chevrolet Sedan Delivery
The Sedan Delivery (also sometimes referred to a Panel Delivery), for the uninitiated, is a relatively obscure body style of a van built on a car chassis. Typically, these take the form of a station wagon body, but with steel panels where the rear windows would be. Historically, sedan deliveries had two doors, but modern versions typically have four.
In the beginning, back when it was enough just to have four wheels and an engine, all light duty trucks were essentially sedan deliveries. A Model T with a car body was a car; one with a truck body was a truck. Even up until the 1940’s, light duty trucks were basically beefed up versions of their donor car chassis (Model TT, AA, and BB, continuing the Ford analogy). While Wikipedia will point to some Model A Town Delivery as the first Sedan Delivery, to me it is too close to the Model AA truck to be considered a true Sedan Delivery.
1946 Ford Sedan Delivery
It is not until the 1940’s, when the major auto manufacturers began to use bespoke frames and bodies for their light duty truck lines that a Sedan Delivery (a van based on a car chassis) even became possible, in my opinion. In any case, I’m not here debate the first sedan delivery – we’ll leave that topic to future Curbivores. I’m here to talk about the rise and rapid fall of this unique bodystyle.
1949 Pontiac Sedan Delivery
Regardless of what you consider to be the first one, there can be no debating that the period of time spanning the late 1940s to the late 1950s was the golden age of the Sedan Delivery. While Chevrolet and Ford dominated the Sedan Delivery market, a few other manufacturers (such as Pontiac, pictured above) got in on the action as well.
Studebaker even offered a Sedan Delivery.
1960, last year for full-sized Chevrolet Sedan Delivery
Because these golden-era sedan deliveries were based on two-door station wagons, it is no surprise that they mostly disappeared once this body style was superseded by the four-door station wagon in early sixties. 1960 was the last year Chevrolet would offer a full-sized two-door wagon, and therefore it would be their last full-sized sedan delivery.
Ford also sold their last full-sized Sedan Delivery in 1960. However, Ford did soldier on with a Falcon-based sedan delivery until 1965. Then, almost as quickly as it had burst onto the scene, the Sedan Delivery was gone.
1972 Chevrolet Vega Panel Express
There were numerous attempts at revivals over the years. From 1971 to 1974, Chevrolet offered a Panel Express version of their Vega two-door wagon. These were slow sellers, with only around 10,000 being sold over the entire four-year run. They correspondingly rare today, if not highly sought after (although Ed Stembridge just recently stumbled upon one).
In 1977, Ford took a different slant on the compact sedan delivery with the Cruising Wagon version of the Pinto wagon (which as you will recall only had two doors). With a bubble window, optional mag wheels and rainbow stripes, it was clearly aimed at the conversion van crowd, not the tradesman.
Ford didn’t break down sales by trim line at the time, so it is impossible to know how many Cruising Wagons were sold. I recall them being not all that uncommon when I was growing up, so I would wager that it was in the tens of thousands. Ford sold the Cruising Wagon for the remainder of the Pinto’s run, until 1980.
1984 Dodge Caravan
The last hurrah for the Sedan Delivery would come in the form of cargo vans based on minivans. A cargo panel body style was available with the release of the Chrysler minivans in 1984. OK, this technically isn’t a sedan, but hear me out. By my definition of Sedan Delivery (a passenger vehicle converted to cargo use, with sheet metal replacing the rear side glass), I consider this to be true a Sedan Delivery vehicle. For similar reasons, I don’t consider the cargo versions of the Chevrolet Astro, Ford Aerostar, or other early truck-based minivans to be true Sedan Deliveries, since they were built on truck platforms, not passenger cars.
2003 Ford Windstar Cargo Van
Ford did build a limited number of cargo versions of its Windstar minivan, which is a true minivan and therefore counts as a true Panel Delivery, in my opinion.
The two-box sedan delivery body style enjoyed a bit of a resurgence in the 90s and early 2000s, with the introduction of retro-styled wagons like the Chrysler PT Cruiser and Chevrolet HHR. While Chrysler never offered a sedan delivery version of the PT Cruiser (any that you may see are aftermarket conversions), Chevrolet did offer a panel version of the HHR.
In fact, Chevrolet appears to have offered two sedan delivery variants of the HHR: One with glass windows on the rear doors, like the car pictured above, and one with full metal panel rear doors, pictured below:
Note that the version pictured above still had four doors. However, there were no exterior door handles on the rear doors (to better facilitate signage). These doors could only be opened from the inside, and hence were referred to as “Cargo Doors” instead of “Passenger Doors.”
What I consider to be the last Sedan Delivery was the car I alluded to at the beginning of my piece, the Ram cargo version of Chrysler’s minivan platform, last sold in 2015.
We are unlikely to see another sedan delivery any time soon, if ever. Two-door station wagons are as likely to make a comeback as poodle skirts. Chrysler appears to have no plans to make a steel-sided version of the Pacifica minivan, nor do they need to since they have the far more versatile Promaster van in their commercial lineup. So let’s hear it for this now-extinct vehicle body style.
Related Reading
Automotive History: The Short And Odd Life Of The Two Door Station Wagon PN
Cohort Outtake: 1953 Ford Courier Sedan Delivery PN
CL Find: 1953 Packard Henney Junior Professional Car – Two Door Sedan Delivery Version PN
Road Trip Curbside Classic: 1961 Ford Falcon Sedan Delivery – Delivering Lots of Hipness PN
Curbside Outtake: 1973 Chevrolet Vega Panel Express – Fly By Night Ed Stembridge
Curbside Classic: 1974 Chevrolet Vega Panel Express – A Sedan Delivery For The ’70s Tom Klockau
CC Capsule: 1977 Ford Pinto Cruising Wagon – The Original Mini Van? Jason Shafer
Pinto Day Finale: 1977-78 Cruising Wagon – The Most Desirable Pinto? Tom Klockau
The article brings back memories of my first minivan, a 1984 Dodge Caravan C/V. At the time, the first wife and I were heavily involved in science fiction costuming (what they now call cosplay), the SCA, and my involvement in 17th century reenactment was on the horizon.
In stock form, the van was incredibly noisy inside, a big booming metal box. So it was sent to the local conversion outfit where my request for heavy duty carpeting on floor, walls and ceiling somehow magically transformed into carpeting on the floor with a more fragile cloth on the walls and ceiling. Seems that’s the only way they knew how to do the job.
Just the same, it worked fine – I just had to be careful packing. As my wife was not a ‘roughing it’ camper in the slightest, we lived in a 10×30 medieval pavilion with full furnishings (rope bed, table, chairs, dry sink, a large wardrobe rack – well you can’t expect a costumer to spend the weekend dressed like a peasant). After a couple of years, it got to the point that I’d remove the passenger seat for more load space, would carry all the living quarters and food for assembly on site, and Sally would follow in her car carrying our clothing.
I have very fond memories of that van. It was replaced by two Dakota pickups with a trailer by the time I morphed into a reenactment sutler, but was instrumental in our owning the current Kia Sedona.
I wrote up a ’93 a few years ago:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-capsule/curbside-capsule-1993-dodge-caravan-cv-for-the-man-who-has-everything-and-just-needs-something-to-carry-it-in/
It was tempting until I saw the high miles and Mitsubishi 3.0 under the hood.
Mitsu 3.0 is pretty good….seen many over 400k in taxis.
Nice article about a cool but nearly-forgotten body style. Here’s a cute one – Rambler Deliveryman.
Where do you place the Ford Transit Connect and the small Promaster City (nee Fiat Doblo) as well as the Chevy Express (rebadged Nissan NV200)? Other markets still have a number of other similar vehicles such as the Opel Corsa Panel Van and also Renault Kangoo / Citroen Berlingo etc among various others. More interestingly some other countries’ taxation schemes offer siginifcant discounts on standard vehicles that don’t include a back seat and/or blanked off rear windows. For example Johannes’s Land Cruiser if I am not mistaken and any number of station wagons in some of the Scandinavian countries.
To me these are all trucks first, passenger vehicles second, so they don’t count.
I don’t agree. Because plenty of current FWD unibody models were developed as both passenger vehicle and panel van -as in commercial vehicle- right from the start.
Another example, besides the ones Jim mentioned, the VW Caddy below.
I agree. If anything, these harken back to the early Ford car/truck on the same frame thinking. If it gets the job done in either guise, it counts.
The Transit Connect is a Focus underneath, so…
Well here in Austria we do still have them, like this Skoda Octavia Praktik. You pay truck tax and only allowed to carry one passenger.
Sweet! Strictly speaking it’s a Hatchback Delivery, since there’s no Octavia sedan. Although the Octavia hatchback certainly has the looks of a sedan…alright, never mind…
Nice ~
I remember the days of Hot Rodders using the blank sides for lettering or murals .
-Nate
And what about the Aussie counterpart of the sedan delivery down under, referred as the panel van? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panel_van_(Australia)
I bought a few of these panel vans for travelling including one with the fully trimmed custom interior, the outside was a bit rough but it had been a show van in a previous life 186S motor and traumatic trans
The early panel vans were sedan deliveries, with a normal roof height. From 1962 for Holden, or 1966 for Ford, the roof height gained a foot or so and I wouldn’t call them a “sedan delivery” any more.
My good friend has a 1971 panel Vega-though his has a passenger seat. His great-aunt bought it new-he still has the cancelled check.
I wonder how many Vega panels had factory A/C.
Tom: The Ford Transit Connect may be a sedan delivery or panel van or whatever.
The FTC is clearly, upon close examination, based on the mechanical platform of the Ford Focus passenger car – though there seems to be no shared body panels nor glass. It drives car nice – like the Focus. It may not fit your definition but it is maybe the spiritual successor to the title and could be considered to be carrying on the concept.
In the US the Transit Connect is probably the Paneliesty van that was ever produced. Every one starts life, and is is imported as, a passenger car complete with seats and then converted into a commercial vehicle by Ford.
On the black Chevy that leads off the article, the graphic design of the business logo leads me to think the logo is much newer than the Chevy.
Correct. This is a vintage sedan delivery still doing work for a modern business.
Wasn’t the Toyota Sienna available in a CE cargo version, at least to fleets? I think recent versions may have had rear side windows that weren’t blanked out which may disqualify it.
I remember the first gen Dodge Caravan panel van, as pictured in Tom’s article. Our house painter had one, it got stolen. He replaced it by a new ( and bigger) Hyundai H200 panel van.
Later on, the van conversions of the Chrysler Voyager (the name here for all generations of Mopar’s minivan) were very popular. Almost all of them had a VM Motori 4-cylinder turbodiesel engine.
However, these were also sold -and registered- as a Dodge Ram Van. IIRC, even the ones with a Chrysler grille and badge were sold as such. The one below is a true Dodge, obviously…
I think Marchionne made a strategic error by discontinuing the Ram C/V in lieu of the Promaster City (ne Fiat Doblo). The C/V with its V6 was much more versatile and a cut above the smaller 4-cylinder city vans which also includes the Ford Transit Connect and Nissan NV200 (aka Chevy City Express).
FCA then compounded the problem by only offering the new Pacifica as an upmarket model. A lower-tier, Ram cargo-version of the Pacifica would have been able to make use of the hybrid system (an industry exclusive for a minivan), which really might have found a home in fleet markets.
As to the demise of the sedan delivery, in general, I have a theory that it was due to the wide availability of dark-tinted privacy glass. One of the biggest detriments to a sedan delivery was how those big metal panels inhibit rearward visibility. With dark tinted glass, it’s possible to see out, yet there’s still security for any cargo that’s kept inside. Back in the day, even lightly tinted glass was a rarity.
Just give this Fiat van a proper Ram grille and badge, put a V6 under its hood (assuming it will fit) and let’s call it a day.
But beware! This Fiat in its turn, is a recent rebadge of a Renault, which will probably frighten a lot of folks here even more.
About the glass aspect. These are cargo vans. Commercial vehicles, work horses, used and driven hard. The less glass in the side panels, the better.
Even a low-series passenger version of the Pacifica hybrid would have a ready commercial market – it’s hard to think of anything more suited to taxi work.
“As to the demise of the sedan delivery, in general, I have a theory that it was due to the wide availability of dark-tinted privacy glass.”
Possibly, although sedan deliveries seemed to die off long before factory tinted glass became common.
Cargo vans seemed to take their place for a number of years, but once window decals offered an opaque appearance on the outside and the ability to see out from within the vehicle, you started seeing fewer vans without side windows.
Today I mostly see windowless vans being used in trades that require shelves to haul around tools, inventory, and other items that can shift and shatter a window. But true delivery vehicles such as florists, which were often showed in the sedan delivery ads? Not so much.
These things have always spooked me. They look like first call vehicles.
Ford did market a true Pinto Sedan Delivery. No porthole, no back seat.
Wow-
As a “Ford guy”, I had no idea these existed. I’m thinking Ford sold about ten.
I remember years back there was a local auto parts store that had a (very) small fleet of these.
We had wagons converted to vans here for many years, mostly to get around finance regulations but HB and HC Vauxhall viva wagons were sold as vans as were Hillman Avenger estates usually with the side windows replaced with steel and all but the drivers seat removed, all of which could be refitted as extras, none of these models were available as vans in their native UK as far as I know.
No, none were, though there was a prototype Bedford van based on the HB estate made and the Swedish Post Office converted a batch of HB estates into vans for their own use. I do remember DER (who used to rent TVs) used Ford Escort estates with a vacuum formed plastic panel over the rear windows.
http://www.imcdb.org/i969360.jpg
In later years the Astravan (from 1982 on) dominated the estate car based van market in the UK until it’s demise at the end of 2012.
Sorry since the Caravan and Windstar were vans the cargo version wasn’t a sedan delivery even if some of the drive train and front suspension components were shared with cars. They are simply cargo vans. If you go back to the early sedan delivery vehicles they often used engines that were also available in that company’s truck line.
To me it is all about the body, a sedan delivery is a vehicle based on a station wagon version of a sedan. A Panel truck is a vehicle based on the station wagon version of a pickup, even if some mfgs didn’t make a station wagon version of their pickup. A van without rear seats is just a cargo van. Usually but not always cargo vans have limited rear windows as you have often been able to order cargo vans with a full complement of windows, windows only on the passenger side (display van) windows in just some or all of the cargo doors and without any windows behind the driver.
So to me the last sedan delivery was the HHR and before that the Pinto pictured above. The Panel truck was mostly killed by the van in the 60’s, the last of that breed was IH Panel truck based on the Travelall that did make it into the new body for 69 but that was because they never had a van.
I think Chrysler missed out when they failed to put this PT Cruiser concept into production.
Totally agree. Would likely have required less effort than the convertible version, and would have been a lot cooler.
Looking good, an old-school interpretation of a modern era small monospace panel van.
We actually did have a PT Cruiser that could be registered as a commercial vehicle/panel van (no rear seats, a flat cargo floor and blinded windows). As you can see it has a rear window extension, otherwise it couldn’t meet the criteria for a registration as a commercial vehicle. Most common engine: a 2.2 liter 4-cylinder Benz turbodiesel.
Its cargo compartment:
I like it but it prolly still had the tranny issues making it worthless .
Looks good for Motocycle hauling .
-Nate
No idea about the transmission Nate. The Getrag 5-speed manual was of course widely used here.
Thanx Johannes ~
Americans love their slushboxes, I didn’t know a manual box was even available .
-Nate
Was the regulation based on the angle of the window? It is definitely an unusual quick and dirty tack on to meet the regulations what ever the exact wording is.
Based on the required minimum interior dimensions / cargo compartment volume. The factory PT Cruiser was a bit too short inside due to the rear window’s angle. Hence the quick fix.
I agree completely, Scoutdude.
Neil Young liked those sedan deliveries too.
As a fan of sedan deliveries since the 70’s, first of all, thank you for this article!
I owned a 1960 Chevy full-sized delivery for about 5-6 years. Sadly, I had neither the time, money, or ambition to fix it and get it running. I was inspired to buy it because I loved the Monogram/Tom Daniel ‘Bad News’ model kit when that came out.
I have NOT read the previous comments, but I’m going to go out on the sedan delivery limb here.
A TRUE sedan delivery does NOT have double doors. It either has a SINGLE rear door or a one-piece lift gate (the ’60 I referenced above had a one-piece gate unique to that body style).
A TRUE sedan delivery is based on a passenger car chassis, NOT a truck chassis, in my experience. I’m willing to concede that there MIGHT be exceptions, but if so, I’m not aware of them.
I would NOT consider the 2015 Ram mentioned above to be a true sedan delivery.
…and after going through the comments above, the last TRUE sedan delivery, IMHO, would be the HHR panel version.
Older wagon/estate cars sometimes had split tailgate and window, so opening in two parts, but I’d agree that paired, side hinged doors take it outside the definition.
My Dad owned a Hillman Husky when I was a wee tot, and I thought for sure I remembered it being a panel van until I recently found a photo of it that disproved that 4 year-old memory. Commer did offer a panel van variant, though, called the Commer Cob.
Husky has a rear seat as standard and side windows the Cob has only a load platform and no windows but is exactly the same vehicle.
That was the platform for the Alpine/Tiger. All it needs is a 260 or 289. hehehe
Given how inconspicuously the Tiger hid it’s V8, a Commer Cob with a Ford V8 in would have to be the ultimate ‘Q’ vehicle.(‘Q car’ if it’s a Husky).
Gotta echo the same sentiments about the cargo van not being a sedan delivery. Simply and aptly the Ram was a cargo van, and that segment is alive and well. The HHR was the legitimate final car to qualify.
Although sedan deliveries of the ’50s were typically associated with station wagons, they were originally associated with sedans – hence the name “sedan delivery”.
In the 1920s, when sedan deliveries first appeared, cars came in two basic closed body styles: coupes (which were always 2-door) and sedans (which could be 2- or 4-door). Coupes had a roofline and passenger compartment that stopped well short of the rear of the car’s body; most coupes had only a single row of enclosed seating (though coupes with an enclosed back seat weren’t unheard of, especially among more upscale brands), with either an enclosed trunk or a rumble seat out back. Sedans had a roofline and passenger compartment that extended all the way to the rear of the car’s body, and always had an enclosed back seat. The rear of the car’s body was a vertical wall; there was no space behind it (so no space for an enclosed trunk).
Against that backdrop, a sedan delivery was conceptually a 2-door sedan body which, instead of being outfitted for passengers with a rear seat and back windows, had an open cargo area behind the front seat, blanked out rear quarters with no windows, and access doors mounted on the rear of the vehicle.
Note that in this era, while station wagons existed, they were usually coachbuilt vehicles, not offered directly by the manufacturer, with bodies that were longer than a typical passenger car.
During the 1930s, sedans grew trunks, eventually taking on a very different rear body shape from what they had once had. At some point in this process, sedan deliveries must have diverged from sedans, since sedan bodies no longer really would have worked as sedan deliveries. They couldn’t yet share their tooling with station wagons; while manufacturers were increasingly bringing station wagons in house, they were still wood-bodied. I am guessing that sedan deliveries from the 1940s must have had some rear body tooling that was unique to sedan deliveries.
In the late ’40s and early ’50s, manufacturers introduced steel-bodied wagons, and after that sedan deliveries shared their bodies with the wagons.
Some of this history at Chevrolet:
1928 – first sedan delivery
1933 – first trunkback sedan
1939 – last trunkless sedan (trunkless models had very low sales in both ’38 and ’39, but they exist)
1949 – first steel-bodied wagon (4-door only)
1955 – first steel-bodied 2-door wagon
1960 – last year for sedan delivery and 2-door wagon
In the beginning, back when it was enough just to have four wheels and an engine, all light duty trucks were essentially sedan deliveries. A Model T with a car body was a car; one with a truck body was a truck. Even up until the 1940’s, light duty trucks were basically beefed up versions of their donor car chassis (Model TT, AA, and BB, continuing the Ford analogy). While Wikipedia will point to some Model A Town Delivery as the first Sedan Delivery, to me it is too close to the Model AA truck to be considered a true Sedan Delivery.
I would disagree with this on several points, starting with the TT. Although the TT used the same engine transmission and front end sheet metal and other components from the T, it was carefully and thoroughly designed to be a genuine truck. It had a much longer wheelbase with a different and heavier frame, and its rear axle was a totally different design. It was rated at 1 ton, and often hauled loads greater than that.
Please note that the evolution of trucks and cars was such back then that manufacturers of passenger cars that also made trucks did not have the resources to develop all new cabs and other components. Anything that could be shared was, but never if it compromised the actual utility of the truck.
This approach was naturally used by the Big 3 (and other manufacturers that built bot cars and trucks) until quite recently, to one degree or another. Light and medium duty trucks shared engines and some transmissions until quite recently. And cabs were shared for a long time, because tooling up for a separate truck cab was considered too expensive. So although many light-medium trucks from passenger car makers may look like the passenger cars that share their front end body, underneath they mostly different.
The AA was even more different from the A, with a conventional semi-elliptic rear suspension, a ring and pinion rear axle, a totally different four speed transmission, heavier brakes, larger radiator, and numerous other changes to make it capable of the quite heavy loads it was put to use carrying. The frame was totally different and much longer, with 131.5″ and 157″ wheelbases, both available with single and dual rear wheels.
I don’t understand why you would consider the the Model A Town Delivery (image attached) not to be a sedan delivery (which it clearly was) by saying it “‘was too close to the AA truck to be considered a true sedan delivery”. It wasn’t anything like an AA truck; it had no AA-specific components; it was a genuine Model A with a different body, one whose shape and dimensions was very close to a A sedan.
The exact relationship of passenger cars and trucks is not always obvious. There were some very light trucks, like the Ford Model T Runabout, which is often considered the first pickup. It was based fully on the T, not the TT. Pickups with modest load ratings often were truly sedan based, with the possible exception of slightly higher rated rear springs. But once larger loads were required, a genuine truck chassis and much lower gearing was required, hence the TT (there had already been a market to convert Ts into real trucks by adding heavier rear frame rails and heavier axles with lower gearing and such). That was actually much of the motivation for HF to create the TT; there was a growing industry in converting Ts.
Where exactly the split is between passenger-car based light trucks (utilities and sedan deliveries) vs genuine truck based ones is not always obvious. And it evolved over time, as eventually all pickups (with a few exceptions), even the light-duty ones, evolved to have more and more unique chassis and body aspects. But there were shared components for a long time. My ’66 F-100 uses Galaxie brakes and rear axle, along with the drive train and other components. But the F-250 had truck-specific components.
I thought this was an interesting article on an interesting subject, but I have to respectfully disagree with a couple of its key points:
1) The notion that sedan deliveries built before the 1940s weren’t “really” sedan deliveries, even though manufacturers called them by that name.
It is true, as stated in the article, that passenger cars and light trucks were once closely related, and not really two distinct product lines. And, due to that history, whether some early sedan deliveries were really “car-based” or “truck-based” is a murky subject. That having been said:
–As discussed in my previous post, the sedan delivery was, right from the beginning, conceptually a cargo version of a sedan.
–Sedan deliveries then remained in production continuously into the postwar era, without any real change in their purpose.
–Early in its history, possibly all the way back to the start, the sedan delivery was distinguished from the panel truck, which was truly a truck-based vehicle (mentioned earlier by Scoutdude).
–While one can find references to early sedan deliveries that treat them as commercial vehicles or as trucks, the same can be said about later sedan deliveries. The Standard Catalog series covers all sedan deliveries in its truck volume, not its car volumes, and the Encyclopedia of American Cars (which covers only cars, not trucks) does not include them. Even at their most car-like in the postwar era, sedan deliveries were never exactly cars, holding a status much like that of the later El Camino or Ranchero.
A few points about Chevrolet, from the materials posted at the GM Heritage Center web site:
–At least as far back as the early 1930s, the sedan delivery and panel truck were two distinct models. 1933 materials show the panel delivery with a nominal cargo capacity of 800 pounds, while the panel truck had a nominal cargo capacity of 1/2 ton.
–At least as far back as 1935, the sedan delivery was considered part of the passenger car series, while the panel truck was considered to be part of the light truck series.
2) The notion that the Ram Cargo Van was a sedan delivery, so its discontinuance marked the end of the body style (or that if Chrysler built a cargo version of the Pacifica, it would be a sedan delivery).
Other posters have already covered this point. The article takes the position that because these vehicles are FWD, they are “really” passenger cars, not vans; therefore, their cargo versions are “really” sedan deliveries, not cargo vans. They are however shaped like vans, marketed as vans, and referred to as vans by their manufacturer and by the general public. (This article is the first I have ever heard anyone refer to the Ram Cargo Van as a sedan delivery.) Though admittedly very car-like in terms of their chassis, they share no styling attributes with passenger cars; there is no “sedan” in them.
I’d say the Falcon, Vega and Pinto were definitely sedan deliveries. The HHR at least arguably is. It’s another vehicle that was probably somewhere between car and truck (SUV), but it seems like more of a car; I’m not sure if Chevrolet ever referred to it as a sedan delivery, but its retro styling certainly calls up images of sedan deliveries of the 1940s and early 1950s. But I have a hard time defining the Ram Cargo Van as a sedan delivery.
And while based on the 2-door passenger car station wagon, literature for the 1960 Chevrolet sedan delivery places it with other trucks, and calls it a truck (as well as the El Camino). So it’s not just the standard catalog of cars relegating them to truck status.
While I’ve never considered the Ram C/V a sedan delivery, perhaps to a 1930s or 1940s automotive engineer transported to the future it would appear that way.
The argument can be made that the C/V exists in a weird limbo between cargo vans and… something. But is it different to a Transit Connect or ProMaster City, which are also FWD but were designed as vans first and THEN became people movers? Are they not sedan deliveries because they were born vans, even if they do use mechanicals from passenger cars? Does it matter that the C/V shares its platform only with minivans and not with any passenger cars? Is the first Mini Ram Van MORE of a sedan delivery because it had immediate K-Car brethren?
It’s a thought-provoking piece and it appears to many, the C/V was not considered a sedan delivery. That being said, sedan deliveries have long been an endangered, often dormant, species so are the rules for what one is as hard and fast?
Whatever you want to call them, these minivan-derived cargo vans don’t ever appear to have been especially popular. I believe Chevy also had U-Body cargo vans, as did Ford with the Windstar.
Looking at things from that point of view, I guess what the Ram C/V had in common with the sedan deliveries of the old days is that it was an attempt to make a commercial cargo hauler out of a vehicle that was fundamentally intended as a passenger vehicle, and was not really a “truck”. I can agree with the point of the article to that extent. It is *like* a sedan delivery in that respect. But I still don’t think that means that it *is* a sedan delivery.
The closer you get to the present day, the increasingly blurred lines between categories make it harder to sort out what meets the above definition and what doesn’t.
Here’s the thing: it all boils down to semantics, as is often the case.
In reality, only in the late 20s and early 30s was the name “sedan delivery” accurate, as they really did use the sedan body (or extremely similar one) because back then sedans had no trunk! So it was just a matter of adding a rear door. That’s why they were called sedan deliveries.
But when genuine sedans started sprouting trunks in the mid-late 30s, they had to create essentially a new body for the sedan delivery. And after the new 1948-1949 cars came along, with their (mostly) steel wagons, the logical solution was to begin using the 2 door station wagon body and blank out the side windows and put in a side-hinged rear door. Which means their name wasn’t really accurate or correct any more. These 50s and 60s sedan deliveries are all really “wagon-deliveries”. And that’s what they should have been called, to be accurate.
But by then the sedan-deliver moniker had become entrenched. But since their name already wasn’t really accurate, any further debate about what exactly is a sedan delivery (or not) becomes a semantics pissing match.
FWIW, since back in the day (20s-30s) the word sedan was used for an enclosed passenger car body, one that went all the way back to the rear of the car, I suppose it could be argued that these station wagon deliveries still deserve to be called what they are.
But as I said earlier, compact vans, which was essentially pioneered by the VW Transporter and popularized by the Big 3 compact vans, revolutionized the category. They were simply better suited to the job (and much more) than the wagon-deliveries. But they are a new category of vehicle; no one calls vans “sedans”. So at the point vans came along, there is just no basis for using an already outdated name for them.
Bottom line is this: the manufacturers chose to call them “sedan deliveries”. It was really a marketing thing; a way to identify this type of body style, accurately or not. But none of the manufacturers ever used the term “sedan delivery” for their van-based delivery vehicles.
So there’s two very obvious reasons why the vans aren’t sedan deliveries: it’s technically incorrect, and they were never identified as such in the market. To say otherwise is like saying a pickup is a “ute” (utility) in the US. There’s certain similarities, but their underpinnings as well as how they are marketed is just different.
Test: if you were to tell a non-car person that a Transit Connect or Caravan C/V is actually a “sedan delivery”, what kind of response would you get?
I suspected when I wrote it that at least part of this post would be controversial (Which is why I didn’t even want to touch the topic of the first one).
Sedan Delivery is kind of an archaic term that you don’t hear any more, kind of like Cabriolet or Phaeton. When selecting the last Sedan Delivery, I was looking more for the spirit than the actual name (which hasn’t been used for decades).
My selection of the Ram Cargo was subjective to be sure, but to me it fit my definition as a light duty passenger wagon pressed into cargo duty by blanking out the windows with steel panels. The minivan is the spiritual successor to the station wagon, after all.
As you well know, many automotive terms date back to the horse and buggy days, and as a result have loose definitions that leave lots of room interesting barside conversations like this 🙂
The new compact vans (Falcon/Econoline and Corvan) that arrived in 1961 is what killed the sedan delivery. They were roomier and more efficient replacements, and as everything else in life, loads were bound to get bigger (and they did).
The minivan-vans are not “sedan deliveries” quite obviously, since they’re not “sedans”, quite obviously. They’re minivan-deliveries, in that jargon.
Sedan deliveries died out for the reasons stated above and because they really weren’t specifically designed for their job. They were relics of another time, the 1920s-1940s, when there was no other practical option. Once the compact/minivan appeared, it was a dinosaur. Why try to argue that they continue(d) on?
My Gemini panel van. I removed the little smog gear it had, put a Weber on it and added the mags. Lined the interior and fitted a killer ( for the era) sound system.Good times behind the wheel, and in the back.
Been seeing a few Gemini sedans of late, but can’t remember the last time I saw a panel van. That shape looks super clean with those blanked sides.
It was a fun car. Great handling, if a firm ride. Comfortable seats, despite being thin and vinyl. Brisbane to Melbourne in 21 hrs once!
And it did some beach work too.
Saw this coupe not so long ago. Never paid much attention to them back then, but these first gens have nice sway.
I’d plain forgotten we ever got the coupe!
I saw a sedan just the other day, of course in lime green with aftermarket wheels and a loud exhaust. Dare I say almost all of these cars have been hooned to death?
Had coupe too. I’d have another in a heatbeat, space & money aside.
X2, only in my case it was an XB Falcon similar to the below… Same colour, straight six and toploader.
In 2000 Holden presented the Mambo Sandman concept panelvan.
Would this be the most recent attempt to resurrect the sedan delivery vehicle?
Aha, the one where they had to airbrush out the nipples before it was displayed at one of the auto shows in the US! I guess previously they just hoped nobody would notice if it wasn’t pointed out?
Or nobody here cared?
An awful lot of these panel vans are, well, really rather common. But not this one, doncherknow (discreet cough).
A quibble at the front end of the timeline… Cars and trucks were pretty much separate by ’35, not ’40. Here’s a Dodge commercial sedan and panel truck from ’35.
The left hand picture in the ’60 Chevrolet brochure is interesting – it appears that there is no dividing wall between the drivers’ seat and the rear tray, plus there is no passengers’ seat as well.
Here is my 40 Plymouth
Sedan deliveries I’ve had are; 48 Chev, 50 Willys, 48 Thames, 58 Chev, 74 Monza,
all true sedan delivery’s don’t just have one rear door ! what about 40 and 41 Plymouth sedan delivery’s …… they have 2 rear doors …. like panel trucks !
The Landrover Freelander Commercial probably fits the definition. I had one of these, an excellent dog car.
In Europe we’ve had several small van’s and cars built on the same platform, like the Kangoo and the Berlingo, giving you a car with a sliding door, a very useful feature in our crowded cities and supermarket. carparks.
21,615 Panel Express panel deliveries were produced (not 10,000). It was available for five model years (not four). 1971: [7800 of 277,705 total 71 Vega prod.]; 1972: [4,114 of 395,592] 1973: [3,886 of 43,186]; 1974: [4,289 of 460,374]; 1975: 1,525 of 207,764]
my 1971 Vega Panel Express. The day It was shipped from Alabama (to NY in 2003) and in 2020
My 50 year-old 1971 Vega Panel Express – 3spedd manual, auxiliary seat, tinted glass, AM radio, original bought 18 years with 55k miles. (now has 85k miles)
A real Vega Panel Express has low back seat(s) no rear seat and an enclosed storage area welded in. Most “panels” seen these days are Vega Kammback wagons (including your linked car) is a wagon with panels installed by the owner. the rear side panels are usually saved by junkyards due to their rarity.
Mr. Spinello ;
That’s glorious .
The U.S.P.S. here in Southern California used these and when sold, many (? all ? went in one large group sale to Pick-A-part decades before LKQ was an idea .
It was sad to see three rows on undented rust free commercial cars that coulnd’t be purchased complete .
It took less than a month to strip every one bare, very popular cars at the time .
So nice to see yours in tip top shape .
-Nate
some corrections for the Vega
From 1971 to 1974 Chevrolet offered a Panel Express
1971 to 1975
10,000 being sold over the entire four-year run.
21,614 sold over a five year run
The MINI Clubvan is newer than the HHR Panel. I think 2015 was its final year.