What is more rare than a 1951 Ford Country Squire? How about an unrestored, functional one, but also the Canadian variant called the Meteor Country Squire? While it is only February, this is undoubtedly the best find of 2026 I have come across yet. This woodie wagon is a rare piece of Canadian history still active on the road.
We have talked about Canadian variants and Meteor before, but here is the quick (over simplification) recap; Canadian dealers sold either Ford or Mercury/Lincoln. Not every town was big enough to have both, so Ford dealers needed something fancier to sell and got the Monarch which was generally Mercury based with different grills and trim. Mercury/Lincoln dealers got the Meteor which was Ford priced and based, again, with unique trim. Here is the Canadian specific grill and hood on display for the 1951 variant.
Contrast that with the front end of the Ford. I am not sure which is less fussy, but both have piles of details. I do think I prefer the Meteor hood, however.
Power is from a 100hp 239ci flathead V8 engine, assuming the drive train is as original as the outside. The station wagons received heavier-duty rear live axle with more leaves in the springs and a shorter final ratio, and a larger fuel tank over the coupes and sedans.
The Country Squire came standard with three rows of seats and billed as an eight-seater. Access to the rearmost seat was not exactly easy.
When new, this Country Squire two door station wagon would have been marketed as a premium family vehicle or for use at hotels, lodges and such, making it the most expensive body style and likely would have had the least sales. Ford is listed as having made 29,017 with only a fraction being Meteors. I suspect the number of survivors in this condition is very, very low.
The Old Car Manual Project has a full line 1951 brochure, including the Country Squire.
The interior looks to be the same as the Ford variant, although the woodie models reused a 1950 dashboard. The other body styles got a revised dashboard for 1951. The spoke steering wheel looks Ford sourced (this time 1951 specification), but unfortunately, I failed to see if it had any Meteor specific badges. A three on the tree transmission is visible as well as a clutch pedal. A few car show decals on the dashboard show that this owner is not afraid to get this car out. I suspect the seats have been re-done, but they seem to re-create the original color scheme.
The dash mounted hula girl seems mandatory in a car like this. It is a little hard to make it out, but there is a knob below the clock, as it is a wind up design rather than electric. Also visible is an AM radio and the Magic Air heater (a must for Canada!).
The unrestored wood still looks great which is good given that I would expect redoing it would cost a small fortune and rob this car of its well earned character.
Spare wheel placement is very prominent on the rear door. This one appears to have a newer trailer hitch and exhaust installed. The rear tail gate is painted to a wood color rather than fully wood.
The beehive brake lights down by the bumper are after market additional with a sensible nod to visibility and safety. While the four wheels on the ground must have been chromed at some point the spare shows a more stock look with its Meteor specific hub cap. The spare tire was usually hidden by a metal cover which appears to be missing on this example.
1951 was Ford’s (and Meteor’s) final year of a “real woodie” wagon. The wood panels and door posts were solid, natural wood supported by a metal frame. Competitors used a wood veneer by this and time which Ford swapped over to for 1952. It was wonderful to see this rare Canadian classic out on an unseasonably warm February day.
Related CC reading:
How Postwar Ford Station Wagons Went From Real Woodies To Woodgrain Country Squires by Aaron Severson
Very cool find! A literal needle in a haystack!
More like a wood splinter in a haystack!
That little side spear aft of the front wheels looks like it would be the start of a line going all the way down the body. Except now for the fact the wood paneling is there now. I wonder if somebody did an alteration or it came from the factory that way.
These shots allow for a comparison with the SUV beside it in terms of height and heft. One is comparable, the other is not.
Pretty sure it came from the factory as the brochure and vintage photo have it as well. It does look a little bit out of place. But the factory must have seen a bare fender and needed to fill it with something.
My guess would be that the body from the windshield back was imported while the chassis and front clip were manufactured in Canada along with final assembly. My understanding from Perry Zavitz’s book on Canadian cars was that there were strict import quotas as well as tariffs on US built cars from about 1948 to 1952 so very few US built cars of any type were imported.
Awesome find! I’ve long wanted to see one of the US Ford versions of this vintage but even those are very rare.
The mix-and-match interior details are curious. And of course I have to wonder just where the wood parts of the body were built? In Canada, for such a small volume, or were they shipped from the US?
I am going to speculate that the wood parts and perhaps even the whole vehicle minus the trim was made in the US. This practice was done for other higher end, low volume models. Because of the US based production in this timer period they were then subject to additional tariffs making them relatively more expensive and thus rare. But I have no proof of that.
that be sweet ride for running around town even today, I love to purchase one, and keep in orginals
“Purty cool”.
Wow, what a great find! You’ll have some work to do if you want to top this in 2026!
I can’t decide if the Meteor grille has more of a GM or Mopar look.
Amazing find and yes, in most cases I prefer the Canadian Mercury grilles and bright work .
-Nate
10 out of 10 for spotting and recording this – what a find.
And how compact it looks against a (relatively old?) Escalade(?). It’d be my choice for the 2, even without that heater
A first for me! Haven’t seen a Canadian-version of Ford’s first “Country Squire” wagon before now; and it’s very much as expected. Nice to see!!
Wow, That is one rare wagon.
I agree David that the body was probably done in a US plant. The retail price listed in R. Perry Zavitz, Monarch-Meteor book shows a retail price of $3,433 CDN a hefty sum for 1951. There are no production figures listed for the Meteor wagon. Total production for all Meteor models was 23,138 in MY 1951.
1949 & 1950 wagon body production by Ford at Iron Mountain plant. 1951 model year body production by Ionia at Ionia, Michigan.
Seeing the new black object next to this car makes me wonder…. When George Walker and Dick Caleal were working on the ’49, did they imagine that future vehicles would be TALLER than the ’49?