This summer I meet my younger brother for lunch. In the parking lot I ran across this and thought some of the wagon lovers here would like it.
It’s obviously the nine-passenger version. If I remember correctly the call outs on the front fenders noted it had the 307 for motivation, at least originally.
If you look closely you’ll notice the top of a booster seat. When we came out from our lunch a young family with a couple of kids was getting in it. Good to see that it is still doing what it was intended for: being a family hauler.
OH MY YES! This wagon lover absolutely loves it! If I came upon one of these, when the owner came back he’d have to wipe my drool off it.
I must admit that I like this one quite a bit, though a 307/Powerglide would ruin it for me. A 327/THM could make this quite a nice driver. At least until a nice Mopar C body wagon comes along. 🙂
Yeah but name the last time you saw a full size Mopar wagon in the wild? That would be a true rarity, especially with it being used for what it was intended to be used for. Yeah I know production #s are against us, GM has the upper hand in survival rates just because they were so ubiquitous to start with.
You would’ve had to have had to wait ’til ’69 I believe for a THM . . . and then with a 350. Glide would’ve been available still. Oddly enough, I remember one of my great Uncles in Missouri had a ’70 Impala Sedan. 400 small block 2-bbl and it had Powerglide. If you ordered a Monte Carlo in ’70-’72, next step up from the standard three on the tree was a Powerglide (350 2-bbls only, which by 1972, were n/a in CA).
THM was optional on the 327 starting in 1967, but only on the Impala and Caprice. http://www.oldcarbrochures.com/static/NA/Chevrolet/1967_Chevrolet/1967_Chevrolet_Brochure/1967%20Chevrolet-28.html
The PG and THM overlapped for quite a few years.
I have a 1968 Chevrolet Impala wagon with a 396, thm 400 and factory air. So they had thm in 1968.
My family (parents, 4 children) had a 1963 Chevy Impala station wagon. Gold exterior. Factory fake wire wheel covers which had spinners. Factory air. Rear facing 3rd seat. 327 V8 (4 bbl) with Powerglide. This was one of the first cars that I drove. My father had air-shocks installed in the rear because of a tendency for the rear suspension to sag.
What a great looker,more wagons please,where did GM go wrong if they could make cars like this?
Stylistically, this gen of GM wagon really does it for me!
WHEN STOPPED FOR A LIGHT NEXT TO A CHEVY WITH A 307 YOU WOULD ALWAYS HEAR THE VALVES TICKING ,THAT IS IF YOU COULD HEAR IT OVER THE POUERGLIDES WINING SOUND. THE 307 WAS A P O S
Thanks for your input, fordfan.
Yeah, man. The small block Chevy…what a massive failure. Same goes for the PowerGlide; you’d have thought GM would have learned how unpopular it was after they sold the first ten million of them.
Wait, maybe a POUERGLIDE is something I’m not aware of.
Actually, I think Fordfan has a point. I have never heard a lot of love for the 307, even among smallblock fans. And the Powerglide, while simple and durable, was still an early 1950s transmission competing with Ford and Chrysler automatics that were just as durable, only with three speeds. By 1968, there was no reason to accept a 2 speed automatic. Or 1964. Or 1960 . . . I don’t think there was a single full sized car offering a 2 speed automatic after 1961 other than Chevrolet. And you have to go back to 1956 to get to a time when a competitor put a 2 speed into anything other than a fleet special.
Don’t forget the Super Turbine 300, which in addition to the A-cars, was also available basic LeSabres and 88s in the mid ’60s. You could even get it on the early Firebird.
Still, the reliance on such basic transmissions for so long by the biggest company in the world is baffling.
Maybe if Chevy had gotten the Hydramatic sooner, they would have sold 2 million Impalas a year, instead of a mere million. Maybe my 5.0 Mustang should have had a Powerglide, so I didn’t have to listen to that piece of crap ticking at idle…it had to have been better than the crunchy, balky MT-82 it came with.
Geeze, leave it Ford sycophant to bring me to the defense of GM.
No question—the 307 doesn’t get much love. I’d say that’s actually a testament to the popularity and ubiquity of the SBC in “better” packages, i.e. the 350 or the 327.
The 307 is simply the “least” of the SBCs (or close), but it is still a SBC. It was really just a replacement for the 283 on the option sheet in ’68. What’s better? 283ci, or 307ci?
Analogous engine: 326 Pontiac. Who wants THAT badge on their fender when it could say 389? Well, the people who wanted a better balance of economy and performance, same as the 307.
You make a good point about the PowerGlide, and its inexplicably long production has been extensively discussed on this site. Still, I don’t think anyone is saying the PG is a bad transmission—just a bad transmission for 1968. I won’t argue with that. Furthermore (and I’m relying on my memory here, which may be faulty), GM offered both the PG and the THM on the same platform for several years. No buyer was forced into a PG in the latter stages of its life.
Perhaps fordfan was parked next to a solid lifter big block with a drag-equipped PG behind it? Those’ll tick and whine some, haha.
Just remember that the concepts of a car buff and those of a car company are usually quite different. GM ran with the Powerglide as long as it could because it was a tough, cheap and proven design. They had no reason to change because Chevy buyers were happy with it, and its low price tag. Buyers in 1965 were much more sensitive to price than those of now, especially in Canada.
A Powerglide is like a 3-speed automatic, but without a first gear 😉
When driving my Suburban, there are times I wish it would start in second gear because first is too short in the 4L60E with the 3.73 posi out back, even with the giant 265/75R16 tires on it. I can start it out in second by shifting to “2” manually, but then I have to shift up to “3” and “D” manually, too. I wish there was a button I could press (not the Tow/Haul button on the shifter but like that) to allow second gear starts in “D”. Maybe a “winter mode” button like an Isuzu Trooper (except that starts you off in third gear).
The original Ford-O-Matics did just that. There was a first gear in the case, but you had to select it manually. In drive it would start in second then go to third.. I’d throw one behind my 351C in my Gran Torino but I think they are only available for Y-block and FE motors. Maybe there’s an adapter, maybe not. I wonder if there’s a way to make my FMX act like that? It’s just an updated FX/MX Cruise-O-Matic…
The Jetaway and Super Tubrine two-speeders saw Pontiac/Buick/Olds duty through the ’69 model year. Fordomatic was still around in ’64. Toyota had the Toyoglide through 1970 . . . . If Powerglide had stayed a ‘start in 1st’ tranny, it truly would’ve been early 50’s archaic. It (along with Dynaflow) got it’s 1-2 start around ’53 or so. OK – so IT is early ’50s. Powerglides were durable . . . and cheap . . . which is why, at least with Chevy’s bargain offerings, it was OK to keep around for a long time. I would agree that on the full-sizers, THM should’ve been available on the small blockers keeping the PG as an entry-level “budget” automatic – much like Ford did on their full sizers in the early 60s.
Sorry, but as someone who had a 307 in a Nova for 12 yrs I disagree. It is just a small block made from parts from the parts bin. 283 bore. 327 stroke. Mine was never opened up except for a thermostat and water pump. They made a zillion of them (or maybe more) and they did the job they were intended for very well.
I owned three Chevy 307s and two of them were indeed total POS. In fact the first 307 I owned was in a ’68 Impala SS Custom Coupe.
The SBC is OUTSTANDING in most of its forms…and I’ve owned and loved many of them over the years…262, 265, 283, 327, 350…but the 307 was known for having a “soft cam”.
One other “stay away” SBC is the late ’70s is the 267 V8. Said to have the “economy of a 6, the power of a V8″…it was known to be the other way around in practice. Why they built it when they already had the 262 (yes, a 4.3 liter V8…it came in the Chevy Monza), a much better configuration in my opinion…is beyond me. Probably to attempt to meet some new emissions standard.
I’d definitely own this ’68 wagon…only decision would be to slip in a Gen III/IV or rebuild the 350 TPI currently sitting in the corner of my garage…there after having given 185,000 miles of smiles, first in an ’87 Firebird then after I bought it, an ’89 Caprice wagon that caused more than one person to go…
“That thing’s got a #@&*! Tuned-Port in it!!”
THAT alone was worth the six months and $3k spent on putting it in that Caprice.
Fuel-injection, smchool-injection, a 350 marine block with 10:1 compression, Holley 4 barrel, a nice torquer cam, headers, dual exhaust, THM400 and Gear Vendor’s gear splitter is the way to go! Great car with a minimum to go wrong.
Much more original, too.
I liked the 267 in my ’80 Caprice. It was efficient (car got 19-21mpg in mixed driving with a TH350C with lockup) not completely gutless (cruising 75-80 was easy) but it burned oil and overheated easily in mountain driving around Laramie and Fort Collins. I thought I cracked the block at one point, but that wasn’t the case, the valve cover gaskets simply disintegrated. Still had cold air and drove smooth with all its problems. I would have fixed it and kept it but a ’79 LeBaron (318/904) caught my eye, followed by an ’85 Delta 88 coupe with the Olds 307 and a TH200C automatic.
That takes me back to my childhood. There was a family around the corner that drove one just like this. He raced modifieds, which he built and tuned in his garage. I wanted to be adopted….
I agree with JP ,and his thoughts on the Powerglide.
Truth be told I had a low miles 66 Impala as a daily driver years ago, that besides its underwhelmimg Powerglide , had a 283 that also unimpressed me..
Important to note that powertrain – even in 195-hp 2-bbl form, had some pep when installed in a 3200-lb ’57 Chevy with 3.36 gears.
In a 3800-lb ’66 Impala with taller gears…not even maybe.
Could be worse . . . . a Biscayne/Bel-Air/Impala with a 250 six and Powerglide in mid-60’s/late 60’s ever increasing car size form. From what I read, these full size sixes were barely adequate. Most folks (and from what I understand dealers) usually recommended to buyers to get the 2-bbl 283 V-8 if they wanted economy and decent (acceptable) performance.
What a beauty! Good for them. Hate to think how much they pay in gas.
It’s a great drive-in car too. Wonder if any of the kids were conceived in it?
I grew up with the 68 Caprice Estate Wagon as the family hauler. I still remember wishing my dad had bought the Grotto Blue one with hidden headlights (yes, optional) over the Ash Gold model. I also still remember one of the engine mounts breaking while we were underway and how we could have been killed as that caused the accelerator linkage to stick in the open position. Eventually GM recalled 6.6 million cars, late Sixties quality for ya!
On the Chevy SBC engine mounts . . . it wasn’t necessarily a quality control problem than it was a quality problem in not identifying the defect/weakness in the mount earlier and sandbagging the efforts to recall and have them all fixed. Gov’t forced GM to do it – and GM did reluctantly . . . . “fix” was usually a cabling MacGuyver fix. This is chronicled in DeLorean’s “On A Clear Day You Can See General Motors.”
What a beautiful wagon! I love the optional front fender lights and the fact that it’s not day-glow orange or wearing clown rimz.
When I was a kid, someone a few streets over had a ’68 Impala wagon with either a 307 or 327. It was originally red and it had the hidden headlamps: the car was just an everyday driver but it was the second most beautiful car in the neighborhood.
Nice ride. One might argue when exactly GM jumped the shark or started to cheapen things up, but this one still have the goods.
Long live the wagon!
Seriously, I would take this wagon for a weekend hauler if it had an inline six and a power glide. A power train swap would be high on the priority list, but it’s hard just to find one of these still in existence here in PA, let alone one driving around looking like that.
We had a ’63 Chevy 9 passenger wagon with the 283 Powerglide when I was a teenager, that thing would pull like a freight train in Low range all the way to 55-60. The PowerGlides still in use today can be built to take insane amounts of power without problems
I gotta get me a wagon…
I would have gone for that. A few months ago a dealer in Washington was advertising a 69 Kingswood with a 350, auto and a 3rd row seat and I immediately flashed on it as an alternative to a 2WD Suburban for towing. Sadly I had no money so somebody owns it now.
I disliked when Chevy went to Kingswood, etc, for 1969-72. The special names just didnt work. Were they trying to market them as trucks? Things went back to normal for 1973. BelAir/Impala/Caprice wagons!
It wasn’t the first time. Kingswood was also a wagon package in ’59-’60.
The wagon is beautiful. I think I have driven every sbc except the 400. I would avoid the 307, I think. I don’t have a good reason to like the 283 better but I do. The 350/350 was the ticket and a direct swap except for the driveshaft in some earlier (like my 57) applications. Somebody probably did that with this car years ago if they drive it as regularly as it appears.
Hey Mr VanBuren, we must live in the same area, that wagon is parked at the The Landing in Renton. I haven’t seen it myself but there are more than a few CC’s running around these parts! 🙂
My dad had one of these originally with a 327 in it. Years later he and one of my brothers changed pulled everything from the engine to the rear end out of it and replaced with an Olds 455 rocket! We dubbed it the Chevmobile. When my dad passed it 88, the body had over 600,000 miles and it showed. The ‘mobile’ part of the car had over 450,000 and still going strong. We parted that car and I have the dash cluster to put in my ’68 4 door hardtop fastback. Gotta love those Chevy’s!
I had fortunately ran across a 1968 impala station wagon last fall,and bought it! it is an all original number matching 396 big block,turbo 400at,12 bolt rear end,factory air.115,000 miles at this point.loaded family(wifey and four kids) in and taken it out of state a couple of times,we love it!
I own this wagon now. Bought it from the guy with the kids. It has a 496, turbo 400, 456 posi. Runs 12.50 all day long.