The station wagon was certainly an automotive phenomenon during the 1950s. Once the all-steel bodies appeared, their practicality was unparalleled for the families of the time. And as it often happens, once a successful product is launched, it proliferates all over. In short order, just about every make had an offering in the segment.
I have a few previous posts with vintage photos of station wagons but in those, I highlighted families and people around them. On this occasion, the wagons themselves take center stage. Not all wagons were created equal of course, and some of these sold far better than others. And with many disappearing once worn out, some of these have rarely appeared at CC. With that in mind, unlike previous galleries, I’ll either add a bit of text or provide links to previous CC entries.
The lead pic is a 1956 Buick Special. Flint’s most popular wagon for the year with 13,770 units sold. Power came via a 322 CID V-8 with 220 hp.
1954 Chevrolet 150 Handyman Wagon. This is the base Special model of the Chevrolet wagons and moved 21,404 units in ’54. All carried Chevrolet’s “Stove Bolt Six”, now updated and promoted as the “Blue-Flame.” It provided 115 hp for manual-equipped vehicles and 125 hp for those with Powerglide.
1954 Mercury Monterey Wagon, with “steel mahogany-grained paneling.” Production was 11,968 and like all Mercurys, carried a 256CID with 161 hp.
1955 Chevrolet 210 Handyman, the most popular Chevy wagon for that year with 28,919 units sold. And being 1955, buyers could now choose Chevrolet’s new “Turbo-Fire V-8” (better known as the Small-Block to the rest of us) over the 6-cyl. options. The Nomad version of the ’55 has its own entry HERE.
1956 Pontiac Chieftain wagon. Engine choices were the 316CID V-8, in either 192 hp or 205 hp tune. Trim levels were the 860 and 870, each moving 12,702 and 21,674 units respectively. Not visible in this photo, this was the last year of the hood streaks.
A related ’57 Chieftain wagon has been covered previously at CC, the link is HERE.
1956 Ford Custom Ranch Wagon, one of 42,317 built that year.
1957 Mercury. These 4-doors came as the Commuter, Colony Park, and Voyager, depending on trim and seating options. This one was posted as a Commuter, and if so, it’s one of about 11,990 sold in ’57.
1957 Sierra, Dodge’s moniker for their 4-door wagons. Depending on trim and seating options, it could be the upscale Custom Sierra or just plain Sierra. Meanwhile, the 2-door went by the Suburban name.
1957 Buick Riviera Estate, one of 6,817 built for that year. The top entry wagon of the Series 40 Special, carrying a 364CID V-8 with 250 hp.
1956-57 Rambler Custom Cross Country. These have a devoted CC post, available HERE.
1958 Ford Del Rio Ranch Wagon. By this date, Ford was moving heavy numbers with their Country Sedan and Country Squire wagons. Meanwhile, the 2-door Del Rio was their second lowest selling, with 12,687 units. There’s a CC on a 1957 model HERE.
1958 Chevrolet Brookwood, the middle range between the Nomad and Yeoman. No figures per model for that year, but Chevrolet moved a not unsubstantial 187K wagons total for that year.
1959 Ford Country Sedan. Numbers for the Country Sedan were 123,412 units, counting both the 6 and 9 passenger versions. Ford’s total station wagon production numbers for ’59? A very dominant 269,338 units.
Related CC Reading:
Auction Classic: Arizona 2023 – A Walk Through Wagon History Part I
Auction Classic: Arizona 2023 – A Walk Through Wagon History Part II
Love old wagons. However, if you raised them all by around 2″, they would be nothing more than the SUV/CUV’s of today.
Funny how all these soccer moms/dada and city folks think they need an SUV for going to the mall and grocery store or to haul 2 kids and the occasional big box. Should any of us tell them that they are really driving a station wagon?
Realistically, the soccer moms & dads of today were likely born around 1990. A large percentage of them might not even know what a station wagon is, so telling them would be pointless.
I’ve mentioned that to a number of people, nobody wants to hear it.
I drive an 08 Saturn Vue. I look at it like a station wagon. It a 4 cylinder front drive with an automatic. Basically it’s the same thing my mother bought in the late 80’s…. She had a cavalier wagon. Mine just sits higher. I bought it for the space. I love wagons.
Great write up on by-gone wagons.
As an aside, the State of Michigan currently titles my Blazer as a, “Station Wagon”.
Typo alert: the 1958 Chevy is a Brookwood, not a Brockwood. As for the whole wagon vs SUV vs CUV thing, I think more people, even those born after 1990, know the term “station wagon” than CUV or crossover. I never hear non-car-people use those latter terms. If they characterize a CRV or RAV4 or Model Y as a class of vehicle, it’s as an SUV. That term is now, maybe for the last 30+ years, a part of everyday language.
Thanks for the heads up. The typo is fixed now.
Our family had a 1956 Pontiac wagon. A small kid at the time, what I remember is a yucky 2 tone paint job (yellow & gray?) and the tailgate window always up for ventilation. I blame some of my hearing loss on the degree of noise generated by that rear window.
I miss station wagons. My wife doesn’t.
I like wagons and over the years have owned far more than I can readily count, come to think of it I still have one, but not an American brand mine is from the UK and called as estate,
Is it an Oxford Traveller? Or something later like an Arrow?
Thanks for these great photos. I’m a long roof lover! My Dad was a wagon owner since I was a little kid, he even had a two door ’60 Suburban for a year. I grew up in them, and started driving them as a teen. I’ve got two right now, but I refer to them as SUVs as the Wife doesn’t like the term station wagon.
Buick made some really nice wagons, but Ford seemed to build wagons that appealed to buyers across the economic spectrum. A Country Squire seemed to look appropriate in any garage. My favorites are the two Buicks and the ’54 Mercury.
I’ve posted this period advertising photo before, but a white 1957 Country Squire may be the Platonic Ideal of station wagons. At least my mother thought so but of course with 1950’s Cheapskate Dad (I got that phrase from here) she never got one, sadly.
The “Merc”, for it’s “rarity” gets my attention too.
Nice look back. I’m really surprised at the Buick though…the one in the first picture: That rear pillar shape doesn’t seem to match the rest of the car’s styling element. It is doubtless more practical than a more sleekly angled rear pillar of it’s GM sibling wagons but looks almost truck-like. A pre-dater of the Suburban perhaps.
There is frequently a styling clash between often over-the-top ’50s design elements, and earlier utilitarian-like styling details. Station wagon styling was to evolve for the better.
That blue, “Buick” just looks a bit “beat”. The white one looks “showroom, new”.
Those ’55/56 (and others?) Buick wagons were built by Iona (sp?) not by Buick, thus have someone less than graceful styling. Olds didn’t even have a wagon for a few years, I believe not from about 1950 to ’57 when their hardtop wagon debuted from the factory at Lansing.
In fact Tcx, GM didn’t even build that `56 Buick Special wagon body–IONIA MFG. did. (Why GM farmed it out, who knows). They built wagon bodies for Ford/Mercury, Dodge/Plymouth and others at different times.
We had a ’53 Plymouth station wagon, gray and blue or maybe two shades of blue; bought about 1955 and used by us as a sort of utility vehicle until perhaps 1958. It was too self-effacing for any one to want to take a picture of it. There’s a good possibility its replacement was that 1958 Chevrolet wagon with the biggest v8 available. When my father realized how much the gas the Chevy consumed he got rid of it for, I suppose the Studebaker Lark.
Both the “54” and “58” Chevy’s are lookers.
Interesting to reflect that the ’54 Chevy not only had a smaller body (still huge by rest-of-the-world standards), but only about half the power of the ’56 Buick to move it. Back in that era you really got something more when you moved up the Sloan ladder, not just an alternative grille and taillight treatment.
You forgot Studebaker. I love my ’59 Lark wagon.
269,000 Ford wagons in 1959?! Wow, but then getting to be peak baby boomer time with all the kids in a family present like mine. One at 53, one at 55 and one at 58. Just for fun it seems 1966 there were 201,000, 1967 less than 200,000, and 1968 at 210,000. Was 1959 peak wagon year for Ford and in that case everyone else? Makes my wagon at at 10,080 units sound puny.
It would take a bit of digging, but I doubt 1959 was peak wagon year for Ford and everyone else. In 1960 the compacts came along, and the Falcon wagon was quite popular. As was the Chevy II. And then the mid-size cars.
And then came the imports.
Actually, I read somewhere that the year 1961 was a pinnacle year for wagons. I would have thought `59 too. First boomers were now 12-15 years old, and in many families the last of the kids were born right around `59-`60 like in my household (me!)
The lady in the 57 Buick looks a lot like Ingrid Bergman.
The shot of the 1957 Buick Riviera Estate could almost be an illustration in a history book, summing up the unprecedented expansion of middle-class prosperity in the post-war 1950’s – a row of identical (brick!) houses on an obviously new street, most with television aerials, and colourful cars in every driveway. Modest overall by today’s standards, but arguably the beginning of a story that has had many chapters. A picture can be worth a thousand words – several thousand could be written about this one.
Some cynicism about that era is quite common, but the picture gives some sense of how extraordinary it was.
My best friend’s mom drove the same Buick, but they were not upper-middle income. New cars depreciated heavily in those days of annual styling changes. That car was tough, as she drove it as if the gas pedal was an on-off switch and remarkably, it survived a trip to Guatemala when much of the highway was still unpaved.
Hittin’ the road in a 49 Mercury.
What is the reason for the headlight multi segmentaton of the main frame on 1954 Chevrolet 150 Handyman Wagon? Pure design element or have some other purpose? I never noticed it on round headlight before.
Eyelashes? 🙂
The ’53 had plainer headlight surrounds.
I’m pretty sure it’s just a styling detail, and they do look like eyelashes.
Our first wagon was a ’59 Chevy Brookwood two door, bottom of the line that year and the Nomad name had disappeared. But, it was well equipped with 283, Powerglide, radio, heater and whitewalls.
We had ’57, ’59, ’63 and ’68 Ford wagons for out family of 6. After that Dad went back to sedans after I, in ’68 and then then other 3 kids, flew the nest. Families were bigger then and full-size cars were needed by many of them.
Nice article. You missed on the first All steel body though, not the 56 your like your continent says. It was the 1953 Studebaker. It was another case of beautiful lines over ahead of their time.
Did you follow that link? It was for the 1949 Plymouth, which was the first all-steel body wagon, not counting the Willys station wagon, which goes back to 1946.
The Studebaker wasn’t remotely the first all steel wagon; in fact it was one of the last, and it didn’t come out until 1954, by which everyone had long switched to all-steel wagons.
My late and lamented stepfather bought one of those Plymouth wagons, he always referred to it as a ‘Suburban’ . he carried his sail boat sails in it and loved it dearly until it rusted out from salt .
I clearly remember those Buick wagons, I *think* the blue one is a 1956 ? . by 1960’s they were only worth $150 no matter how clean they were .
I’d love to have a ’54 Chevy wagon .
-Nate
Colorful 1950’s Pontiac appears to match house color. I repainted my old stucco house from modern dull gray to dark green similar to the one next door in the picture, so that it looks period correct.