Text submitted by Cal Sexmith.
By the fall of 1969, Dad had decided it was time for another new car.
The faithful 1965 Plymouth Fury II wagon had served us well, but our needs had changed. A larger 1968 Travelaire trailer had joined the family the previous year, along with a twelve-foot aluminum fishing boat that usually rode on the roof. Whatever replaced the Plymouth had to tow confidently, carry the 12 foot boat without compromise, and survive the long summer trips that had become a family tradition.
As always, Dad approached the purchase methodically.
Now that I was twelve years old, I inserted myself into the process as much as I could. I happily tagged along to dealerships, collected brochures, and listened to sales pitches along with him. Looking back, I probably learned more about automobiles during those weeks than any magazine could have taught me.
Dad hadn’t even decided what kind of car he wanted. Should it be another station wagon or a sedan? Full-size or intermediate? A leftover 1969 or a brand-new 1970 model?
The search became legendary in our family.
Over the next two months, we visited virtually every dealer in Prince Albert and even made a scouting trip to Saskatoon. Dad drove Chevrolets, Pontiacs, Fords, Meteors, Plymouths, Dodges, and even a nearly new used wagon. Every car had strengths, and every one seemed to have at least one flaw.
A 1969 Chevrolet Caprice 4-door hardtop with a 350 four-barrel nearly won the contest until the dealership unexpectedly raised the quoted price over a set of optional tires. A 1970 Pontiac LeMans Safari looked promising, with fake wood and a 350 two-barrel, but its roofline wouldn’t properly accommodate the boat rack Dad needed (as luck would have it, we dodged a bullet; a colleague bought it and it proved to be a lemon).
The only dealer where Dad actually test drove two cars was at Arcade Motors Lincoln-Mercury. First, a pale 1969 Meteor Montcalm 4-door hardtop with a 390, and second, a 1970 Meteor Rideau 500 wagon, also with a 390.
At another dealer, Dad looked at a plain Jane Plymouth Suburban with a 318, and a loaded yellow Sport Suburban with a 440. However, what Dad really wanted was a Custom Suburban with a 383, and walked away. At a visit to a final local dealer, Dad tried a 1970 Dodge Coronet 500 wagon with a 318, which failed to impress him and “felt tinny.”
Out of town, in Saskatoon, a slightly used 1969 Meteor Montcalm 500 wagon with a 390 looked promising, but after a test-drive, the wagon appeared to have lived a harder life than advertised.
By this point our kitchen table had become campaign headquarters.
Sales brochures lay spread across it as Dad carefully listed the strengths and weaknesses of every candidate, and I still have a Pontiac brochure where a salesman had pencilled prices for a Strato Chief Safari and a Laurentian Safari wagon. He wasn’t shopping for transportation; he was making an investment in the next several years of our family’s life.
At one stage he had all but committed to ordering a Ford Custom 500 Ranch Wagon. Then came one final phone call.
The top salesman at Arcade Motors, Mercury-Lincoln, believed he could improve the deal on the Meteor Rideau 500 wagon Dad had driven earlier. He succeeded.
For only a modest increase over the Ford’s price, Dad could have the larger 390-cubic-inch V8, additional trim, and perhaps most importantly, immediate delivery.
Dad relented, and the Meteor came home instead.
Although sold only in Canada, Meteors occupied an interesting place in Ford’s lineup, blending familiar Ford mechanicals with their own styling and trim. Ours wore medium green paint and quickly settled into its role as the family’s long-distance workhorse.
The Meteor was not quite as reliable as the 1965 Plymouth, but it was much better than several of his other cars.
There were occasional annoyances. During one vacation in 1972, the starter seemed determined to fail in every province we visited, requiring replacement three different times before the trip was over. The factory fiberglass-belted tires proved equally disappointing, wearing out in only about 8,000 miles. Dad eventually abandoned them in favor of less expensive nylon tires that lasted nearly twice as long.
Still, those inconveniences never overshadowed what the Meteor represented.
Like the Plymouth before it, the Meteor became part of countless family adventures.
Every summer it hauled the Travelaire trailer across the Prairies and over the Rockies, the aluminum fishing boat secured to the roof above us. Looking back today, it’s remarkable how much families once expected from a single station wagon. Camping gear, luggage, trailer, boat, and five people—all managed without complaint.
One trip in particular has become family legend.
In 1974 we were heading north from Regina with the trailer behind us and the boat lashed to the roof. A sudden crosswind snapped the ropes holding the boat in place. Fortunately, the front rope held for a few terrifying seconds, allowing the boat to swing wildly against the side of the Meteor instead of flying directly backward into the trailer.
After several violent impacts against the car, the remaining rope finally gave way and the boat rolled into the ditch.
We had been lucky; if the nose rope had not held the boat, it would’ve likely struck the aluminum travel trailer, the vacation—and perhaps the trailer itself—would have been over before it really began.
Instead, we walked down the ditch, picked up the boat, found some fresh rope, tied everything down again, and continued on our way. Dad kept that boat until 2017!
…..
The Meteor also marked an important milestone in my own life.
When I turned sixteen in 1973, it was behind the wheel of that big wagon that I took my driver’s test. Perhaps because so much of my early driving experience was in this car, I naturally became a Ford man. Whether that loyalty was deserved or merely familiar hardly mattered; the Meteor had become the car through which I learned to drive.
By then, Dad’s automobiles had become more than transportation to me.
Each one represented a chapter in our family’s story.
The Falcon was forever linked with building the cottage at Christopher Lake and those first tentative camping adventures.
The troublesome Fairlane introduced us to travel trailers and carried us across western Canada despite its mechanical shortcomings.
The faithful Plymouth became the family favorite, the first car I drove, and the source of memories both happy and painful.
Now the Meteor was carrying us into the 1970s, towing trailers, transporting boats, and quietly becoming the backdrop for my teenage years.
It also carried me toward adulthood.
In the fall of 1975, I enrolled in the College of Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. Like countless parents before and since, Mom and Dad loaded my belongings into the family wagon and drove me to my new home.
At the time it felt like just another trip. Only later did I realize it marked the end of an era.
A couple of weeks later, I returned home by bus for the weekend. As I stepped off, I expected to see the familiar green Meteor waiting at the curb.
Instead, Dad pulled up in a brand-new 1975 Chevrolet Impala sedan; the Meteor had quietly passed into history.
For me, it was a surprising event. After all those camping trips, vacations, breakdowns, fishing expeditions, and driving lessons, I hadn’t realized that my last ride in the Meteor had already happened.
Cars rarely announce when they’ll leave our lives.
They simply become part of the background until one day they’re gone, yet they can remain as part of our personal memories.
As for the 1975 Impala, that’s a story for another day.
Your talent for writing is excellent. I had to read the whole article and await the next phase of your family’s car history. Thanks.
Thank you for the terrific write-up. It’s great to reminisce about how our family history and our family cars are intertwined.
In my family’s case, the car of record was a 1972 Ford Country Sedan station wagon, which my parents kept for 12 years and well over 100K miles. We have a somewhat similar story about how the car was selected and eventually purchased; I was involved in the process, which eventually worked out exactly as my father had hoped.
The Country Sedan It took us on countless family vacations and hauled four kids and all our stuff back and forth to college. It wasn’t a perfect (or fancy) car, but it always served us dependably and without complaint.
I grew in the back of a station wagon with a family of 6, Mostly Mopars, including a 70 with your dad’s 383 and ending with a couple Caprices in the 90’s. We even had our own National Lampoon vacation in ’72 from PA to CA and countless trips to colleges. The last wagon was finally replaced by a ’96 Chrysler Concord, possibly the best car we ever had.
Our first family wagon arrived when I was 4 years old and my parents tell a story of our family arriving in front of church on Sunday morning with me standing up on the seat yelling out the window “New car! New car!” Doing some research as an adult, it was a full size 1960 ford wagon that turned out to be a single year model for 1960 as US changed the maximum with allowed for 1961 and beyond. I was 4 years old in 1962, so imagine my devastation as an adult learning that the “New car” was actually a slightly used car. My three siblings and I played and slept on the rear flat floor while traveling and when I found image of an original brochure, Ford advertised the area as a mobile play pen. The photo was taken several years later on an outing with our friend Jose from Mexico. My dad was behind the camera and I am the adorable little boy sitting on the roof of the wagon.
Dad would fold down the back seat and throw in a mattress whenever we went on a long trip. When I got older I would often sleep in the back of the wagon when we went camping.
There are so many events in my own family that I can date only because I remember the car or cars associated with it, so your conclusions resonate here. I had forgotten that Meteor was still a thing that late.
In 1969 most people in Saskatchewan drove full size cars from the low price six. Which meant Chevrolet, Pontiac, Ford, Meteor, Dodge and Plymouth. Canadian Dodge Monacos were Polaras with Monaco grilles and Polaras and Polara 500s had Plymouth Fury I & II interiors. As a whole I think we had relatively more Pontiacs, Dodges and Mercurys (Meteors) in Canada than in the US. Pontiac often out sold Chevrolet and Dodge always out sold Plymouth.
People who drove compacts (including imports) tended to be young people starting out, retirees or as second cars for more affluent families. Mid-size cars tended to be hardtops (most of them muscle car want to bees) driven by young professionals and Buicks, Oldsmobiles, Chryslers and Mercurys were driven by more affluent middle aged professionals. That all changed after the 1973 fuel crises and the rapid rise in gas prices and the popularity of Meteors and other full size cars dropped,
What a great story. Although I never grew up with family vacations or camping, my maternal grandparents always drove Ford Country Squire wagons and they were always a shade of green with the “wood” trim and they sound very much like your family’s Meteor wagon. I was introduced to camping by my wife when we started dating and my first car was a Plymouth Reliant wagon so it all kind of went together. Thanks for sharing the great pictures and the memories and i ‘m looking forward to the next chapter!
I’ve really been enjoying these. Our ’65 Coronet wagon was not quite as heavily burdened as your Dad’s wagons, but it did serve as the beast of burden for our highly memorable summer vacations.
I do find it a bit curious that your dad was considering sedans and bought the ’75 Impala sedan given the boat he hauled. It seems like a wagon was the obvious solution.
After the Meteor my mother said no more wagons! Also by late 1972 our second car was a truck.
Very nice write-up and looking forward to the next part. Your family certainly put those cars to good use with all the loading and towing!
Love being a part of your automotive journey, and am looking forward to the next chapter!
Dragging a trailer over the Hanson Lake Road in 1967 would have been quite an adventure! Still mostly gravel for 300 Kms. Your photo of the rocks at Lake Athapap brought back many memories of Flin Flon, my hometown!
Gravel was the rule not the exception in Saskatchewan in the late 1960s so it didn’t phase us. We spent many weekends camping in Nipawin provincial park along the southern end of the Hanson Lake Road. Lots of gravel and sometimes mud. Same thing heading to Lac La Ronge and Meadow Lake provincial parks which were also places we frequented.
My father was a fisherman so we spent many weekends camping in northern Saskatchewan, an area devoid of paved roads in the 1960s so it didn’t phase us.
Really enjoying these stories. Grew up with wagons from a ’41 Chevy woody, ’49 Plymouth Suburban, 61 Chevy Parkwood and my own (very rusty) 9 year old 59 Lark wagon when I was 11 years old. Guess that’s why I have 3 wagons in my garage today.
My dad knew what he wanted. He took me along when purchasing our first wagon, a blue 1959 two door Chevy Brookwood, his first automatic. His left foot hit the imaginary clutch pedal for a couple of weeks. The 1965 Impala wagon, also blue, was our camping adventure car, and the first car I legally drove. I was also present for the negotiation, $500 off sticker. We never towed a trailer, but tent camped. After that it was a 1969 Dodge A-108 Sportsman van, as our camping involved open desert that kind of beat up the Impala suspension.
Nice article, I too think your writing skill is top notch .
Being a Geezer I grew up with wagons, lots and lots of them, I like smaller vehicles but wagons are hard to beat for comfort & utility .
My step father Lawrence who as a true man amongst men, bought a base model 1965 Plymouth wagon to haul his many bags of sails, courted my mother in it and used it for many years afterward, I remember it being fairly rust resistant (New England) although it went through three tail gates .
Eventually they ave it to my middle sister who beat it nearly to death, that thing with it’s 225CID 6 cylinder and 727 slush box was fantastic, over 225,000 miles the last time I saw it, still with good original upholstery .
-Nate
Great story, you had a upbringing with family that I could only dream of at the time. The cars are a plus, my dad had a cool couple cool ones when I was in my early teens, early 70s, but they went away.