A reader contacted Paul recently, curious about the then upcoming premiere of the Dallas sequel. While his curiosity was aimed at the cars used in the original Dallas TV series, it did give pause to think about how the automotive landscape has changed since the original show’s 1978 debut. In many ways 1978 was a simpler time. Come along, then, as the vehicular mood is set before we reminisce about a Dallas weekend from a simpler time…
Sue Ellen Ewing sat in the leather driver’s seat of her burgundy Colony Park, which was parked in the lot outside Beau’s Discount Liquor and Cigarettes in downtown Dallas. It was the weekend of her annual camping excursion with J.R. and she was busy rounding up supplies for the trip. She had just finished stashing several bottles of liquid supplies from Beau’s throughout the wagon’s huge interior.
Her next stop was to pick up the Airstream trailer she had purchased the week before. This would be her first time pulling a trailer. She was certain the big Mercury was up for the task as J.R. had mentioned something about a 460 V8 under the hood. He could be a real son of a biscuit eater at times, but she did trust him when it came to cars.
Two hours later she was headed back to South Fork with the Airstream in tow. From behind the wheel of her comfortable and powerful Mercury, she might have forgotten completely about the trailer in back if not for her fellow motorists. “A lot of people must like the Airstream,” she thought, “because they all keep honking and waving.”
She arrived home to find J.R. in the kitchen talking to Courtney, their young, blond, and busty housekeeper. Sue Ellen noticed that Courtney’s hair was messed up and she seemed to be startled–even embarrassed–when she entered the kitchen. There’s something fishy here, Sue Ellen thought. Her suspicion grew as she studied J.R., that worthless lying son of a……
Sue Ellen was happy on the way to the campground, despite J.R.’s insistence that she do all the driving. Big Dick’s was their favorite campground with lots of area to park the Airstream. Throughout the trip, people in passing cars smiled and waved their approval of the Airstream, and she reciprocated in her characteristically southern and genteel manner.
When they arrived at the campground, J.R. suddenly became talkative.
“Sue Ellen, we need some wood for a fire, darlin’. How about you just take that chain saw back there and go find us a little something. I see a nice tree that’s fallen in the woods down yonder. Why don’t you be a good girl and go get it.”
“J.R.”, Sue Ellen said, “those woods are way down yonder.”
“Now darlin’, there’s a log chain in with the spare. Why don’t you use your Mercury to pull it out, darlin‘, and then you can split it up for some firewood.”
J.R. was getting perturbed, but not nearly as perturbed as Sue Ellen. She thought again how J.R. was such a son of a female cur. One of these days, she thought, somebody is going to pop a cap in you and everyone will be asking, “Who shot J.R.?”
J.R. told Sue Ellen to scurry along as he needed to go to the office to check in. Sue Ellen figured he meant “check out” as they had been there once already and a tall, busty red-head was behind the desk.
She eased the Mercury down to the woods and attempted to hook onto the tree. About that time, a young, muscular man, perhaps 25 years of age, approached Sue Ellen, who hadn’t seen him there in the woods.
“Hi, ma’am. My name is Rick. This is my parents’ campground. Could you use a little help?”
Sue Ellen perked up. “Yes…yes, I sure could,” she said in her naturally breathy voice. They hooked the log chain to the hitch of the Colony Park. Sue Ellen was thrilled by the ease with which Rick and the big 460 eased that log out of the woods, and even more as she watched Rick masterfully work the chainsaw.
Before they loaded up the Colony Park, Sue Ellen turned to Rick and asked, “How can I possibly thank you?” As she and Rick looked intently at each other, Rick spoke.
“Well, before I fill her with wood , how about a tour of your Merc?” Sue Ellen eagerly obliged. She was genuinely happy to tell Rick about her wagon’s spaciousness and smooth ride, and she hoped she could get him talking about suspensions and parts for a while; after all, Rick excited her a lot more than Cliff Barnes ever did…
By the time Sue Ellen and Rick were finishing off a bottle of Wild Turkey, there was a knock on the window. Sue Ellen jumped, startled. It was J.R.!
…..So in some regards, things on Dallas may not have changed much since 1978. The Colony Park was discussed here recently. So let’s look a bit closer at the 1978 models.
For 1978, Mercury built 16,883 wagons in the Marquis line. There is no breakdown for Colony Parks specifically, although it was a $547 option on Marquis wagons.
What did Sue Ellen’s Colony Park cost? The base price for a Marquis wagon was $5958 with the 460 V8 costing $271. To pull a trailer, it would be wise to have the traction lock axle ($63), four wheel disc brakes ($300), the cross country suspension ($26), and towing package ($138).
The dual facing rear seats shown above were a $186 dollar option. The interior was available with all kinds of heart-warming and tush comforting goodies, depending upon one’s willingness to spend money.
So was $7489 plus unknown options a good deal for a Colony Park in 1978? Think of it as $33,500 today.
The Colony Park disappeared after 1991. Mercury disappeared after 2010. A moderately optioned Taurus will now run you $33,500. Do you think times have changed?
Outstanding Dallas fan-fic, can’t wait to tune in next week to see the stunning and steamy conclusion!
None of the CC writers ever disappoint, but I’m learning that whenever I see “By: Jack Lord” under a headline, I’m gonna be in for a real treat.
I feel the same way.
+1
I keep waiting for a Hawaii 5-0 story.
Thought about it but not enough character development. Dallas had a monumental amount of character development. But you got me thinking…who knows?
That’s because the whole show was about character development!
Though I was more of a fan of J.R.’s 450SEL.
Ahhh yes, the venerable 9″ Ford rear end, with the limited-slip differential and the uber-desirable rear disc brakes, mmmm.
In my earlier years of junkyard hunting, I recall coming across many Lincolns and T-Birds (and Mercurys not as often) that were sans rear axle. Upon looking at the dashboard and seeing the “rear disc brake” placque, I immediately knew why.
A great read. I never watched much Dallas, but I knew who JR and Sue Ellen were. I had forgotten (if I ever knew) that she drove a Colony Park.
When I was in high school, I knew a kid whose dad had one of these (but without the wood paneling). About that time, my hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana printed a list of the 25 most dangerous intersections in the city. When a group of us were together in that Mercury wagon, we called ourselves “the roving 26th”, figuring that the next intersection on the list was whichever one we were in.
My friend could sure make that big, unwieldy Mercury do some acrobatics. Sometimes it was out of necessity, like when he had to lose the angry car that someone in back of the wagon had just shot a bottle rocket at. Damned kids. The car would lean and pitch something fierce, but would eventually go where he pointed it and we never broke anything on it, despite all of the abuse he heaped on it.
Still haven’t figured out why we needed to take such a basically good vehicle, jack it another couple of feet up in the air, put 20 in rims on it, and call it an SUV…
Twenty years later I liked Carmela Soprano’s E-Class wagon way more than its SUV replacement. Perhaps it was a watershed when Tony bought her the Porsche Cayenne and the SUV became the aspirational vehicle for the newly moneyed classes on TV. A nice reminder of better days, Mr. Lord.
In the new “Dallas on TNT”, the lady of Southfork, Mrs Anne Ewing, newly married to Bobby, drives a black Chevy Tahoe. GM must be paying for product placement,since the camera panned accross the Tahoe badge.
Also, Sue Ellen now drives a sports car in the new show.
You’ll know it’s a product placement when they stick a couple of lines in the script in which Ms Ewing calls out the Tahoe by name and gushes over some feature (“I just love the touch-screen navigation and the rear-vision camera”).
A little later than the era of this CC, but I remember visiting a friend in Houston in ’83. We drove around the FM 1960 area (the first McMansion subdivisions I ever saw), and pretty much every driveway had three vehicles parked in it: an M-B W126 sedan (probably a 500 SEL), a 4WD pickup, and a woodgrained large GM or FoMoCo wagon.
woodgrained large GM or FoMoCo wagon…
That really is a bygone era in American history. When wealthy familes kept a station wagon around for the wife and literally for “going to the station (or airport)” to pick up Aunt Gertie and all her lugage to stay for a few weeks.
I only miss this era because I’d love to buy one of those pampered wagons when they finally tire of it.
I had forgotten about Sue Ellen’s Mercury Colony Park. A great read.
I can’t wait for the JR edition where he drives another kind of “Merc” – the S-class Mercedes.
“The Colony Park was discussed here recently. So let’s look a bit closer at the 1978 models.
For 1978, Mercury built 16,883 wagons in the Marquis line. There is no breakdown for Colony Parks specifically, although it was a $547 option on Marquis wagons.”
A point about the nomenclature, for anyone who isn’t familiar with these vehicles:
From 1955 to 1969, Ford Motor Company’s full-size wagons were marketed as distinct models from the rest of their full-size lineup. For most of this period, Ford had three basic wagon models: the Ranch Wagon, the Country Sedan, and the Country Squire. Mercury, once the dust settled on its various moves up and down the mid-priced market in the late ’50s, generally had two: the Commuter and the Colony Park.
In 1969, while the special wagon names continued, they were folded into the regular full-size Ford and Mercury models. So these cars were no longer the “Ford Country Squire” and “Mercury Colony Park”, etc., at least officially, but the “Ford LTD Country Squire” and “Mercury Marquis Colony Park”, etc.
In the years following 1969, all of the distinct wagon names faded away except for the top-of-the-line Country Squire and Colony Park. The rest were out of use by the mid ’70s, with the lower-line wagons no longer having any special name. The Country Squire and Colony Park names would remain in use — within the LTD/Crown Victoria and Marquis/Grand Marquis lineups, not as distinct models — until the end of full-size wagon production in 1991.
Typical of Mercury’s decades-long identity crisis that the Ford wagons would have such romanticized Western-sounding names, even on the base model, and Mercury would have the “Commuter” in its lineup. Sounds like an airport shuttle van.
The front end of this one is exactly like my grandma’s and my aunt’s ’75 Marquis’s (Marquises? I’ve never quite gotten a handle on the plural of “Marquis”.) Grotesque and garish today but the ’70s defined, for me (having been a kid then).
I had forgotten about the big wagon in “Dallas” – I was more obsessed with the M-B W107 that featured so prominently, and wasn’t there a W116 too?
mark 5s…
A family on the next street over in our neighborhood had a light metallic blue 1976 Colony Park. It was an impressive car for that time.
The Marquis in general, and Colony Park in particular, were special in that they did really seem to be a step up from their Ford counterparts, unlike other Mercurys. The Colony Park was the equivalent of the Chrysler Town and Country, Buick Estate wagon and Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser. Definitely a step up from the Ford LTD Country Squire or Chevrolet Kingswood Estate.
The full-size Dodge and Plymouth wagons were so rare by the mid-1970s that I believe most of us had forgotten that they even existed.
On another note, if you visit the actual house used in the opening credits of the series, a gift shop on the grounds houses the Lincoln Continental Mark V driven by patriarch Jock Ewing in the original series. So the Ewings were originally a Lincoln-Mercury family.
I had a light metallic blue 76 Colony Park wagon for about a year or so, in between Pontiac and Buick clamshell wagons,it was nice, loaded with a 460 and dark blue leather interior, the one thing that always bugged me was the generic Ford hardware with extra wood trim to “Mercuty-fy” it, it was a nice riding car, though it really is sort of a sedan with a wagon grafted on to it, I dont think that there rear doors are any different from the sedans.
I believe at the end of Season 2 Sue Ellen gets Drunked Up and wrecks the Colony Park and delivers John Ross prematurely. The next year she got the new Panther Colony Park.
Other Cars in the show not mentioned above was Pam’s Corvette, Ray Krebb’s Jeep Pick Up, Cliff Barnes BMW, I believe 6 series Coupe. Can not remember what Lucy drove?
Later on in the series JR got a Cadillac Allante, remember him saying “time to support America”.
The only car I remember from Dallas was the dad’s Mark V.
Lucy first drove a Fiat X1/9, and later moved up to a Porsche 924.
Bobby had a Mercedes 450SL.
In the new show, John Ross has a Corvette Grand Sport convertible, and Christopher has a Lotus Elise.
Thanks for the refresh on Lucy’s cars. I tend to remember them now.
Lucy drove, also, a Triumph TR7 convertible.
From one Don, to another: Thank-you, for the confirmation. I was positive “Miss Lucy” piloted a TR-7, at one point. Something makes me think Uncle Bobby bought it, for her.
actually in the new Series, Christopher is driving a Tesla Roadster 3.0, Sue Ellen had a Porsche Panamera, Bobby had a Mercedes Bens S 400 Hybrid Rebecca Barnes drove a Chevy Volt, Elena Ramos had a CTS-V Coupe, Ann Ewing had a Chevy Tahoe,
Would I be showing my age if I said I’ve never watched an episode of Dallas?
I re-watched the premier of new ‘Dallas’ and Sue Ellen now drives a new Porsche Panamera ‘4 door coupe’.