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Ford’s Country Squire was built for over 40 years

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Station wagons were so popular 60 years ago that huge resources were spent by the Detroit-based companies to develop innovations to make their wagons stand out from the rest.

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Some of that investment paid off for the Ford Motor Company in 1965 when it introduced a two-way tailgate for the 1966 model year. Ford’s tailgate, called a Magic Doorgate, could be folded down or opened like a door from the back of the vehicle. The Magic Doorgate was introduced on the 1966 Country Squire, the station wagon version of the Galaxie 500.

The Magic Doorgate immediately changed the dynamics within the industry and left GM and Chrysler scrambling to keep up. But keep up they did, and it wasn’t long before a similar innovation was available on GM and Chrysler-built station wagons.

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The Magic Tailgate was the brainchild of Donald Frey, a long-time Ford engineer who, along with Lee Iacocca and Hal Sperlich, was responsible for the development of the Mustang. Such was Frey’s ability to come up with new ideas to improve Ford automobiles that Time magazine in 1967 called him Detroit’s Sharpest Idea Man.

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It can be argued that Ford’s innovative tailgate raised the bar for station wagons, much as Chrysler Corporation’s dual sliding passenger doors would change the minivan industry 30 years later. And it must be remembered that 60 years ago station wagons were an important part of the automobile business, as important as the minivan van was in the 1990s.

The first station wagons were cars modified to accept luggage and other goods from railway stations, hence the word station wagon. They were utility-oriented. Only later would station wagons be fitted with a third row seat for additional passengers. Station wagons would become part of the conventional offerings of automobile companies, becoming immensely popular in the 1950s as families grew and a demand for greater versatility within the automobile become more apparent.

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The first so-called woodies were built by Ford, which owned vast tracts of timberland in northern Michigan. By the late 1930s, it became a status symbol to own a station wagon, the back panels of which were finely crafted with wood. Chrysler capitalized on the trend by equipping its most expensive New Yorker with a station wagon configuration, built with wood, and calling it Town and Country.

It wasn’t until 1949 that a station wagon was built entirely of steel, and that came from Plymouth. Yet at the same time Ford was building its most popular station wagon, Country Squire, with wood; it wouldn’t be until 1952 that an all-steel Country Squire was available.

Country Squire might arguably be the most popular station wagon ever built in North America. It was the top-of-the-line Ford wagon from 1950 until 1991, and competed against the likes of Chevrolet’s Nomad and Plymouth’s Suburban. Although both Chevy and Plymouth offered different types of station wagons for many years, Country Squire would outlast all of them as a distinct brand.

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The first Country Squire was built in 1950 as a modified two-door model of Ford’s most expensive line, the Custom Deluxe. The back end of the car was built with wood, and two engines were available, a six-cylinder or Ford’s venerable V8.

Country Squire continued much the same in 1951, but for ’52 Ford offered three wagons, one for each of its specially-priced series. The entry wagon was called Country Sedan, the mid-priced wagon was called Ranch Wagon, while the most expensive was Country Squire.

The 1952 Ford wagons were built with steel, but real wood was attached to the side panels and tailgate for Country Squire. Halfway through the ’53 model year production, Ford replaced the real wood with a fiberglass product that looked like wood.

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The all-new Fords for 1955 also featured all-new station wagons, and Country Squire led the pack. For the first time, a simulated woodgrain using vinyl was used to give the wood effect – even though Ford had not been using any wood in its station wagon construction for several years.

Meanwhile, Country Squire was equipped the same as the most expensive Ford sedan, the Fairlane. Country Squire was the more costly vehicle, however, with a list price of $2,492. For 1955, only one other Ford automobile was more expensive than Country Squire, and that was the all-new two-seater Thunderbird.

1955 was a good year for Ford-built station wagons. Although Country Squire could claim only 19,000 units, Ford sold a total of 209,459 wagons for that model year, easily beating Chevrolet, which built a total of 161,856 wagons.

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Station wagons were big business. In 1956, Ford increased its Country Squire sales alone to over 23,000. By that time, station wagons accounted for 15 per cent of Ford’s overall vehicle sales.

According to an article published in the Saturday Evening Post in 2018, a Chevrolet dealer in Mississippi in 1955 sold more station wagon models in 12 months than he had since he had opened 19 years earlier.

It was the same for a Pennsylvania man who sold Chrysler products. In the first two months of 1956, 40 per cent of his Plymouth and Dodge deliveries were station wagons.

A Pontiac dealer in New Jersey was delighted to find that same response from his customers, while a Ford dealership in California found that 20 per cent of its sales were station wagons.

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Station wagons in that era were a lot like sports utility vehicles and crossovers today. They were well equipped and versatile in their use, and they were built for families. They were also attractively designed; indeed, their use was deployed by every automotive division within GM, Ford and Chrysler, save for Cadillac, Lincoln and Imperial.

Ford’s Country Squire is an excellent example of the station wagon’s rise and fall within the Detroit-based automotive industry. It was built from 1950 until 1991, surviving every possible change in Ford’s full-size car.

Annual sales figures are spotty for Ford’s full-size station wagons, but they were relatively strong during the 1950s, when Ford sold as many as 27,690 units for 1957.

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More than a decade later, the Ford’s full-size station wagon reached sales of as much as 130,644 for 1971, before experiencing a slow decline.

By the early 1980s, sales were becoming tepid; Ford’s best years were 1984 and 1985 when it sold 30,803 and 30,835 units respectively. Thereafter, full size station wagon sales fell every year until 1991 when just 3,865 units were sold.

The utility and appeal of the station wagon had been usurped by the mini-van, which Chrysler Corporation introduced for the 1984 model year. Ford responded with its Aerostar minivan and Chevrolet with its Nomad.

By the early 1990s, the so-called minivan wars in Detroit escalated to a point where station wagons weren’t even a consideration of the domestic automakers.

Yet GM made a final stab at the full-size station wagon in 1991 when it introduced rather large rear-wheel drive Buick, Chevrolet and Oldsmobile models. Among them were the Buick Roadmaster Estate and the Chevrolet Caprice Wagon. Available in the U.S. only was an Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser.

But GM’s new trio of wagons didn’t last long. Oldsmobile’s large retro wagon was built for only 1991 and 1992. And by 1996, the Roadmaster and Caprice wagons were history.

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