History How many of you grew up riding in the back of a station wagon?

love mine. Bruce.

 

The first wagon my family had was a '57 Ford. Mom and Dad would put a foam mattress in the back for me and my brother to sleep on when we went to Simpsonville SC to see grandma. The next wagon was a '69 Plymouth with AC. The old man bought this car as a wreck in 1970 and repaired it. He had a couple more Mopar wagons before buying a Buick land yacht (1985) and finally his last was a 2001 Ford Taurus.

I even owned a '72 Chevy Impala for a short time with my young family.

 

Dad worked for Bell Labs before it became A.T.T and did the same.{fixed T.Vs.on the side}He bought a 1963 chevy two station wagon.We lived in N.J. back then and went to Maine and all the way to the Outer Banks of N.C. fishing with in back in the 60s.Bruce.

 

2 wagons in our family, a 64 Galaxie that Dad flipped for resale after a few months and a 72 Buick Estate wagon on the big car platform, but I never did grow up.

 

1948 Ford Woody, then a 53 Ford 2 dr, and the last was a 57 Buick wagon.
All 3 would be keepers 2day.

 

In 1952, Dad replaced our '40 Ford Tudor Deluxe with a new Country Sedan with a similar color scheme to above. Sure beat standing on the drive shaft tunnel in the back seat so you could see out the windows.

 

55 pontiac wagon , 59 pontiac wagon , 63 olds wagon , olds was a "parking" playroom , Mom always had blankets & pillows in the back , perfect for dates in high school [if they only new ]!!
dave

 

We didn't have a wagon, but my aunt did. I remember spending a lot of time sitting in store parking lots, with the hot summer sun, hanging with my cousins.
IIRC it was some early 70's ford country squire with real ugly paint, and a lot of road dust.
On a good run, we might hit the ice cream stand, or possibly KFC for a bucket of fried chicken.
When it was no longer road worthy, my cousin used it to run around the farm feeding the cows and calves. He would have been around 12-13, making me about 9-10. That was way more entertaining than sitting in the parking lot.... There were a couple of good rivers and ponds nearby for fishing and swimming.

A few years latter I got a Chrysler 300 to rip up the fields with, that was even more entertaining.

 

Back in the 60's I was racing karts and my old 65 Chevrolet Station wagon pulled the enclosed trailer and we always slept in the back of the car at the races we traveled to.
Jimbo

 

'70 Impala 6 passenger (no rear seat). Slipping and sliding on the metal floor in the wayback.
'72 Impala Kingswood Estate. 454, power everything, clamshell tailgate, forward facing rear seat.
'79 Impala 9 passenger with rear facing seat.

 

Dad had a '50 Plymouth, woodie,,,fold-down middle seat. Rear seat could be removed.
First car I drove, about 1954.

 

I DID 64 PONTIAC CATILINA. I WISH I HAD IT TODAY BUT MY DAD SOLD IT TO SOME FRIENDS OF HIS WHEN I WAS ABOUT 11. ALL IT NEEDED WAS A CARB BUT DAD WAS NO MECHANIC.
THE GUYS HE SOLD IT TO PUT IT IN A DEMO DERBY. WHEN THE FLAG DROPPED THEY FLOORED IT AND THE MOTOR STALLED NEVER TO BE STARTED AGAIN THEN THE CAR WAS DESTROYED.

THAT IS WHY I LOVE WAGONS NOW.
HERE IS MINE.

 

We had a 64 Valiant Safari wagon which had the back seat permanently down, and as kids we would just take over the whole back part (no seatbelts, no air and a 3 on the tree). I still remember my folks transporting calves in the back, all hogtied up. (We had a farm)

 

My earliest memory of riding in a car is the 57 Plymouth wagon my folks had when we moved from Minneapolis to Tucson in 1963. A few years after that, I remember watching the road go by thru a rust hole in the floor in back. And the time I opened the door, and hung on to it, while mom was driving! I was 2 when we moved, so this probably happened around 1965. Then he got a Citroen ID19 wagon, then a 67 Plymouth wagon. I really have no love for wagons, the 67 was the last resort of cars to drive when I was in high school.

 

My dad and then the wagon went to me, it was quite rusted when I got it. Stratochief, 261/ 6, 3sp converted to a floor shift by my brother.

 

I played in a rock & roll band and dad allowed me to use his wagon to haul band equipment.

We were scheduled to play at a local club one cool Friday night so I had the wagon loaded up and dropped by my girlfriends house to pick her up,about 3 blocks from our destination I topped a steep hill and sitting in the middle of the street was a stalled propane truck with no lights.

I slammed on the brakes too little,too late and plowed into the rear of the truck,the top of one of the amps came across the seat and hit Brenda in the head,I broke the steering wheel and cut my leg on the heater control switches.

They didn't charge me with the accident but charged the driver for not having his lights on,but sadly that didn't help with the wagon,it was totalled.

But being young & dumb and the consummate teenage showman I refused to go to the hospital and quickly arrange for band members to come to the scene and retrieve the equipment anyway they could via a nice lady allowing me to use her phone,the show went on although we were an hour late.

I fared well on Friday night,Saturday night was a different story,the bass player was pretty was pretty stoved up with stitches in his knee and spent the entire set playing in a chair.

Did I mention my dad was not a happy camper? HRP

 

Well I didn't grow up in a wagon but I spent my share of time in the back of one. I used to really like the ones with the backward seat.

My mom had a lady friend (Charlotte) that bought a big old wagon I think an olds that had one of those seats and three of us were sitting looking out the back (with the window down and no seat belts) for a long trip to L.A. from the city. On the trip back we folded the seat down so we could play, she blew a tire and spun it around and we ended up in the median. What a rush, we were all giggling still when a state patrol showed up and checked to see if we were alright.

he then helped change the tire and we continued along on our trip. Good times.

Wagons are too cool.

 

Mom had exactly two wagons, a 1963 and a 1972 Chevy. Those were what we grew up in. The '63 had the third, rear-facing seat; the '72 did not. The '72 was also the first car my folks owned that had an automatic transmission. My older brother managed to smash that car up twice (once before he got his license.) Dad finally decided to get rid of it when it started smoking like crazy out the exhaust. A friend of my younger brother bought it; found out the fuel pump diaphragm had a little hole in it and was passing oil up with the gas. Dad was a bit upset, "I could have fixed that..."

 

We had a 65 Buick sky wagon.....Loved that car.

 

We had a few, late 60's Ford Country Squire and early 70's Oldsmobiles. All had the rear facing seat with back window that opened. My brother and I used to sit back there on long trips, next to all the luggage and fishing stuff. Unbeknownst to my dad, we would break out his tackle box and "fish" out the back window, trailing the line out the back several hundred feet behind the car. We would typically tie something small to the fishing line, like a plastic toy or whatever. That thing would be trailing under cars behind us. Up front they never had a clue what we were up to.

 

Dad bought a red '62 Valiant wagon in 1964, and that was the car I first learned to drive. We built an 8-foot-long wooden boat from plans in Boy's Life magazine and it fit in the back of the wagon or on the roof rack, so our family went fishing and camping around southwest Missouri in that. Later I took it on my first date, and then slept in it on woodsies at the family farm. I was embarrassed to drive such an un-cool small slant 6 back then, but now think how cool it was.

 

My folks had a 59 Chevy wagon. 3 speed with overdrive. How I hated driving that car on dates when my car was down.

 

I grew up in the third row of one of these:



1968 Chrysler Town & Country. 440 with 4 bbl, factory dual exhasut and dual snorkel air cleaner. Looked exactly like this, with woodgrain over tan. It is the reason I still love fast station wagons...

 

I guess a lot of guys can relate to that,I was not one of them,our family was lucky enough to have a car living in the rural South and a wagon was a great automobile to take to the submarine races or drive-in theater,especially parked on the back row of the local passion pit! HRP

 

I'm still kid at heart and still love to ride in a wagon(ok I get to drive now) LOL

 

I remember riding in the back of Vega hatchback, with the hatch propped open about 1 foot and strapped tight. A/C crapped out so the hatch got propped open on longer trips. That car didn't stay around too long.

My brother and I would tear off chunks of weatherstripping and try to hit the hood of the cars behind us. Little shits, huh.

 

There were a lot of wagons in my family growing up. My grandmother had a new 48 Ford woody wagon and my sister and I would ride in the back with baby chickens in a box from LA to their ranch in Weldon up the Kern River canyon in our PJ.s at night-we would get car sick every time and hated that car. Later my folks bought a new 57 Olds Fiesta wagon with tripower,air and all the options. They went on a trip for a week and I took it to Madera drags-Dad found out later and I got in big trouble!! That was a real nice wagon and we went everywhere in it. My dad loved the Olds for towing a trailer or a boat-left his new pickup home whenever they made a trip towing. I got stopped in Nevada towing the boat to Lake Mead with the Olds at 80 MPH -my Dad was sleeping-the Officer just told me to slow down !!! When I first got married we didn,t have much money-my grandparents gave us a 59 Rambler wagon-6cyl with AC-that was a nice little wagon and we used it for camping,etc

 

I rode from NY to Florida on the floor in the back, with suitcases stacked around me. Being the youngest of 6, I did all kinds of time in the third seat or on the floor.

 

You guys were stylin'. I grew up riding in the back of a military jeep with a half top which didn't cover me. Got pretty cold in winter....

 

We never had one but I do remember sleeping on the package tray of a 56 Chevy 2 door Delray