What were the most popular station wagons of the 50s, 60s and 70s?

I recall as a lad in the 1970s, every other house on the block had the station wagon version of the Ford LTD in their driveway-








and there were still quite a few Ford Country Squire wagons from the 60s driving around...






Anyone know offhand the biggest selling wagons from the 50s, 60s and 70s?

What kind of station wagon did your family own?

 

As I recall, full-size sataion wagons were very big in the mid 60's. At least in my neighborhood, almost every family had a large station wagon....
We had a '66 Caprice
The next-door neighbor had a '64 Impala
The house next to him had a '65 Ford Country Sedan
The house next to him had a '66 Country Squire

I've seen a trend in car buying. Americans seem to flop around between 'utility' and 'fun' A few years back, everybody had a minivan. Then, everybody wanted either a 4-door pickup or a big honkin' SUV. Now it seems people are switching back to sport sedans and hatchbacks.

Us wagon luvers take the middle ground.........

 

Krash, of the neighborhood station wagons from your youth, which was your favorite?

It's funny, one of the clearest memories of my childhood is what my neighbors drove! On one side the neighor had a '68 Vette and a '70 Buick wagon, on the other side the neighbor had a '63 Chevy Covair, a '63 Oldsmobile and a 65 Ford country wagon.

My family had a 70' Pontiac Firebird, and a '72 Dodge Monaco wagon .
(Replacing a 61' Pontiac Tempest wagon, a 65' Rambler and a 58' Ford Fairlane)

 

The only 'car geek' in my neighborhood when I was growing up was.........me. I don't really remmeber any cars that I would have called 'cool'. Right before my dad bought the '66 Caprice, he had a '65 Nova wagon with the 283 V8 in it. That would be WAY COOL now, but not so much back then.

Back around this same time, or a bit earlier ( I was 13 - 14) I had a friend around the corner. His dad drove a VW bug to work, but his mom had this big HUGE '58 Buick Roadmaster 2-door hardtop. This car had more equipment (and way more chrome) than anything new in 1965. Made quite an impression on me. And when you road in it it 'floated'...... Oh - and my mom's boss had a 1962 Thurderbird. I liked it so much, I bought one myself about 30 years later.....

As for station wagons, the one I remember the most is from the family that had the '66 Country Squire. One of their earlier cars was a '56 Country Squire. (This would have been back around 1960) I also remember some friend that owned a '59 Olds wagon - 9-seater version. Like sitting in a very large fish tank in the way-back.

 

We had a LTD just like the one pictured, only it was baby poop brown. And of course the 66 Caprice, my grandpa had a 73 Lemans wagon, and a few buick ones I can't remember exactly, but one of them, was such a piece of crap that he had to tie a rope through the door handle, and sit on it to keep the door shut. He told work he had to be there after sunrise and leave before sundown because the lights didn't work, among many other things. My uncle had a 73 Buick or Olds wagon, I wanna say Olds Cruiser, which he completely restored. And of course, everyone had a Roadie or a Caprice bubble wagon when I was growing up in the 90s.

 

I am going to assume that Ford wagons were the most popular in the 1970s? I'd say at last 3/4s of the station wagons in my home town were Fords...

 

I know that in my family, Chevys ruled the roost, and Dad and his brothers had several Chevy wagons. My Uncle had a '64 BelAir 9-pass wagon with a 327, auto, air, and power steering & brakes that he kept for nearly 20 years. Dad had a '58 Yeoman wagon when I was a little kid, then later (1969), he had a '60 Nomad two-door wagon with a 250 and auto, then for a short time, he had a sweet '68 Impala wagon with a 396 and loaded! There was also the hideous Greenbriar van Dad bought new in 1963, that was a complete POS from Day One. Dad had that one maybe two years!

 

In the 70s, definitely the Country Squire! There were more of them made than Chevy wagons of each year, but Chevy sold more sedans and coupes by far... strange huh?

 

The Fairmonts and Zephyrs went to 625,000, even more than Mustangs.

 

What was the peak year for the Country Squire?
1976?

 

It was 1973.

Here are the Ford wagon production #s

http://www.stationwagonforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3667

 

we had (wagons in red)

53 Olds 88
55 Olds 88
60 Olds Super 88 Conv
62 Impala conv
62 Falcon wagon
63 Dynamic 88 Holiday 4 dr hardtop
64 Chevy wagon
65 Country Sedan
67 Old Cutlass 2 dr
70 Delta 88 Royale 4 dr
70 Country Squire
72 Delta 88 Royale 4 door
73 Delta 88 Royale 4 door
73 Impala wagon 400 (8mpg)

hmmm all Olds, Chevy and Fords

I remember how dissapointed I was when Dad traded the 65 for a Chevy and not another Ford but oh well

 

Let's examine why...We'll look at the competition...The Dodge Aspen/Plymouth Volare wagons from Mopar(there was a Chrysler version too,Fifth Avenue in the 70's,I believe).While the 318 and the Slant Six had plenty of power,the wagons were a bit heavier than the Fords,and the engines didn't get the mpgs the 302 and Mileage Maker Sixes were getting...And over at GM?.......They stopped making smaller wagons during the 70's.Brought back Nova sized wagons when Malibu got bumped down in size...Fairmonts and Zephyrs were the better choice at the time...In the big scheme of things,since Plymouth,Chevy and Ford made the most cars and the most wagons,the big sellers were in those brands.I know,in 55,56 and 57 the Chevy wagons were king.In the late Fifties,as the economy faltered,Ford started to take over.I remember reading somewhere,that Ford dominated the wagon market,from about 1960 to well into the Eighties.Once Chrysler got minivans and they started to sell big,they scaled wagon production way back.Much like Ford did as Explorer/Mariner went popular.

 

in the 80's im gonna say the small to midsize wagons were most popular.

i was an only child to my mom and my mom never had a wagon....(i dont remember having a child seat either but that was a different time) growing up i remeber my moms 82 buick skylark, the 85 dodge daytona turbo z, the 88 buick skyhawk, and ...oh wait...maybe she did have a wagon...does a 93 jeep cherokee count?

my moms friends had wagons....
her friend debbie had a taurus we called the wagoonis and her other friend angie had an escort wagon.

one neighbor across the street had a pontiac clamshell and then a malibu wagon.
and one of the others had a FIAT wagon.

 

Man, all these women with wagons and we've only got a handful as occasional members? What's wrong with this picture?