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It's interesting the
woody station wagon is so entrenched in folklore as the preferred
transport of 1950 American surfers that the vehicle's origins have
been largely overlooked. So where did the term `station wagon'
originate? That answer later. The reason the woody took off with
surfers was a simple matter of size and being affordable.
It was also a crossing of
paths. The Woody had become unfashionable and dated and the
California surfers' needed a large, affordable wagon for their boards
and at least three mates. The Jan and Dean song
`Surf City' summed it up:
I
bought a '30 Ford
wagon and we call it a woody
(Surf
City, here we come)
You know it's not very cherry, it's an oldie but a goody
(Surf City, here we come)
Well, it ain't got a back seat or a rear window
But it still gets me where I wanna go.
Woodies
had been doing just that – getting people to where they want to go
– since the 1920's. And where they wanted to go was either to a
railway station or from one. Hence the name `station wagon.' They
were also known as `depot hacks' the term `hack' meaning it was a
working vehicle, much like a taxi. But the term here means more than
taxi as the depot hack was intended to carry large amounts of
luggage. For that reason these wagons had an extended roofline and
rear access for luggage, plus seating for many passengers. In the
early days not only large cars were developed for this, but also
small trucks.
The
history of the station wagon and the woody are inter-twined. There's
little doubt the first wagons were a variant of the Model-T Ford. But
station wagon history seems to start with the 1923 Star which was the
first to `produce' a station wagon, as opposed to having a third
party build a station wagon body on an existing chassis. There
is no definitive history on the wagon. It evolved in many places,
through many manufacturers, in many guises. The Woody is a cheap
version of a station wagon and dates to the days of cars using timber
frames. In the case of the woody the external sheet metal was not
added, saving the cost of metal, labour and painting. So the term
`station wagon' was first coined in the 1920's and replaced the term
`depot hack'.
Australia
also got in on the act. This photograph shows two `station wagons'
circa late 1920s that transferred passengers from Southport Railway
Station at the northern end of what is now known as the Gold Coast to
the southern end of the coast, Coolangatta. The vehicles are not
woodies and there's a good reason for that. South east Queensland has
a warm sub-tropical climate which in summer can be stifling, so a
closed-in wagon – there was no air-conditioning in the 1920s –
would have been unbearable.
These
wagons – extended chassis with long bodies – were built to suit
the climate with open sides. (Image courtesy Gold Coast City Local
Studies Library). It it likely that for at least some of the
journey between Southport and Coolangatta the station wagons drove
along the beach at low tide. It is also likely they were called
buses, not station wagons, even though they were car-derived.
It
was towards the late 1920s and mid 1930s that produced the golden era
of woody station wagons. What had started as a necessity to carry
passengers to and from the railway station had become a status
symbol. In the U.S, exclusive clubs and tourist resorts used the
woody as classy transport for wealthy guests. The wood was no longer
just the exposed timber framework, but highly polished and maintained
as a striking feature.
Our
pictured vehicle is from this era being a 1937 Buick woody. Most
major American manufacturers either produced a Woody in-house or had
outside coachbuilding contractors build the style for them. Unless
timber is maintained, in a relatively short time being exposed to the
elements, it deteriorates. So these not-so-well maintained station
wagons in poor body shape became not only unloved, but unwanted. Also
the timber-framed car was on the way out with all-steel bodies taking
over. In this way the surfers of the 1950s picked up cheap, big,
reliable transport to follow the waves.
The
woody style was not confined to the U.S. Under the `Morris' heading
in our classic car section you will find a story on the Morris Minor
1000 Traveller, one of a number of British `woodies.' While
the woody found favour with U.S. surfers, in Australia it was mainly
the VW Kombi that fulfilled the same role, followed by larger station
wagons. Buick was the last manufacturer to produce a station wagon
with a genuine timber structure, in 1953.
The
Buicks of the 1930s came in a wide variety of body shapes with one
thing in common: a straight eight engine. They were also a stable of
magnificent looking cars: coupes, sedans, convertibles and wagons.
Buick, Oldsmobile and Pontiac divisions of GM all introduced straight
eight engines in the early 1930s. This put the GM brands at odds with
their major competitor, Ford, that introduced their V8 in 1932 and
never had a straight eight engine. In the long run the V8 won
through. The straight eight – as can be seen by the woody –
required a long, tall bonnet to accommodate the power plant. Straight
eight engines survived until just after WW2 although some were still
built in the early 1950s.
The Buick Fireball 8
engine made its debut in 1931 and survived until 1953. There were at
least two variants, one small and one large block castings. The
bigger block was used in the larger chassis Buicks such as the
Roadmaster. Early straight eights started at 220.7 cubic inches (3.6
litre) with the largest of the 10 versions at 354 cubic inches (5.6
litre) between 1931-35. From late 1934 until the early 1940s GM
Holden built bodies on imported Buick chassis using the straight
eight engine.
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