1959 Ford Station Wagon: Right For The Time
The 1959 Ford Wagon Suited Americans’ Travel Needs
May 4, 2009
Wood-bodied Ford station wagons date to the Model T era, when aftermarket bodies were installed on Ford chasses. After the Model A’s 1928 introduction, Ford cataloged woodies from early 1929 through 1951.
The Ford Woodie Evolves
Ford station wagons grew more refined in the years before World War II. The woodies continued along the pattern used in Model T days – a wooden box topped by a weatherproof fabric roof, mounted behind a conventional car’s cowl and nose – but their features advanced.
The four-cylinder of the Model A was joined in 1932 by the flathead V-8, a design that would serve Ford through 1953. By 1938, Ford station wagons had replaced side and rear curtains with glass windows. Hydraulic brakes appeared in 1939 and sealed-beam headlights in 1940.
Angularity was gradually reduced and the final pre-World War II restyling came for 1942. With minor differences, it returned as the 1946 Ford and small annual changes carried it for two more years.
The 1949 Ford Woodie is Entirely New, But Time is Running Out
The 1949 Ford station wagon broke from its predecessor with a body no longer built of wood; instead, wood framing and paneling were bolted to a steel structure under a steel roof. The result was a station wagon far more weathertight and far less noisy.
The compromise was excellent, since those who still appreciated the woodie’s beauty would be pleased and those who dreaded the woodie’s maintenance would find it less demanding. Either would recognize that the new model had traded some of its utilitarian quality for moderate civility, even if Ford made the odd decision to sell only a less-practical two-door. It ran that way through 1951, when Ford bid farewell to wood as anything but trim.
The All-Steel 1952 Ford Station Wagon and The Beginning of Better Highways
Reviving the four-door, Ford advertised the 1952 models as “the greatest line of station wagons in the industry.” Like the 1949 Fords, they were radically changed and Ford followed up by dropping its flathead V-8 for a modern overhead-valve unit. The 1954 Ford V-8 displaced 239 cubic inches as did the older engine, but its 130 horsepower beat the flathead’s 110 horsepower and for what was ahead, that was important.
The 1956 Highway Act set in motion the Interstate Highway system across America and the automakers continued to refine products and increase performance, undoubtedly influenced by the coming superhighways. Totally new Fords appeared in 1955 and 1957, each progressively more modern, but the 1959 Ford wagon seemed perfect for those high-speed roads.
“59 Fords Are Built For People”
Long and low, the attractive new highway cruiser was elegant by comparison to its competitors. Ford had given little more than a passing nod to the craze for fins and the 1959 Ford held that position even as other cars took fins to astonishing levels. The approach worked nicely on wagons, which Ford boasted were “bigger, roomier, handier, more comfortable than ever – and the most beautifully proportioned of all station wagons.”
That might have been more than mere advertising hyperbole, given that the nearly 270,000 Ford wagons sold in 1959 translated to almost 85,000 more than the previous year’s figure. Certainly, some of that increase was due to the wagon’s near-perfect suitability for travel in a time when American families wanted to see their country, but some of it, too, must’ve come from the fact that, in Ford’s case, the wagon had become easier to live with than even the most civilized of its woodies, the 1949-51 models. The best proof of that might lie in those three years’ production that totalled about 100,000 cars or less than a third of the 1959 numbers.
The 1959 Ford wagon offered an appeal different from that of a 1949 Ford wagon. Each was in tune with its time, but the later car had the advantage of a larger market.
 |
