1951 Ford Woodie wagon

 

 

At the 2017 “Autos of Alamo” car show, the author spied this 1951 Ford Country Squire wagon, Ford’s last wood-bodied station wagon built in its Iron Mountain factory using maple and birch from Ford’s own Upper Peninsula forests.  Some purists disdain these cars as the body is mostly steel inlaid with wood.

 

 

Comparing the two sides of this 1951 Ford demonstrates how little wood was actually used in building these cars.  

 

 

Ford had remained the woodie wagon market after Chevrolet had abandoned it following the 1948 model year, as General Motors found that all-steel station wagons were much more cost competitive. Ford dropped the price of the V8 flathead powered 1951 top of the line Country Squire wagon to $2028 but sales for the model year totaled just 22,292 units.

 

In late 1951 Ford Motor Company sold the Iron Mountain factory, and for 1952 the re-designed Ford Country Squire used 'Di-Noc' wood laminate paneling on the sides and tailgate framed by wood, but the real wood was replaced by wood-grained fiberglass mid-way through the 1953 model year.   

All photographs by the author