Photo: Hemmings
If there is one car model Ford is likely never to bring back, then it’s the Country Squire. That's because station wagons seem to have fallen from the American buyers’ grace, and nobody really wants wood on the exterior of their cars anymore.
Yet there was a time when body panels sporting wood were all the craze. So much so that the Country Squire was not just another model in the lineup but at the top of the food chain. People loved to drive them and used these woodies either as family cars or as means to have fun while on the way to the beach and elsewhere.
Carmakers stopped making woodies sometime in the 1960s, and the ones that are left do not exactly rock the sales charts. Granted, most don’t come to the world in the configuration the one here packs, one that warrants an asking price of $52,000.
For sale on Hemmings, this 1951 Ford Country Squire is more than a collection of metal and wood and Ford-branded parts. Since 1996, it packs under the hood a 350ci (5.7-liter) engine, the likes of which people usually find in the fourth generation of the Corvette.
The one in this Ford was not ripped from an actual ‘Vette, but is a crate engine supplied by Chevy, stuck inside the bay and linked to a six-speed manual transmission. There are 20,000 miles (32,000) of usage on it, and back when it was new, it was rated at 330 horsepower.
The impressive powerplant is hidden inside a mostly stock body, wood panels, and all, so if a car fits the sleeper definition, then this is it. Especially considering how there’s also a Mustang II-type front suspension somewhere in there.
At the time of writing, there are no bids placed for it yet, despite all the gear it packs and the fact that it is supposedly “a regular on the California circuit of car shows headlined by woodies.”
Carmakers stopped making woodies sometime in the 1960s, and the ones that are left do not exactly rock the sales charts. Granted, most don’t come to the world in the configuration the one here packs, one that warrants an asking price of $52,000.
For sale on Hemmings, this 1951 Ford Country Squire is more than a collection of metal and wood and Ford-branded parts. Since 1996, it packs under the hood a 350ci (5.7-liter) engine, the likes of which people usually find in the fourth generation of the Corvette.
The one in this Ford was not ripped from an actual ‘Vette, but is a crate engine supplied by Chevy, stuck inside the bay and linked to a six-speed manual transmission. There are 20,000 miles (32,000) of usage on it, and back when it was new, it was rated at 330 horsepower.
The impressive powerplant is hidden inside a mostly stock body, wood panels, and all, so if a car fits the sleeper definition, then this is it. Especially considering how there’s also a Mustang II-type front suspension somewhere in there.
At the time of writing, there are no bids placed for it yet, despite all the gear it packs and the fact that it is supposedly “a regular on the California circuit of car shows headlined by woodies.”
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