Well, I offered to take my turn at being "Longroof Of the Month" for November, so I guess I'd better get this written and posted. Hopefully I'm doing it right. Reading all of this might put one to sleep, so I'll be throwing in some pictures.
Let's see...where to start? Telling a bit about myself seems to be as good a place as any. I'm just about thirty years old (will reach the big 30 at the end of November) and have been into cars (along with electronics and many other things) for my whole life. There were a few station wagons around during my youth (of which more later). There's just me...I've never had a relationship with anyone, seriously doubt that I ever do, and I have no children. I just can't see myself fitting into that role. I'm too happy being alone.
I was definitely into cars as a youngster. I can well remember sitting on my dad's lap as he let me turn a corner in his '84 GMC pickup truck. Later on, I got into big trouble with my mother when I floorboarded the gas pedal on his other truck while it sat idling in a parking lot.
Wagons of the past...my maternal grandfather drove this dark brown Ford LTD station wagon...I know it was a Ford, am confident of the color and pretty sure it was an LTD. I couldn't even begin to guess at the model year. I remember riding around in that car as a child and I also remember there being a grille under the dash where the HVAC blower fan could be seen when the air conditioning was on maximum. I found the whirling fan to be fascinating for some reason, though I don't think I ever stuck my fingers in it.
In his later years, someone t-boned the LTD wagon and totaled it. He replaced it with a lightly used 1989 Ford Taurus L wagon that had been a program car. I looked all over for a picture of this car--I know there were pictures of it, but I'll be darned if I could find them. The best I can offer is this fairly lousy frame grab from a VHS video tape. It was originally a light blue color. By the time that video was shot in 2004, the paint was faded.
If I should find a better set of pictures, I'll upload them and revise the post accordingly.
My mother inherited that car not long after my grandfather bought it, as he became unable to drive any longer. It was still like-new. She then sold her Ford Escort hatchback, since my two more brothers had arrived at that point, and there was no way it could hold four boys and two parents. The Taurus wagon was now our family cruiser of choice, and it served that function for nearly ten years. It went as far north as Michigan, and as far south as Alabama and Georgia. Ford's three liter V6 did not lack for power...that car was pretty zippy and surprisingly nimble.
That car had to endure some hard times. Once, when attending Cub Scout day camp, someone's Chevy Astro van broke down and nobody else had (or was willing to volunteer) a vehicle big enough to hold that many people. I think we had every bit of fifteen people in that car, and it was hugely cramped. But it got everyone home! It also had to put up with following a tour bus to COMDEX in Chicago at 80-85MPH the whole way during a downpour. My grandfather had also been in a few minor accidents with it, something we didn't know until we found broken window glass under the one seat while cleaning the car. Oh...and it had to put up with nearly all of my learning to drive.
Over time, it got to be rather rickety. The shocks were hilariously bad, the paint had faded, the engine had a cracked block from having frozen up once, and the air conditioning quit working sometime in the very late 90s. My mother missed a yield sign one day and the car got hit by a Cadillac. It pushed in both of the passenger's side doors and was the beginning of the end. Her insurance paid to have the car put back together (instead of totaling it) but in order to keep costs down, they specified used parts that came from a slightly different car (a Taurus GL instead of the L model that this car was). I guess there was some difference in the body size of the cars, as the doors from the donor car didn't fit properly. Plus, the body shop that worked on it did a crappy job. They didn't even change out the lock cylinder of the front passenger's side door and it was quite possible to tell that the rear passenger's side door was originally purple.
My mother got a new Chrysler Grand Voyager van in 2000, leaving my dad to drive the Taurus wagon. It still ran OK and didn't look too bad until someone who was showing off on a motorcycle opened the throttle all the way up, did a wheelie and smashed into the car as it went through an intersection. The motorcycle driver was very fortunate, as he "abandoned bike" before it plowed into the car, which was pushed sideways through the rest of the intersection. It got hit right at the B pillar and after that, the driver's side doors never worked properly again. It was almost impossible to open or close the passenger's side door. My dad decided to keep the car, so instead of being totaled, the insurance company paid him a few hundred dollars and the car got a salvage title.
That Chrysler van was a huge piece of junk. The engine finally blew up at just shy of 200,000 miles and finally put the van out of its misery. Chrysler repaired so much stuff under warranty, and even put a new interior in the van after a water leak damaged it.
He drove it daily until sometime around 2003 or so. One night, the car froze up since it didn't have enough anti-freeze in it, barely got him home and overheated badly on the way. By that time, the power steering was gone, the trim was either sunburnt or falling off the interior, it was very rusty, and the tires were bad. He retired the car to the farm after buying a nicer '88 Buick for $100. It sat there for a few years until the Buick's fuel pump quit and he drove it again for six months before being given another Buick.
In February of 2008, someone actually wanted to buy both the $100 Buick and the Taurus wagon. Both were sitting on the farm at that point. I know they bought the wagon, but I don't know what happened to the Buick. The Taurus still ran well, though rust had claimed the fuel lines.
Anyway, those two Ford station wagons were arguably what got me hooked on station wagons in the first place. I've long felt that wagons are way cooler than minivans, SUVs or fullsize vans. But I guess the market disagreed, and as we all know, GM's fullsize wagons were the last of the species before they too rode off into the sunset.
As badly as I wanted that Taurus wagon for my first vehicle, it wasn't up to the job. So I rescued my dad's '84 GMC Sierra 6.2L diesel from the farm and started driving that in my senior year of high school. Yes, I waited until I was 18 to get my license. That truck was only slightly more up to the job.
When it started having serious brake problems and after I broke the driver's side window (it fell out of the bottom of the rusty door one day!), I parked it and started driving his '94 Chevrolet C1500 W/T pickup. Finally, in late 2002, I bought my own vehicle. After considering a used vehicle and realizing that I could get better terms on a new one, I bought my 2003 S-10 LS pickup at the tail end of October 2002. It was finally paid for in January of 2008, and there was much rejoicing.
As much as I like my "truckling", it's had a lot of stupid problems. Most of them were taken care of under warranty, but the fit and finish of the interior wasn't that great and it hasn't held up especially well over time. On the plus side, the power train has done well and it's a good riding little truck. Still, its got some rust and body damage. (I am halfway thinking of buying a new truck in the coming months. Not sure if I will or will not do so. I need to get a job first.)
I've owned a few others since buying the truck...a '84 Plymouth Reliant sedan that was the best $100 car I've ever had, a 1990 Chevy Lumina Eurosport that was a lot of fun to drive, and most recently, an '88 Plymouth Reliant station wagon that is a big project car.
Anyway...getting back to the wagons. I'm very attached to the stuff I had or knew of during my youth, so I wanted to find a station wagon of some kind. I actually traded the '90 Lumina for an '88 Plymouth Reliant wagon with a fairly solid body, though it had a broken rear window and a bad head gasket. It's a project car that I haven't really had or taken the time to get to.
A co-worker of mine and her husband had a 1985 Pontiac Parisienne wagon that I lusted after badly. It was a nice wagon and had belonged to his aunt. She passed away, and he got the car. I'd see it at work from time to time, and I always admired it. I think everyone thought it was a pretty cool car, but I guess it wasn't cool enough as it didn't survive the horrific cash for clunkers program. I remember being utterly mortified to hear that they were going to turn it in. Here was a great running car with a beautiful interior, almost no rust, a factory towing package and many options...all it needed was to have the A/C fixed and a brake booster. Someone told them it would cost a thousand dollars to get a new brake booster on the car.
Beyond that, with a little vacuuming and a good wash, it would have looked brand new.
Had I been thinking right at all, and had I known of its rarity, I would have saved the frame mounted hitch from that car. Oops. I did try to save the car, as I went to the dealership that had collected it. They took me seriously enough to put my name on the keys, but I guess C4C paid them for it after all.
Now more than ever I wanted a fullsize station wagon, and I didn't really care much what kind it was. During that time, it seemed like everyone had one except for me. There was an Oldsmobile boxy wagon tooling around town with a 350 diesel (!!!!!) engine, and I'd see the occasional Caprice boxy wagon in really clean shape. I even test-drove a really nice
'84 Caprice sedan with a supposed
original 32,000 miles on it...and I'd believe it, given how clean the engine bay was!
A year and a few months later, I found this sitting on a car lot catering to those with bad credit. I don't have bad credit, but the car appealed to me. It also stood out like a sore thumb in amongst the econoboxes and much newer cars.
"This" being a 1993 Chevrolet Caprice station wagon with an L05 350 V8 and about 83,100 original miles on it. The asking price was $3500, which I thought was sorta-kinda reasonable until I saw the rust on the rear quarters. My heart kind of sank, though I
knew at the time I wouldn't be buying the car. I didn't have the money.
What caught my eye was the color. It was nearly the same blue as the Taurus wagon! And, well, it was a
station wagon!
But you know--and I'm sure you do--how it
gnawed at me. I'd let one get away. There was no sense in letting some heathens get ahold of a car that someone had really cared about, only to run it into the ground. I kept stewing about the car, and about three days later, I phoned the dealer to make an offer. $1500 they wouldn't do, but $1700 they did. I asked if they'd hold the car, and for $100 they said they would. Though I don't aim to speak ill of anyone, given my perception of these places and their ethics, I was terrified that they would sell the car out from under me, especially if a better offer came along. Three days later, I had the money in hand and I raced to pick up the car after work. I still couldn't quite
believe that this was actually going to happen.
Well, it happened. I remember being just giddy with joy while driving it off the lot, warts and all. My joy was a bit short lived, as the dealer hadn't put any gas in the car and it started to sputter and stumble on the way out of town. When the service engine soon light came on, I knew I was in trouble! I just kind of looked at the instrument panel and said to the car, "don't even think about it". Amazingly, I made it to the gas station!
My dad, despite being into cars as much as I am, gave me "that look" when I told him that I'd made an offer on the car and it had been accepted. He later rode in it and changed his mind completely. My mother thinks the car is cool, and so do my brothers. Almost everyone who sees it wants to talk about it. I've been stopped in parking lots, at gas stations and similar places.
It was fellow longroofer 95BRMW who brought this forum to my attention a short while later, so I joined up within a few days of bringing my treasure home. I've had a great time here so far. I don't really have room for other wagons, so I haven't brought any of those home. However, I have (as 95BRMW predicted!) started to hoard parts. Oh boy.
In the few months that I've owned the car, I have come to absolutely love it. I've driven it about a thousand miles since then and fixed many problems. New front brakes and rotors topped the list of things to do, followed by fixing the major exhaust leak that was only getting worse. Soon, the burned climate control wiring will be repaired. Then I will turn my attention to replacing the faulty wheel bearings (which are growling) and putting new shocks on all four paws. I hope to keep it as nice as I can, and will fix the rusty quarters as finances allow me to do so. Somewhere along the line I plan to get the faulty radio fixed.
Going through it, I have found traces of the previous owners. An elderly couple was the second owner. They bought the car in 1996. The wife passed away in 1999 and the husband sometime in 2011. I think the car ended up with their children and that they sat on it for a while. My guess is that it spent a lot of that time just sitting. Maybe that's when the rust finally caught up with it. The dealer did have to put a new battery in it.
I don't plan to go overboard with modifications to the car. I intend to keep it as close to original and unspoiled as possible.
As an aside, although I do like cars, just about everything that's on the market today--no matter the maker--does not really appeal to me. I find the current automotive landscape to be something of a wasteland. I'm hoping for an eventual renaissance of the station wagon and big road cars in general...I suppose I can keep right on waiting.
One thing is for certain...this car is a keeper. I'll have it for as long as I can! Hopefully that is a very long time. And there you have it, my entry for LROTM November. I hope it's along the lines of what I was supposed to do.
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Mon Oct 29, 2012 3:42 pm
I kept it up from around 1995 until 2002 or so, and just ran out of steam. Turns out it's kind of a lot of work to do video production, set dressing, acting and stuff like that.
There are perhaps some signs of hope...my dad inherited a 2012 Chevrolet Impala and while I don't generally like it, the 3.6L engine has a nice bark when you get on it, and enough bite to convincingly back it up! It's a pity about everything else, especially the six-speed transmission. (Never have I seen an automatic transmission get it so wrong.)