5 Of The Coolest American Station Wagons To Ever Hit The Road

If National Lampoon's "Vacation" theme song ("Holiday Road" by Lindsey Buckingham) ever pops into your head, you're not alone. And if you're an American of a certain age, the Family Truckster – a heavily modified 1979 Ford LTD Country Squire with sweet, fake wood panels — was the epitome of a station wagon. Riding in the back and facing the rear window without a seatbelt was better than riding shotgun up front, because you could easily get diesel truck drivers to honk their horns, or make drivers squirm while making funny faces at them.

The first station wagon appeared around 1915 and was actually a wood-bodied version of Ford's Model T. Initially, it was called a "depot hack" and was primarily used to carry people and their luggage back and forth from train stations. According to the Staten Island chapter of the Antique Automobile Club of America, the first vehicle built and sold as an actual "station wagon" occurred in 1918.

An all-steel version popped onto the scene after World War II as a multipurpose family utility vehicle; its popularity continued until the gasoline crisis of the 1970s and the arrival of the minivan. From the "Brady Bunch" 1971 Plymouth Satellite Wagon to the Family Truckster in National Lampoon's "Vacation" (neither of which were cool), the station wagon left an indelible imprint on American automotive history. Here are five of the best.

Most station wagons aren't exactly cool. Actual station wagons inherently looked like a pregnant whales, a stretched and lowered version of a minivan, if you will. But there are some exceptions to the rule of cool, and the 1953 Buick Roadmaster Estate Wagon (Model 79R0) was one such beast.

Buick made two versions of its Estate Wagon, the Roadmaster and the Super (Model 59). The easiest way to tell them apart was by the number of chrome VentiPorts on each front fender. Three signified it as the Super, which had a smaller engine, while four vents made it the larger, pricier, and rarer Roadmaster, with only 679 rolling off the production floor. 

Made of steel and wood and bedazzled with lots of chrome, it retailed for $4,030 and ended up as the final year for the "Woody." It was equipped with Buick's 322 cubic inch Fireball V8 (the First Nailhead Engine), producing 188 HP with a maximum torque of 300 lb-ft. It was mated to a Dynaflow automatic transmission and had both power steering and power brakes. The two-tone interior seats "six big people" and all their luggage because the rear cargo area covered an area six feet long and almost five feet wide when the rear seat was folded down.

[Featured image by Rex Gray via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 2.0]

The 1955 Chevy Nomad is so cool it's one of 10 discontinued station wagons we want to make a comeback. Now, Chevy made the 210 wagon, which looks similar to the Nomad in most respects. However, some significant difference set them apart from each other, not the least of which is the amount of chrome (more on the Nomad).

The 210 has straight up and down B-Pillars, whereas the Nomad's are angled forward. The 210 has a smooth roof, while the Nomad has nine ribs running down its length breadthwise. The tailgates are also different, with the 210 boasting a smooth backside and T-handle, while the Nomad has seven perpendicular chrome ribs and a knuckle buster handle. A lot more flourish and chrome bedecked the Nomad, adding to its allure.

The Nomad was available as a shooting brake (two doors and a rear cargo area) but had a very similar appearance to other iconic '57 Chevys. A grand total of 22,375 sporty 2-door models were made during a three-year period (1955 to 1957), with just 6,103 made in '57. It was priced at $2,857, powered by a 283 cubic inch overhead valve V8 with a cast iron block and heads, and produced 220 hp.

Ironically, the Nomad name was kept and made into a 4-door model starting in '58 and ended up selling much better than the 2-door version. Still, the 2-door model is the more sought-after collector model these days.

When Dodge dropped the Magnum SRT8 in '06, gearheads everywhere rethought their stance on the old Family Truckster. This was most certainly not your daddy's station wagon. Low-slung, sleek, and sexy, to be sure, but it was the engine sitting under the hood that made people drool even more.

The rear-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 5-door wagon was equipped with a 5-speed automatic with manumatic shifting (aka a 5-speed shiftable automatic). The Magnum, much like the gun it was named after, shot down the road like a bullet because it was set up with a 425 hp pushrod 16-valve V8 Hemi. 

The 6.1-liter engine had an iron block and aluminum heads, port fuel injection, forged crank, billet cam, and hollow intake/exhaust valve stems that boosted it to 6400 rpm and 420 lb-ft of torque (at 4800 rpm). It flat-out screamed from zero to 60 in a mind-exploding 5.1 seconds and tore through the quarter mile (hitting 106 mph) in just 13.6 seconds.

Keep in mind this was a station wagon with a curb weight of 4,379 pounds and 27 cubic feet of cargo space in the back. The Magnum was only made between 2005 and 2008, but since its chassis was based on the same one found on the Charger, Challenger, and Chrysler 300, it had lots of aftermarket support.

When you hear "Chevelle," your mind probably jumps to the legendary Chevy 2-door hardtop muscle car from the 1960s and 1970s. But Chevrolet made the Chevelle in several body styles, including the famed coupe, sedans, convertibles, and, yes, station wagons. 

One year and model in particular stands head and shoulders above the rest: the 1973 Super Sport Estate Wagon. As Han Solo said about the Millennium Falcon, she may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts. It most certainly is not the coolest-looking of this bunch, but what it had sitting under the hood made it cool. Only 1,432 of the '73 SS wagons were built, making it "super" rare. It had a blacked out grille, special instrument cluster, and rear stabilizer. SS badging was added to the fenders, door trim, steering wheel and tailgate. It also was available with contrasting paint on the lower half of the body. Air conditioning, power windows, locks, tailgate release and a third row rear facing seat rounded out the glam.

This wagon came standard with a 350 CI V8, but there was the option to upgrade it to a 454. Both engines were mated to a Turbo Hydramatic 400 automatic transmission. According to one source, as few as 71 of these 454s were made (other sources suggest less than 200).

[Featured image by Vegavairbob via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 3.0]

Only 514 Cadillac CTS-Vs were built between 2011 and 2014, making this yet another super rare and cool station wagon. This particular five-door, five-passenger hauler comes with 58 cubic feet of cargo space, which isn't too shabby for a Family Truckster capable of going 185 mph.

The rear-wheel-drive CTS-V was equipped with a 6.2-liter supercharged pushrod V8 engine with an aluminum engine block and cylinder heads that kicked out an astonishing 556 hp and 551 lb-ft of torque. When it was first introduced it was the single most powerful vehicle Cadillac had ever made. 

It can go from a dead stop to 60 mph in 4 seconds (by its final production year of 2014, it had been lowered to 3.9 seconds) — making the Cadillac CTS-V one of the fastest station wagons ever built. It screams down the quarter mile in 12.3 seconds, with the speedometer batting around 119 mph. All this was mated to a six-speed automatic transmission, but one could get the six-speed manual for a little extra.

Inside passengers sat in eight-way power-adjustable leather Recaro performance seats, while the driver wrapped his fingers around a leather-trimmed steering wheel. Carbon-fiber-style trim, a Bose premium sound system and a rear-view camera completed the lavish ensemble. 

[Featured image by Thesupermat via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 3.0]