1968 Ford Ranch Wagon Revisited - Window To His Soul

It's said that your eyes are the window to your soul. Perhaps. I believe the car you drive a subliminal glimpse to your soul and one that reveals outwardly, whether we intend to or not, who we really are - even if at first glance it's obvious we're attempting to be something that we clearly are not. What kind of car or truck are you? 

I've already hashed and rehashed the 1968 Ford Ranch Wagon that was the vehicle of my childhood a couple of times already, but that car, which was originally a light sky blue that my parents had Earl Sheib dump a gallon of dark blue paint all over like our our subject car here, remains a source of fascination for me. That car as close to a window to the soul of  my father as I will ever have seeing how emotional distant and awkward he was.  

On the surface, his bone-stripped Ranch Wagon he bought from a Hertz was uncannily just like him. Unremarkable, ordinary and middle aged. He was in his late forties when he bought it in the early spring of 1970 and station wagons where middle age at that time too if we determine that the wide spread use of "station wagons" first came about with Ford's seminal 1952 five door Crestliner "Country Squire" and ended unceremoniously with the death of the Buick Roadmaster Estate Wagon in 1996. 

Station wagons used as a family vehicle having rose dramatically through the 1950's; from less than 1% of the market in 1950 to more than 17% by 1960. The term stems from the type of utility vehicles that hotels used to carry guests to and from train station depots. Seeing the explosion in popularity in crossovers the last ten years its easy to see that America's appreciation for practicality is nothing new. 

Like most base models of automobiles back then, and just like my father, our Ranch Wagon was  capable yet lacking in ostentation, ornamentation and pretense. The only "luxury" items our car had was the new for 1968 302 V-8 and power steering. No air. No power brakes. That 302 must have been like a Saturn rocket compared to the flat head six under the hood of the Rambler the Ranch Wagon replaced. My father, again, never one to want to stand out, loved to peg the gas and have the Cruise-o-Matic downshift for a rush of speed on a half mile or so stretch of road near our home that he knew cops rarely patrolled. He did it for my benefit, I believe, bless his heart, and he would gush endlessly over the car's immense power. We're talking two-hundred ten gross horses moving a car on the dark side of two-tons. Easy now, big fella.   

Unlike the lavish 1968 County Squire that the folks across the street from us had, like all Ranch Wagons, our car did not have a third row jump seat that increased passenger capacity to eight or even nine. Ours had this flat steel floor with obnoxious exposed hinges allowing the floor to open to a gigantic trunk underneath that stretched from the bumper to the rear of the back seat. The back seat folded forward as well making for an expansive rear cargo area to rival any modern Tahoe or Suburban. Downside was any time spent traveling back here was akin to kiddie-torture. If the hinges didn't bruise your ass then you risked breaking your neck when the car would pogo-stick you up into the roof because you were sitting on the axle. 

The most remarkable piece of engineering on these cars is this "Magic Tailgate"; it could open outwards or open flat. It was a marvelous hidden talent, like my father's ability to draw, that many people didn't know about. You opened it to lie flat via a handle on the inside top of the tail gate. The rear window could also roll down into the door via a handle and crank that folded out of the chrome cast bezel above the F O R D lettering on the outside. I always thought it an extravagance given how spartan the rest of the car was but all Ford wagons had Magic Tailgates going back to 1966. 

For all the Ranch Wagon had to offer as a utilitarian vehicle and what little luxury it provided at the same time, for the life of me I still can't figure out why my father bought that car. He wasn't exactly a "family first" doting father type and while he was certainly a capable "handy man" with a fairly sound mechanical intuition, being a white collar managerial executive type, this yeoman's car was out of sync with the man most people thought he was. An LTD sedan would have been more fitting of the man most people thought my father was but knowing his blue collar heart and soul, the Ranch Wagon was who he really was.  

My father struggled as a manager and much like his middle son he was seemingly most content toiling alone on some project in the garage or basement. I've always felt he would have had a more satisfying life had he been tradesman like his father was. Sadly, I always felt he had little time not ability to be the father I wanted and needed him to be what with his rocky, loveless marriage and challenging career. It is a nice memory to think about those Saturday mornings long ago when he would speed in his Ranch Wagon. 

Life boils down to at most a handful of huge decisions. Get them right and life can be beautiful. Get them wrong and you could be, like my father was, miserable. His 1968 Ford Ranch Wagon was a work vehicle, a wagon for a tradesman with few if any real creature comforts. It's starkness and simplicity, which I was abhorrent to at the time, was everything he really was.