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Thursday, December 14, 2023

Revisiting the wagons of our childhood

Echoes of automotive history
London, ON
December 2023
This photo originally shared on Instagram

On occasion, I’ll come across an old or notable car that I just have to remember in some way.

This Chevrolet Caprice Classic wagon is one of them. Given its equipment level - including rear outboard three-point belts that were added for the 1989 model year - I’m guessing this is either a 1989 or 1990 model.

It represents the almost-last gasp of the big, American, V8-powered, rear-wheel-drive, body-on-frame station wagon that had long represented an aspirational vehicle for generations of post-war families. By the time this particular wagon first hit the road, the minivan had already killed most of the market for these behemoths, and they staggered into the 1990s before disappearing from the landscape for good.

I grew up in cars much like this. They were enormous, ponderous, inefficient, and in retrospect, frankly uncomfortable. But when your dad drove you through the night to see distant family, it was always the quintessential wagon that defined countless core childhood memories.

My own memories often involve lying awake in the quiet darkness, watching the shadows of the mountains loom ghostlike against the inky sky. Out in the middle of nowhere, these giant hulks of metal and glass represented home and security as we listened to the rumble of the road in our jammies.

So perhaps that explains why, when I came across this largely used-up, woody-panelled relic of a bygone era in a nearby parking lot, it felt right to do a fast photographic walkaround before I got back to the business of today.

Memories like this don’t present themselves often, so we probably ought to hold onto them somehow when they do.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #throwback #chevrolet #chevy #Caprice #Classic #wagon #american #car #carporn #automotive #opc #oldparkedcar #photography #apple #iphone #shotoniphone #photooftheday #instagood #nofilter #nofilterneeded #lifeinthemargins


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