A wooden-bodied car is an anachronism today, and it attracts attention wherever it goes. With gleaming, honey-colored wood paneling, buttery tan leather interiors, capacious eight- passenger bodies and indestructible flathead V-8s, beautiful wood-bodied Ford (and Mercury) station wagons transported people and goods for decades. Woodies transcended class barriers. Buyers spanned a wide range of people from average Joes to the very wealthy. They were driven by hotels, private schools and camps, by large families, hunters and photographers—anyone who needed more space than a sedan offered. Remember, there were no minivans or SUVs, and Plymouth didn’t offer the first all-metal wagon until 1949. Decades ago, Ford Motor Company sold more wood-bodied cars than all the other manufacturers combined—more than 16,000 in 1946 alone—and Ford manufactured its own bodies in a specialized plant in Iron Mountain, Michigan. Ford was vertically integrated; the timber, kiln-dried maple and ash framing with mahogany panels was grown in Upper Peninsula Ford-owned forests, then harvested, dried and aged, all in one huge facility. Skilled craftsmen hand-built, assembled and trimmed each body as they would fine furniture. Then it was shipped to one of many local Ford assembly plants to be mated to its engine and chassis. A Ford woody evokes a bygone era when labor and materials were relatively cheap. Henry Ford respected honest craftsmen; he trained these men and gave them jobs for decades. Faded photos of the unshielded ripsaws and smoky gluepots in Ford’s long-gone Iron Mountain facility would surely terrify today’s OSHA inspectors. The shots memorialize Ford’s metalworkers and carpenters working in a shadowy factory, painstakingly gluing, screwing and tacking these wood bodies together. The results resemble fine, old, country furniture. With its finger- jointed sections, mahogany insert panels and a lattice-work roof under a rubberized boot topping, a Ford woody had more in common with a small cabin cruiser than it did with a car. As General Motors didn’t sell as many wood-bodied wagons, suppliers like Ionia, Hercules and Joseph Wildanger built Chevrolet, Oldsmobile, Buick and Pontiac woodies. Chrysler used the Pekin Wood Company in Arkansas to hand-craft its handsome, wood-bodied Town and Country models. With their intricate, finger-jointed framing, tacked-on boot tops and multiple coats of varnish, wood-bodied cars were complex and relatively expensive to build. They were the most expensive models in the Ford or Mercury lineup. Many pieces were made of rare Birdseye Maple, resplendent with natural whorls and unique flowing patterns. Although these cars were beautiful, they were weather- sensitive and subject to an early demise. Ford issued a hangtag with each wood-bodied wagon explaining how to sand and revarnish it, not just when needed but every year. Woodies were fragile; a fender-bender that’d simply bang up a metal car body would reduce a hapless woody to matchsticks. In Northern states, woodies were three- season cars at best. No one would stand for that today, but it was a different era. As woodies aged, older cars were highly prized by surfers— they invented the term woody, and Jan and Dean in “Surf City” made it a household word: “I’ve got a ’34 wagon and we call it a Woody.” Hot Rodders carved them up too, making the survival of these hand-built lumber wagons even more precarious. Many enthusiasts feel that those from 1939 and 1940 are the best-looking woodies in the Ford range. This car retains all its original wood and glass, but it sits on a Roy Brizio chassis with Mustang II independent front suspension and it’s powered by a 350 CI Chevrolet V-8 backed by a 350 Turbo-Hydra-Matic transmission. It features upgraded brakes and 15-inch red wheels with ’48 Ford hubcaps, trim rings and radial blackwall tires. The best of both worlds, this handsome ’40 Ford retains its basically stock appearance but it drives like a more modern car.
