See that charming green wagon up there? Or, sorry, see that charming green estate car up there? I didn’t recognize what it was at first, because it happens to be a variant of a car that, in sedan form, has such a famous and well-known look, especially in profile, that it completely overshadows the other variants. Do you recognize the car?
It’s an Anglia! A Ford Anglia, from 1965 to be specific.
Let’s take another look at this appealing little pea-green machine, why not?
This wagon is also a good example of a two-door wagon that is not a shooting brake. I think it’s common for a lot of people to call two-door wagons shooting brakes, but that’s not always the case. A shooting brake is about intent. It has to intend to be sporty, like a Reliant Scimitar GTE:
…and not just a wagon with two doors, like, say, a Volkswagen Type 3 Squareback:
There’s a difference! Anyway, that fine little Anglia wagon up there gets overshadowed by its sedan counterpart, because, I think, of two things.
First, it’s that reverse-rake rear window. It’s such a distinctive styling choice, not shared with many other cars (off the top of my head, I can only think of the Citroën Ami, Toyota WiLL Vi, that one Lincoln, and um that’s it this second) that it really becomes the image of what we all think of when we think “Ford Anglia.”
Of course, a big part of the reason anyone under the age of 100 or so thinks about Anglias at all now is because of that movie with the kids at that wizard school with the messianic kid and a lot of lavish food. There was a flying Anglia in those books and movies:
That’s done more for Anglia Awareness than all those PSAs we saw in the ’80s.
This old Anglia brochure has a few other notable things I think you need to be aware of as you go about your life today. Like this lovely but sort of unsettling picture of its 1200cc inline-four engine:
There’s something about just how much this thing has been cut away that makes me feel uneasy. Especially that opened oil pan. It makes the whole thing feel so skeletal and fragile!
Okay, speaking of fragility, let’s get to this next part. The brochure has this interesting and I think kind of tender depiction of the interior of the car:
I like that all of the floor and sides have been eliminated, likely with some painstaking X-acto blade work, from the photograph. The punctum is, of course, the child sleeping on the back seat, which for many of us likely brings up a lot of childhood memories, and in my case also brings up memories of one particular Peanuts comic strip from August 6, 1972.
I read it a bit later, of course, as I think I wasn’t yet literate in 1972, so I probably saw it in a book of Peanuts comic strips when I was probably 9 or 10 or so. The strip was notable for two main reasons; first, it was one of the only times I saw the front end of a car rendered in a Peanuts comic strip:
We see Peppermint Patty and Charlie Brown’s faces inset into the massive headlights of what looks like a car from the 1930s or so, maybe 1920s, something perhaps Bugatti-ish? It has the curved grille and massive, rounded fenders that have a sort of French coachwork feel to them. Also note the hint of attention given to what could be the oil pan and some suspension bits!
But that’s not really why this strip popped into my head. It has more to do with the discussion of sleeping in the back seat of a car and the specific-to-childhood comfort that brings, and then the realization that such comfort and joy must end.
Dammit, Charlie Brown, why do you have to be like that? I adore Peanuts, and have since I was a kid, but in hindsight I’m always a bit baffled by its popularity. This was a comic about kids mostly sitting around and talking about the difficulties and struggles of human existence, examining the often grim business of life in disarmingly frank terms and in detail. How was this so wildly popular?
It’s wonderful and I love it still, but damn, how did this happen? I think it speaks well to the mass of humanity that it did, though. Even if I find Charlie Brown’s insistence on reminding me that the innocence and freedom from worry of being a sleeping child on the back seat of a car is lost to me, forever, a little bit cruel.
s
I suffer from over exposure to Peanuts, mostly the holiday specials. Never want to hear anything by Vince Garaldi ever again.
Being on the old side of life, my exposure to the “comic strip” Pogo brought adult concepts, politics and the language to express them to my pre-teen life. None of that made me popular anywhere.
After a history of misbehaving on family trips, Regie knew he might as well remember to pack the cricket bat for dad. Mildred was also wise to pack a toy for little Lizzie to keep her distracted, lest she witness the trauma.
I think it’s the color scheme for me. Makes me feel like I’m looking at a skinned and and dissected corpse or something.
As a kid reading the Sunday funnies, I hated Peanuts. It was almost always depressing. And they’re reruns! Why are these getting reruns and not Calvin & Hobbes, The Far Side, or showing other great still-going-at-the-time comics like FoxTrot or Mother Goose & Grimm?
Actually, Shultz made new strips well into the ’90s. Calvin and Hobbes may be the absolute best ever, I see why Watterson burned out.
By the time I was reading comics in newspapers, it was not the 90s anymore.
I’m feeling old… the older brother in “For Better or Worse” is about my age. The comics/newspaper may be why I tested at a college level reading score in middle school. Nothing was off limits to read in our house.
I recall asking to check out Asimov’s Foundation in week 1, 7th grade. The librarian denied it to me, saying was too young (I had already read most of the Robot series). My dad wrote a scathing letter to the school that night explicitly saying that no title in the library was to be ever be off limits to me. Then he handed me his Foundation copy.
Knowledge is God.
My grandmother was a librarian and her way of getting young me to read was giving me the comics page. She absolutely loved Peanuts, so that was always the first one I read. I didn’t always get it, but now it makes me happy to read the “reruns” that she used to read. I found all of her Peanuts Christmas ornaments, and now they go on my tree.
That reverse rake window is clever in that it allows the trunk lid to open nice and wide so that Pop Pop doesn’t whack his noggin while loading the luggage.
Growing up I had a friend whose dad was a rabbi and drove a black Anglia.
That’s my Anglia story.
How soon we forgot about Judy in the back of the Oldsmobile the other day. After Dad lost his middle-management job and, in a strange twist, had to cross the pond in search of work, this is where Judy ended up. Judy? Judy?
Reverse rake rear window – how could you possibly have forgotten the 1961-3 Ford Consul Classic?
Progressive young ministers in the late 60s and early 70s often used to arrive with a copy of The Gospel According to Peanuts, so that may have helped the strip spread. I seem to remember a parables one as well.
being a bit heretical, I gravitated toward Doonsbury and later Bloom County
My brother used to get the rear bench seat while I had to make due with the footwell, including the hump. Not sure how I ever made it work, but I did.
re: Shooting Brake
So by your definition, a Ford Pinto Wagon is not a shooting brake, but a Ford Pinto Cruisin’ Wagon is?
I didn’t go right for the Cruising Wagon, but idly thought that the type of intent would likely be more pertinent that just the presence of it
I learned so many rather advanced words as a young child by reading Peanuts books. I almost got sick of being called precocious because of the normally adult words I could use. I really believe Peanuts massively expanded my vocabulary and reading comprehension.
It was a rich and large world Mr. Schultz created with so many brilliant themes. I found so much comfort at times in those Penguin Publishing paperback Peanuts pages.
BTW, I’m in a bed, sick :(, under a Peanuts blanket featuring Snoopy trying to steal Linus’s blanket. You can go back sometimes.
my children got their precosity from reading Calvin and Hobbes..
not sure there is any modern counterpart to these clever comic strips.
I do indeed own the complete Calvin and Hobbes. However, I was an adult at the time of their creation.
Had some driving lessons in a driving school Ford Anglia once. Still remember it as a remarkably well balanced car to drive.
And had mates, who were brothers, who were given a beat up Anglia and a Cortina 1.6 litre engine as a Christmas present.
Spent many happy hours fixing it up — even had a stainless steel, banana bunch exhaust manifold.
Then one, (still under debate) forgot bolts on the drive shaft, which, luckily at only around 30 mph, dropped into the road and launched the back end like a pole vaulter.
Remarkably only cuts and bruises resulted, but the cops confiscated the car…
As for sleeping on back seat — it is mainly the being scooped up all sleepy by a beer boozy and cigarette smelling dad which is a happy memory from around four years old.
Parents used to leave me and my brother for hours in the car sleeping in the quiet part of the sports club car park.
I was told by a long time employee of both Jaguar and MG in the UK that cutaway display pieces ( cars, engines, transmissions, etc) were usually projects given to apprentices. Wouldn’t *that* be a cool homework assignment?
Used to work at an engine testing lab years ago. We hade a cutaway 2.3 Lima engine we’d show people on tours. It even had a very slow speed starter so you could watch the engine turn and little light bubs on the spark plug tips to show ignition. It was beautifully done. Lab shut down in the 90s and I wonder what happened to that thing.
At the VW parts and repair place I frequented, the owner’s daughter crafted a cutaway VW engine when she was in middle school. It was displayed in the outer shop and I spent time going over it while waiting for parts for my VWs. She ended up as the head repair manager at a local Mercedes dealership last I heard.
So by the above definition is a late 80s VW fox wagon a shooting brake or not?
The way my old Colombian exchange student friend drove his, that car definitely had “sporting intentions.” Emphasis on “intentions.”
We have 2 kids and a minivan, so unless we overpacked (likely!) the second row is always available for naps across the three seats. The other passenger moves to the third row. It works great, and we require the napper to keep the middle seat lap belt over their hips — just basic insurance against being ejected. If you’re decently tired, it’s not a burden at all. Sometimes I do it when a Kid has A Thing for 30-60 minutes and I don’t want to sit in the lobby staring at my phone.
Ah, the joys of time traveling and teleporting as a child. One minute you’re amusing yourself behind the couch at your parents’ friend’s house while they all have endless cups of coffee, and the next minute it’s morning and you’re at home in your own bed. And it doesn’t even seem weird!!
Overtired child, take a short car ride! Problem solved.
When I was a fussy toddler who wouldn’t fall asleep, I’m told my father would take me for a ride in his Jaguar 140 coupe, often on the freeway, and it’d be lights out in short order.
I have a treasured picture of me in footed pajamas, standing in the driver’s seat clutching that big wooden wheel.
I thought you of all people would mention it: Ford Anglia has one of the best car faces ever, with the giant fishmouth and the quite expressive eyebrows! Even has a (logo) nose
https://c8.alamy.com/comp/G2KYM4/ford-anglia-super-123e-1965-front-grille-detail-G2KYM4.jpg
Yup. This was the basis of a 24 Hours of Lemons theme in 2016:
https://www.murileemartin.com/UG/LAZ16/038-IMG_6941.jpg
https://www.murileemartin.com/UG/LAZ16/464-_MG_6726.jpg
My daughter was a car sleeper as child. Just not afforded the luxury of the full sprawl those of us raised in the ’70s -’80s experienced. Strapped in a car seat is not the same.
Unfortunately, my middle daughter was the opposite when little…would not go to sleep in car no matter what including being beyond past tired. The driving all night travelling got delayed til she got older.
Now, if she could have stretched out in the seat like the old days, might have worked!
We were at a relative’s Labor Day Cookout, pig roast, stayover. Toddler was way past tired and irritable. I put her in the SUV and we took a 20 minute drive on the country roads… Problem solved.
Grew up with 2 big books of Peanuts strips from the ’60s through early -’70s, likely the same books you saw. While more whimsical at times, Calvin and Hobbes also tackled the mysteries of life in the same manner.
You’re thinking of the 1958-1960 Lincoln Continental Mark III, IV and V.
The Mercury Breezeway form the 1960s had the same reverse rake rear window treatment -AND- the rear window had a panel that rolled down. My aunt and uncle owned a ’64 and i loved riding in it.
Forgot about that Mercury! One of our HS friends had one (80s). Nice in summer since few HS kids in our group had cars with functioning A/C.
It also had lots of interior chrome if I remember correctly…
The Breezeway window should make a comeback!
Came here to post this.
Reverse rake back windows. The late 50’s Mercury with the “breezeway window”! Opened for ventilation. Why am I seeing ( in my mind) a dog walking out onto the trunk of the car??? Was there an ad or movie clip like that? Jason? Any help? What do the archives say? Lol
I’ve heard multiple stories from when those breezeways were new where the small family dog would hop out onto the trunk.