Growing up – at least the early part of my growing up, during the exciting Ford administration, my family had two cars: a 1968 Volkswagen Beetle and a 1973 Ford LTD Country Squire, complete with acres of fake wood on the sides. The Beetle was by far the more influential car in my life, but I liked that massive Ford wagon, too. And I just learned about an option these came with that I had no idea existed.
The Country Squire was a sort of strange car for my family, in hindsight. There were four of us, and we were all fairly diminutive people, Shtetl Hobbits, I think is the official term. We could all fit in the Beetle, including two grandparents and me happily lounging in the rear luggage well, no problem.
So, with that in mind, the huge Ford seems like an awful lot more car than we actually needed.
I have a pictures of me with the old Beetle:
…and there must be a few with the Ford somewhere, but I’m not sure where they are. Still, we used the car plenty, and one of the details I remember most about it was that it had jump seats in the rear, a pair of facing seats oriented sideways under the rear cargo floor.
You can see them referenced in that ad above there, and I remember those seats very well. Why we needed a car that could have hauled like nine people isn’t really clear to me, but we definitely had one. That car was absolutely massive! It also had a big 6.5-liter V8 that made all of like 160 hp, connected to a three-speed auto that would pop out of park sometimes, so instead of a recall, Ford sent everyone a little sticker that basically said, oh, be careful so it doesn’t do that, no backsies.
Back to that ad up there; look between the jump seats and you can see the option I never knew about:
The “recreation table!” How cool is that! I could have been a childhood chess hustler working out of the back of my dad’s station wagon, if only I, you know, didn’t profoundly suck at playing chess! But maybe I’d have been so much better if every road trip had this table, making road-chess an option!
Or, more likely, I would have made the knights fight like action figures and pretended the bishops were rockets.
Was this table magnetic? That’s my question. Because those little girls up there playing checkers would find it nearly impossible if not, with pieces sliding around everywhere as that big wagon wallowed over speed bumps at 45 mph or being flung at an exit at 70 mph because in the days before GPS, missing an exit meant serious consequences of lost time.
Here’s a video of someone who has sourced one:
Those jump seats that he installed were the same upholstery as the ones in our car – I believe Ford called that color “forgotten gravy” – and I swear looking at this video I can feel those seats.
Also, what game is this guy playing, exactly? Chesseckers? Checkess?
The sorts of proto-cupholders seen on this are interesting, too: there’s an open hole, which actually could work fine, for the right size and shape cup, and then there’s the shallow round depression, only good for cups when absolutely stationary, or perhaps for holding small snacks or items, like peanuts or lego heads. Best not mix those two up, though.
I carpooled to school with a family that had a Squire with the jump seats. Never knew about the table tho. It’s funny, I saw the little shallow cup and my intrusive thoughts suggested that’s the ashtray, because those days were just a blue smoky haze.
Those days car manufacturers boasted ash trays like todays manufacturing boast cupholders or those computer things they boast about.
Dad’s ’85 Colony Park had ashtrays and cigar lighters in both rear doors. Plus the main ashtray up front. Yes, the steering column was ash covered, why do you ask?
I still miss my mom’s final year Oldsmobile custom cruiser wagon with rear jump seats ;__;
My family had an ’88 Ford Taurus wagon (like the one Robocop took his kids to school in). I remember at first loving that rear jump seat. Your own little space, travelling backwards, looking at all the other cars tailgating you. That is until your first summer road trip. You would just cook under that curved tailgate glass (no front AC would ever reach you). Also with everyone’s suitcases packed around you, you were just another piece of luggage at that point. Between this and being a middle child, no wonder my therapist is so well paid.
I guess the heat made you forget. The middle child was referred to as the replacement or backup child. Think Harry from the royal family. You were a replacement part until needed.
We had a ’76 Country Squire in that dark blue they all seem to have come in, along with a matching blue vinyl inside. My parents, especially my Mom *detested* it. We did not have it long from what I remember — it replaced a ’74 poop-brown Dodge Monaco which was much more popular with the Parental Units.
My sibling and I much preferred the back window facing 3rd row in the Dodge over that staring at each other/kicking each other format that the Ford had. My parents thought that Dodge’s setup was also superior, as their crotch fruit could be beating the hell out of each other back there, but they couldn’t hear or see it. They could hear/see us in the Ford. FAIL.
I remember ours came with the Firestone 721 (?) radial tires.
The ad says good for 40K miles. LOL!
I recall that 3 of the 4 tires shed their treads and exploded well before 15K.
My old man thought I was abusing them, (I was) but still.
Then he blew one out at 70 mph.
That thing sounded like a bomb going off, and wrapped steel belts around the various brake and suspension bits.
As I recall Firestone eventually recalled the tires due to deaths and the request of the Feds.
Seven, wrapped by two, surrounded by one!
I still remember that.
Thanks! I had forgotten that bit of marketing BS.
Firestone tires have been shit for a long time. I had a set on one of my cars in the past. They barely lasted 20,000km and then one of them disintegrated on me on my drive to work one morning.
Agree with you. Never bought any Firestones after that fiasco we had with ours.
It is not the “Way Back”.
It is called the “Back-B-Back” (Pronounced “Back buh Back”)
Ain’t you had no bringing up at all?
Incorrect, sir. It is the Way Back, any other description is wrong. /s
There was a movie called The Way Way Back about this seating configuration.
Our Caprice (later replaced by an Electra) Wagon had a rear-facing jumper seat which I have to imagine is the preferred setup. My brother would not have survived childhood if I had to stare at him and share legroom on all of our trips. Or at least he would have had permanently bruised shins and battered gonads.
lol getting us to play chess or checkers.
Best part was getting dizzy from the exhaust fumes blowing back through the rear window when stopped at a long red light. I think my dad purposely kept the carb running rich just to keep up quiet back there.
The best is the forward facing third seat on 64–72 Vista Cruiser and equivalent 64–69 Buick and on the GM clamshells. It requires a raised rear roof for head clearance and a long rear side door for side entry. The Vista Cruiser and the Buick had a wagon exclusive rear side door and they decorated the raised roof with glass panels. The clamshells used a C body based door with framed glass; C body coupes and sedans didn’t use framed glass.
It was designed like shit and sucked like a truck stop hoochie mama.
Peugeot and Citroen also built wagons with forward facing third seats.
Friends parents had the Mercury version of this in the early 80’s was great for taking all the empties to the depot after a party
Torch. We had the same model, except it was white.
My Dad ran over the wayback table in the driveway.
Shattered it. Shadoobie, shadoobie, shattered.
But as kids we really appreciated the weight of those stupid rear seats.
They would almost decrapitate a finger or two when you were closing them.
Do you remember that crap?
As a 16 year old I learned that the tranny and rear end could only handle about a dozen high rpm neutral drops before exploding into little bits.
Good times. YMMV
When my folks split up my Mom took the wagon. And then abandoned it in a parking lot 40 miles from home. It sat there for a month or two till the cops called the old man and asked him to retrieve that piece of shit. Because 6 mpg… BTW Mom then went to the Datsun dealer and bought a new 610.
My family had a ’77 LTD Country Squire wagon with the jump seats but, sadly, no recreation table. The floaty suspension and the placement of the jump seats well behind the rear axle created exactly the right combination of motion to provoke sudden emesis, something that happened so regularly that the interior took on a distinctive odor—an odor that resisted all manner of remedies until the day the car’s transmission popped out of park, and it reversed around a 90° turn, down a boat ramp, and into a lake. That car also liked to shed its wheel covers if you took a turn faster than it liked, which wasn’t very fast.
Was brown the fashion color of the 70s because they knew everything would end up cigarette smoke colored anyway? I hated everything about the 70s having barely survived them.
The 70’s were 90% Brown, Tan, Green and Gold.
Ford called that interior color “Medium Ginger”
It was an Earth-toned decade.
I was there. I think it was “harvest gold” or “avocado green” I was not a fan of earth-toned decade
Mom had avocado green in her kitchen as a child, yes.
I believe The Onion headline for 9/12/72 was “Puke Orange, Pea Green, Mustard Yellow Adopted as New National Colors”
As an early Gen X or we have lots of Ford wagons, etc. in the 70s
I think I remember one that had a rectangular red “fasten seatbelt” light on the dash that never went out but we ended up putting electrical tape over.
The design of these things was awesome. It’s a shame that the quality and build were terrible.
I remember the acres of hot brown painted textured metal in the back when the seats were folded down!
Late Gen-X – my first thought was those damn socks! I have vivid memories of those damn socks.
I had socks that had small pockets in them that I could put a roll of quarters in when going to the video arcade at the boardwalk back in the early 1980s.
I think I recall those. Converse? had a sneaker with a coin pocket too I think.
Kangaroos!!!
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ab94f5e3c3a536987d16ce5/1587657223482-JSLJWWK03965CIGBAVNC/KangaROOS+80s+vintage+sneaker+ad+%40+The+Deffest
I was too poor for the sneakers. I do not remember the brand of socks.
Such luxury… Our wagon as a child was the downsized 1985 Cavalier wagon. 4 boys, no AC, and 55mph road trip to Oregon from Kansas in 1989. It was a trying time for us all. Seats up and two were loose in the “way back”. Seats down and all four of us were made to suffer back in the greenhouse under the hot prairie sun till the next gas stop. The icing on the cake was that youngest brother (2yo) on that trip learned how to open car doors, but not WHEN to open car doors. So my Dad put the child locks (layers of duct tape) on the interior handles in the back to keep us all in on the highway.
Ah, the days when you could grow up in a car. Take long bike rides from the front bench to the wayback, and play until the dome lights came on and your mother yelled for you.
Since Dave mentioned a Chevy wagon I’ll speak for the Mopars. In the early ’80s my Aunt Betty had a ’76 Town & Country. She worked in the Lake Champlain Ferries’ business office and had a standing free pass for herself, her car and anyone in it. One time we had at least 12 people – about evenly adults and kids – for the short hop from my grandmother’s house on Flynn Ave in Burlington, VT to the King Street docks to take the old Burlington-Port Kent crossing from which it was an equally short hop to Ausable Chasm, our destination. Everyone but my grandmother got out of the car for the ferry ride though!
Not long after, she sold the Chrysler and bought a new 1983 Ford Escort wagon. The owner of the gas station she always used told her he’d had to let a guy go…
We had a ’68 Colony Park and never used those seats – my brother and I would go back there and beat the hell out of each other. We were too far away from Dad for him to reach back and clobber us while driving. He would try, all the time yelling “if I have to stop this car…” but I don’t think he ever did. I don’t know if that option existed in ’68 but it wouldn’t have mattered – my brother and I didn’t go for intellectual stuff like checkers.
I think part of the reason my folks got a 7-seat MPV in the 90’s was so that they could split me and my two brothers up as much as possible. On long trips they’d ditch two of the seats and have two of us in the middle row, separated by a pile of luggage, and one of us in the back, mostly out of punching range.
My old man pulled that shit all the time. We learned to lock him out of the car before he could get the back door open…
Learned to drive in Mom’s 1965 Mercury Colony Park. When I took my drivers test, the examiner doubted I could parallel park that beast. I did 🙂
Grew up unbelted in the back of a monkey shit brown (h/t Tom Waits) 1974 Caprice Classic wagon with the vinyl wood and ass-blistering vinyl upholstery.
We have family pics of my sister riding her tricycle in the cargo area (with the third row folded down) while we were on the road and we routinely played and napped back there on long roadtrips as the luggage for a family of four still left plenty of room!
My dad had a thick pc of foam wrapped with a bed sheet in back for all 4 of us kids when travelling. Luggage/stuff went in the roof carrier. We would fight over sitting at the back window.
So the guy in the videos says he is going to look into dying the vinyl rear seats to match the other seats. Can you actually re-dye vinyl? I thought the color was added to whatever liqueous petroleum substance was used to create a sheet of vinyl. I would not think that existing vinyl would be porous enough to dye.
It can’t be dyed but can be painted. You need a specially-formulated paint that’s as flexible as the vinyl itself – regular paint would just flake off.
This stuff works surprising well. I dyed the boot cover for my black 89 mustang convertible. The factory gray color matched absolutely nothing else in the car. Dyed it black. Held up great considering all the stretching/abuse it received. I used it a lot.
Dad had a used ’85 Colony Park through my teens. I think we used the jump seats once! Same with my ’05 MDX, I have used the third row 3 times in 8 years. If the cushions were easier to pull I’d rather have the smugglers space.
The red Beetle pictured above is a 1967. In 1968, VW changed the bumpers and tail lights.
o.O
If you look closely you’ll see that the front bumper is the post-67 style with pre-68 overriders bolted on. So it’s quite likely the Beetle is indeed a ’68 after all…
it’s a ’68! Had the semi-auto transmission, and you’ll see it lacks the horn grilles of a ’67. And that’s a 68 and up Europa bumper with add-on overriders and bumper guards, a rare option. But come on, man, I grew up with this car. I know my Beetles! Jeez.
Oh, didn’t know about that option; had been wondering if somebody had simply bolted old overriders on the post-67 style bumpers as an aftermarket thing. Too late to edit my earlier comment to change “pre-68” to “pre-68 style” (yeah, details matter, especially to copy editors *and* automotive anoraks.)
Did you check who the author was before commenting?
Like correcting Mercedes on Smarts or David on Jeeps lol
File to: r/confidentlyincorrect
The glory of the recreation table almost made me miss the power mini vent windows! What a marvelous time.
I can’t see an old LTD without recalling my grandfather always pointing them out and asking, “You know what LTD stands for? Lincoln Trimmed Down.” Then he’d sort of chuckle to himself. Grandad jokes.
Your car didn’t have a 6.5L engine it had a 400 cu in engine and if you must metricize it would be a 6.6L.
Ford calls the 400 ci a 6.5L so they can use the remaining 0.1L on the 302 ci to call it a 5.0L rather than the 4.9L it really is.
We had the 460 Police Intercepter engine. Never got over 6 mpg at best.
That piece of crap would automatically start to brake and turn as we approached gas stations.
Can confirm the table and checkers pieces were magnetic. The table weighed approximately 2 tons and needed a crane to lift out of it’s storage space. It was very sturdy. Our wagon was dark green with peeling woodgrain and was used to haul a ton of kids in carpool and as an excellent highway cruiser for our two week summer vacations driving all around to see relatives.
Oh sure, the table and pieces were secured to the table, but to hell with any kind of effective seat belts in those sideways-oriented seats. Glad they had their priorities straight.
That always freaks me out seeing old TV shows from the 70s and 80s. No seatbelts and lit cigarettes literally everywhere.
Look carefully enough and you might see the lead too.
Seeing those old TV shows reminds me of the episode of Star Trek Deep Space Nine when Quark and his brother are thrown back to 1949 to be captured in Roswell NM. They are interrogated by chain smoking army types and as they choke on the secondhand smoke they are baffled that anyone would do that to themselves. Their bafflement get even deeper when they find out their interrogators actually detonate nuclear weapons in their OWN atmosphere.
As a child of that era my exposure to cigarette smoke, head/windshield collisions (yep, I flew superman style right into the windshield of our van), and lead diminishes my abilities to look carefully enough. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I remember everything everywhere was smoke covered in the 70s. I also remember smashing my nose in between the window of the car door and the weatherstripping so I could try to force some fresh air up my nose because in the front of the car were smokers who smoked two packs a day and didn’t matter if we were in the car.
Don’t forget, our parents would send us 8 year olds to the 7-11 on our bikes to buy more packs cigarettes for them.
Nothing like biking back to Gram’s house with a fresh carton of Benson & Hedges for her, and zero qualms at the Finast about selling a 9 year old said carton. I had a note from her, after all!
No doubt she would have done the same for the liquor store, if they were amenable.
Oh yes, forgot about the note…Virginia Slims for my stepmom.
I hated my parents smoking so they’d send me to the store with a $10 or a $20 and I’d buy 1 pack of Trues for them and spend however much was left over on candy and sunglasses and pens and whatever other bullshit they had for sale next to the register. I never brought back any change.
They did have seatbelts back there, even in 68. As to how effective they were, you got me.
Probably more effective than the front-facing seats if you got t-boned.
Yeah, I lost one of my friends in 3rd grade to a station wagon: they got hit and he flew out the open back window…
How fast were they driving in reverse?
I think our table was plastic with a metal underside. But that was like a million years ago.
So memory may be an issue here.