A New Station Wagon On The Block

This is just a short post to show off a new Hot Wheels Station Wagon model that came out. It's a '70 Chevelle SS Wagon and is pictured below (it is on a used station wagon lot in the front):

Out Of The Blue

Chances are, you'll recognize the above image as that of a Hot Wheels diecast toy car. It seems like they've been around forever, but in reality, they were only introduced in 1968. I had a few of those original releases, but sadly they're no longer in my collection. I do still have a collection of Hot Wheels, but only one that I started later on in the mid-1970's. They have released thousands of varieties it seems like and they never cease to amaze me at their creativity in coming up with those new designs. Of course, they always have the perennial classics such as this 1932 Ford Roadster:

And some such as this 1940 Ford 2-Door Sedan:

But, what many people may not realize, the good folks at Hot Wheels have designers hard at work to come up with vehicles that are not based on real cars. These are cars you won't find anywhere else, such as the Street Scorcher:

What amazes me the most is where they are able to come up with these futuristic vehicles such as this way cool surfing mobile called the Deora II. They apparently just pull designs like these from out of the blue:

Sometimes, though, I think these far-out, futuristic designs are all too common in their basic nature, and that the draftsmen at Hot Wheels just fall back on something they've seen in real life. They just try to pass it off as something you've never seen before. What prompted me to think this was I was sitting at my computer bidding on a Deora II on eBay one day and looked out the window at my Ford Taurus station wagon sitting below. I saw the back end of it in a whole new light and realized where the inspiration for the Deora II had come from. See if you don't think so, too:

On the Deora II, the way to get inside the vehicle is through the front - the whole nose of the car lifts up like a gullwing door. Kind of like the hatch on my station wagon. Maybe I should apply at Mattel as a designer. I think I could do work like that.

My New Car

On Friday, I took possession of what Ricardo Montalban would have called, "My new car." It's a wonderfully roomy 1996 Ford Taurus GL Station Wagon. Now it will make it much easier to get my musical equipment to the next gig - with the rear hatch, everything just fits right in the back. I have other plans for this automobile, but more on that later. For now, it will just take over the shuttling duties from my other car.

This isn't the first station wagon I've owned. In fact, it's the third. My first one was purchased in 1980 and it was a huge land-yacht of a machine, a 1971 Dodge Polara behemoth that must have been forty feet long. At least it seemed like it. And to the other extreme, my second station wagon, acquired in 1999, was a tiny, almost too small for me 1984 Ford Escort. The back seat did lay down, however, and I was able to stuff my musical equipment into the back of it somehow.

But, the main reason I got this present station wagon is because there's a car club near my town that I've been wanting to join for a few years, but never had a car. Well, I finally got the car of my dreams, a swoopy, rounded cutie that has a lot of potential for turning it into a great street cruiser. The first thing I'll do to it is to lower it closer to the ground. Right now, it sits much too high in the sky for my liking. Then, after it's way down on the ground, wider tires and custom wheels of some kind. I'm thinking brushed aluminum S/T's. My ultimate goal is to rip out the V-6 it currently has, which is wedged in sideways making it a front-wheel drive and replacing it with something a lot more peppier. Perhaps a 351 and converting it to rear-wheel drive. I always wondered why that if they designed this car as a front-wheel drive, why it had the hump through the middle of cockpit, even though there wasn't a driveshaft under there. Well, I guess they put it there for people like me who would want to go the trouble to convert it back to "normal."

One final thing I'd like to do to it someday, but this would be a lot of work, and that is to convert it into a two-door station wagon instead of four. Kind of like the old Chevy Nomads of the mid-50's. As I make progress on my customization process, I'll keep everything posted for all those enquiring minds out there. Here is the car as it looked when I first brought it home on Friday:

Oh, and just so my other car doesn't feel left out, here is my beautiful 1991 Ford Thunderbird LX: