In the 1970’s Everything was Turned into a Wagon

Station wagons were the car for every family in the 1960s and even more so in the 1970s. If you had a family, and considering the Baby Boomers were just starting to grow up, everyone had a family and needed a vehicle that would offer them the space for all family members in one car along with the opportunity to be able to haul home a project from the hardware store to be done at home. Without minivans or small SUVs, the choice vehicle was the station wagon to get the job done.

Even though wagons were the vehicle of choice, some tried to turn just about everything they could find into a station wagon, even the Corvette. Now, the Corvette has always been the Chevy’s epitome of high performance sport for America and showed the sleek, low design that cut through the wind with speed and power to leave everything else behind. In an era of muscle cars, the Corvette was more than a step above, it was the pinnacle of driving and owners spent hours treating their Corvettes like new children. With this kind of history and story, why in the world would anyone try to turn it into a wagon?

Probably the most honest answer is “because they could”. The Corvette SportWagon was actually features in a 1972 issue of Car and Driver. This wagon was built by Chuck Miller, a Detroit native who did an exceptional job of creating the car that would be both sport and wagon in one. Miller took the car to do the job right and the blend of the two body styles was perfect, at least for the idea of this particular project. Adding the wagon to the ‘Vette allowed a rear seat where three could fit comfortably to be created and certainly offered much more cargo space than ever before.

Even though Miller was able to perfect the blend between these two vehicle styles this really was not a phenomenon that caught on at all. It seems those who bought themselves a Corvette wanted a sports car and not to have it turned into the Frankenstein of cars. For all the effort Miller put into this car, and the coverage given to it by Car and Driver, this car was ghastly in appearance and was comical to see driving as it started out as a sports car and finished off as a wagon.

Sometimes it’s fun to look back on events of the past and see what has been created at some point in history and see what the ideas that were in place during the times of the past. Seeing how the Corvette was transformed is a bit interesting, but begs the statement of just because you can doesn’t mean you should do something. A Corvette is a high powered sports car, it always has been and always should be, not a family hauler. Nice try Chuck Miller, but I will take my Corvette as is, two seats and a roaring engine.