Minneapolis Street Sighting: Chevrolet Caprice Estate Wagon

Growing up, station wagons were a huge part of my childhood; we had a Subaru DL (which was very short lived), and my grandpa had a Ford Taurus wagon. I rode in my fair share of wagons, as well. One of my friends' parents had a Buick Estate Wagon, and that's as close as I would come to riding in a GM B-Body wagon; I rode in that car only once, but I loved it.

Station wagons were a part of Chevrolet's lineup until the demise of the Caprice in 1996; well, there was the Malibu Maxx, but I don't really think that counts. Not only was it a fairly ugly car, the thing wasn't a staple of Americana--and never will be. The Caprice on the other hand- if you grew up in the 1960s to the mid-1990s, you either owned one, or you knew someone who did. If I remember right, there were two or three in my neighborhood alone, and I used to not go a few hours without seeing one. Unfortunately, that's not the case anymore; good Caprices are hard to find, mainly because either a) they're not really collector cars yet and b) a large chunk of them ended up in demo-derbiers' hands--much like their 1971-1976 predecessors
.

This thing is awesome; I'm slowly becoming more and more fond of these as the years go by; when I was little, I didn' overly love these--and I didn't hate them either. These were common, so I never gave them much thought; as I explained above, I don't see many of these anymore. I still see the plain-jane wagons but never the ones with wood trim.

Maroon, I would have to say, fits the Estate fairly well, especially with the wood "trim", which as you can tell, is likely vinyl -wrap/applique. In the 1980s--and even into the 1990s to an extent, this was all the rage; these had wood trim, Jeep Grand Cherokees had wood trim (called the Wagoneer), and Chrysler minivans had wood trim. Why? I suppose to stay true to "traditional" family car values.

I didn't get to peek inside here, but I assume that the interior looks like the body; in great shape on the surface, but the devil is in the details. I'd wager that this a regularly-used vehicle that the owner has tried to take very good care of. Like almost all cars that are used daily, age is starting to take its toll on the big brute.