One way to be a Country Squire is to be a member of the landed gentry, way out in the boonies that is. The other way is to be a beloved Ford longroof, and for today's Nice Price or Crack Pipe, we've got one of the last of those.
Patina is not just the name of a mysterious gypsy girl from an old movie, it's also a sometimes desirable appearance worn on certain automobiles and trucks. If you were to park yesterday's 1979 Dodge D100 in your living room, its patina would inspire Martha Stewart magazine to describe your style as 'shabby chic,' and with its 66% Nice price win, you all felt that the truck's price was none too shabby as well.
The SUV and Minivan supplanted the traditional station wagon from its vaunted spot as the de facto standard accouterment of suburban driveways decades ago, and while wagons still exist today, its no lie to say that the current crop lacks the presence and majesty of their predecessors.
Today's 1990 Country Squire on the other hand is large and in charge. Based on the last automotive body-on-frame car platform built in America - the last Crown Vics and Lincoln Town Cars having gone extinct just last year - these family fun cars are as uniquely American as apple pie and reality TV about fat people.
With 171,000 miles on its clock this LX model has seen some updates over the years. The ad notes that the headliner and visors have been recovered, while outside that beloved bastion of many of our's youth, the woodgrain side panels, have been hand painted to look both funky and fresh.
The rest of the body appears to be in pretty good shape, and what a shape that is. Cars today are all so uniformly cat turd shaped that it's hard to tell them apart, and even harder not to knock your head on the ceiling in the back seat of many of them.
This big Ford on the other hand is so square and boxy that it's like something you might drive in Minecraft. That means there's acres of room inside, and in fact the fold up seats in the back 40 give this big beast true 9-passenger seating (2+3+2/2). When those seats go down its provides space that Lawrence of Arabia might find daunting to cross.
The rest is pure American comfort food, including puffy tufted leather seats, a skinny-ass steering wheel that's rumored to be connected to the front wheels but you couldn't prove it by turning the thing, and more lean in the corners than a political pundit
Moving the whole thing is a 150-horse fuel injected 302 and Ford's 4-speed AOX transmission, pretty standard stuff. The ad notes the replacement of the alternator, starter and battery, as well as its podium placement on its most recent smog test.
There's not a lot to go wrong on these cars and when something does under the hood you can probably fix it yourself and not have to worry about getting rained on while doing so the lid is so damn big.
The rest of the car - paint, chrome, brightwork, etc, is said to be fair to middling, but overall what do you want from an almost quarter of a century old family car?
I can tell you what the seller wants of it and that's $3,800, and it's now time to ask yourself if that's a deal for this woody wagon, or if that price squashes this Squire.
You decide!
Los Angeles Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears
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For $3,000, Have A Dodge Ball
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For $3,800, Your Squire Awaits
