Wood you believe it?

More often used in early estate cars, timber made an appearance across the board with Chrysler's Town and Country range

- MARTIN BUCKLEY 

Eighty-two years ago, Chrysler pioneered the concept of an upmarket 'woodie' with its Town and Country wagons. Decades before the current 'sport utility' craze, these were crossover machines that mixed motoring disciplines which had previously seemed mutually exclusive.

Half luxury car, half utility vehicle, these six- or nine-passenger conveyances appealed to owners of ranches and stud farms as a means of collecting guests from the railway station, or as swanky wagons to take the well-heeled 'hunting, shooting and fishing' fraternity - in red plaid shirts and beaverskin hats - to their weekend lodges. They gave rustic credibility to country club-frequenting townies who would never strap a dead moose to the roof, but wanted you to think they might do something that manly. These were not vehicles for off-roading, yet they offered a template for much the same sort of bucolic dreams of rustic adventure in the great American wilderness.

Chrysler was on to something here: despite high prices and an upkeep regime that included varnishing the woodwork every six months just under 2000 Barrel back’ T&C wagons found homes (mostly on the mid-range Windsor straight-six chassis) before the events at Pearl Harbor put a stop to production.