{"id":2674,"date":"2006-02-08T03:03:00","date_gmt":"2006-02-08T08:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/2006\/02\/speedy-delivery\/"},"modified":"2010-12-30T12:02:04","modified_gmt":"2010-12-30T17:02:04","slug":"speedy-delivery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/2006\/02\/speedy-delivery\/","title":{"rendered":"Speedy Delivery"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Pontiac<\/a><\/p>\n

Wayne Graefen has a keen eye for old cars. He spotted this Pontiac sedan delivery from the fast lane of I-35 while towing a new acquisition home from his Kansas vacation. Closer investigation showed it to be a
\n1950 model<\/a>, of which 2,158 were built, some (perhaps most), like this one, with six-cylinder engines, others with eights.<\/p>\n

Sedan deliveries comprise a nearly forgotten art form. Intended for light delivery duties, they were based on car chassis, less commodious but more stylish than the truck-based
\npanel van<\/a>. The first ones were simply
\nblind-quartered two-door sedans<\/a>, when all cars were boxes, with
\nbarn doors<\/a> cut into the back. Later, many were based on two-door station wagons, although not this Pontiac as GM didn’t build two-door wagons until 1955. It is said that Oldsmobile built one sedan delivery as a feasibility exercise. We don’t know if this one<\/a> is real, or simply a Pontiac with tail- and nose job. It’s not a Chevrolet derivative because Chevy, unlike Pontiac, had
\nseparable rear fenders<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ford, which had built sedan deliveries from 1940<\/a>, abandoned them with the advent of F-series trucks<\/a> in 1948. It took the new wagons for 1952 to provide a base for the Courier sedan delivery (like this’ 53<\/a>), essentially a Ranch Wagon with a side-hinged rear door. From 1957, the Courier was given a liftgate (check the heavy hinges<\/a>; the 1959-60 Chev sedan deliveries had a similar arrangement<\/a>). For 1959, Ford reduced the number of Courier-specific parts, jettisoning the blind quarters and liftgate. In fact, the 5,141 Couriers built that year were simply
\nRanch Wagons with no rear seat<\/a>. In 1960, the sedan delivery moved to the Falcon line<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chrysler Corporation was not a big player in the sedan delivery sweepstakes, but did turn out this handsome
\n1956 Dodge<\/a> (or at least someone did).<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the light vans, Econoline<\/a>, Chevy Van<\/a> and Dodge A100<\/a>, put the sedan delivery out of business, although the Falcon delivery lasted through 1965. Curiously, Chevrolet resurrected the genre in 1971 with the Vega Panel Express<\/a>, continued through 1975. Ford’s
\nPinto Cruising Wagon<\/a> was somewhat reminiscent, too, if one ignored the quirky porthole. CarPort’s St. Louis Bureau Chief
\nFred Summers<\/a> still has his, purchased new in 1980.<\/p>\n

Has Wayne bought the pretty Poncho? Those who should know are being uncannily evasive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wayne Graefen has a keen eye for old cars. He spotted this Pontiac sedan delivery from the fast lane of I-35 while towing a new acquisition home from his Kansas vacation. Closer investigation showed it to be a 1950 model, of which 2,158 were built, some (perhaps most), like this one, with six-cylinder engines, others….<\/span>
Read full article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2674"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3400,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2674\/revisions\/3400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}