'88 Chevy Cavalier in CO Springs!

Hi all, glad to be here. The title is actually a bit misleading, since unfortunately my cav (named Robert) is back at my permanent residence in Oregon, and not with me here in the Springs. I am a 21-year old computer science student at Colorado College, and I have loved station wagons most of my life. It kind of runs in my family, since my grandparents only owned wagons, and my parents have owned mostly wagons, and it is their preferred body style for a car. Robert is particularly special, because he has been in the family since he was new, first owned by my grandparents, and then by my parents, who passed him on to me. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of him, but I did find one on the web that is the same year and color as Robert:

The only difference is that Robert has silver doorhandles and body side molding. Maybe in my next post I can tell you all some more about Robert (specs, what he's like to drive), but this one's getting a bit long. Anyways, I should also mention that I recently found a way to combine my love of wagons with my hobby of photomanipulation, and started making renderings of imaginary wagons based on real cars that were never offered as wagons. You can see my work on my blog, http://wagonvisions.blogspot.com. I'm not too good at it yet, but getting better. My main inspiration was www.theophiluschin.com, so you can check that out too if you enjoy this sort of thing.

I am looking forward to being a part of this great community!

---Ari

 

Hey, Welcome Ari. These are nice little wagons. Very clean looking.

So, a wagon named Robert. Is there a story behind the name?

Glad you found the forum.

 

Welcome, Ari! I am new here too. I looked at your blog and your work looks pretty good to me. Keep it up.

 

Actually, I named the wagon when I was about three. I barely remember this but apparently when my parents told me they needed to come up with a name for the new car, I insisted that he be called Robert. Not sure how I came up with it; maybe he told me! lol

Naming cars is a tradition in my family, and now it has gone completely out of control since my parents named their phone and their vacuum cleaner .

As silly as the tradition is, I have carried it on by naming my motorcycle April. Ahh, oh well.

 

There's nothing wrong with naming things that are important to you, or that you enjoy naming. We have a friend with a wagon they call "Toad". Why, I don't know, but we all know it by that name.

And of course when it comes to names my wife can come up with many for me depending on the situation but I couldn't print most of those here. I am getting better though. I put the dirty clothes IN the basket now instead of around it

 

lol


Yeah, I've found that the act of giving something a name increases one's attachment to that object.
Anyways, I like your '57 Safari. Definitely built during the peak of car styling, IMHO. I think car design is just now starting to get back up to the level it was at from about 1945-1969.

 

Thank you for the kind comments about our old wagon. We are pretty happy with it. And you are right, give something a name and it becomes an extension of the family. Our vintage Airstream got nicknamed Cricket after a pet we had for 20 years adopted it when we got it home. As I rebuilt it she would sit inside and watch me and once it was done she'd saunter in, or sit at the door and meow until I opened it for her, and head right up onto my bed and sleep there for hours, cleaning herself now and then, out to the creek for a drink of water and maybe catch a grasshopper to eat, then back in again. We got quite a kick out of her so the trailer became Cricket's trailer and now that she's passed we still call it that.

 

Welcome aboard Ari (and of course, Robert )

There's maybe a handful of members here who have had the traditional family wagon passed down to them. Obviously you carry their carful genes.

 

Welcome Ari. Cool story about Robert and I'm psyched he's still in your family.
Excellent, excellent work on your blog. Those long roofs look great. Have you ever done one for a current Crown Vic or Grand Marquis. It'd be really neat if you could somehow put wood on the sides so we could all see what we're missing.

 

to the wagon train, Ari. Wow...NICE photo work!

 

Thanks for the warm welcome, everyone.
@snooterbuckets: Actually, I was just trying to think of a good car to chop next, and I do really like the look of the current generation Mercury Grand Marquis, with those lovely chrome accents around the headlights. Although I almost think the wood paneling would look better on a Crown Vic...we'll see. I'll definitely do one of those next. So thanks for the suggestion.

On a related note, I found this pic in the forum gallery:

It looks like they took they took the wagon part of a first-gen Taurus and stuck it onto the back of a Crown Vic, which doesn't quite fit since the Crown Vic is fullsize and the Taurus is midsize! Interesting looking, but I think I could do a bit better

Here's a wagon version of the Towncar (which is based on Ford's Panther platform like the Crown Vic and Grand Marquis) done by another design firm:

 

New Crown Vic renders, by suggestion

Ok, so here is the basic wagon conversion (you can see this one on my blog as well):

I also tried it with some wood paneling, but I wasn't too happy with how that turned out:

I might be able to make it look nicer if I could find a better donor car for the wood (the wood on this was stolen from a Buick Roadmaster!).

 

Welcome

That is some awesome photo choppin. I try to do that too........not near as good.

 

I have the new Photoshop program....i cant get past the instructions

Ari...cool story....good family wagonistory

 

Wow Ari, amazing job. That looks so cool. I'd like to forward that Crown Vic to the "suits" at Ford and tell them they have their heads up their $%^ for not making it. Thanks alot. It looks great!