Hmmmm… for about the cost of a new Honda SUV, you could have this beast instead:
1965 Chevrolet Biscayne Station Wagon
Lemme see: a bench seat, four-on-the-floor, that fine Chevelle 402 engine, a tow hitch and a bobbing head thingy on the dashboard…
Are you kidding me?
Yeah I know, the Biscayne (in all its incarnations) handles like a barge, uses gasoline faster than you can throw it out the window in 5-gallon cans, and has steering that can charitably be called “vague”; to mention just some of the objections that will be hurled at me in Comments, no doubt.
Don’t care about any of that. It’s frigging wonderful: a vision of mid-60s excess, a manly (family-manly?) vehicle that today would stop traffic (for all sorts of reasons) as I went about my daily business of chugging around north Texas as I visit the range, the supermarket and local bookstores. And I do believe it has space to carry all my guns to a Schutzenfest — in itself, no small thing to be sure.
Maybe it’s a Good Thing that I didn’t win the lottery last Wednesday night [sob], because otherwise I’d be talking to a guy in Yucaipa CA right at this very moment.
Sob! You’ve made your contemporary cry….that was my car only in blue back in 1975. Main difference was the power glide 2 speed automatic and a 2 barrel carb (which by the way could sip gas if driven sans leadfoot).
Included the rear facing seat with a foot well that could hold plenty of stuff that one did not want exposed to view….
And let me tell ya, it could haul 6 people and 6 kegs of beer with ease, or 12 people if carefully packed in (yes, I did belong to a fraternity, why do you ask?)
Should never have sold it, but youth and the constant search for “something better” even if it did not turn out so.
Sorry to destroy your fantasy (cause the car is cool as hell), but no A/C and you live in Texas. You’d die in the summer. I suppose you could add some aftermarket A/C to it, it just wouldn’t be as good as factory A/C. Otherwise a perfect car.
BTW, even though it’s technically a 402 cubic inch engine, it was always known as a 396. They played kinda fast and loose with displacement and engine names back then. That engine came in three different power configurations (325, 350, and 375 hp). Any of which would be good for the wagon.
I looked at the situation re: A/C, and for a few hundred bucks you can get a system that can turn the interior of your car into Ice Station Zebra. OEM my aching African-American ass.
Also, the description does mention the fact that the cylinders were re-bored.
From Google AI (and backed by a 60 year love affair with cars from that era).
Why Chevrolet Did This
Bored over: Chevrolet increased the standard 3.94-inch bore of the original 396 slightly (by .030 or .031 inches) to 4.125 inches, which bumped the displacement up to 402 cubic inches.
Marketing power: The “SS 396” badge and name were already legendary and extremely popular with muscle car buyers, so Chevy kept the 396 moniker for mid-sized performance cars like the Chevelle, Camaro, and Nova.
Different names elsewhere: The exact same 402 block received different names depending on where it was installed. In full-size passenger cars (like the Impala), it was often marketed as the “Turbo-Jet 400,” while trucks and some documentation honestly referred to it as the 402.
True 396 engines were built up through late 1969, but after that, any new big-block with that general block size rolling off the assembly line was actually a 402 cubic-inch motor wearing heritage badging.
Also, OEM A/C systems were hit and miss from that era, but by God there were some that would freeze the interior. I had one that was awesome, yet rode in others that were little better than rolling the windows down.
Never did I ever think a station wagon (with the exception of a Nomad) would make me think, “Damn, that’s a fine ride.” 😛