by Bill Vance

When the Dodge Brothers introduced the first high production car with an all-steel body in 1914, it started a trend away from the use of wood in automobiles. This would be pretty well complete in North America by the end of the 1930s. The advent of presses that could produce large and intricate steel stampings made steel the preferred material for car bodies.

Wood still had glamour, however, and although more expensive to fabricate, and prone to squeaking and rotting, it continued to be being used in station wagons. Also, in addition to wagons, decorative wood found limited use in car bodies in the 1940s, notably by Chrysler, Ford and Nash. The most glamorous of these wood-clad cruisers was the Chrysler Town and Country.

When Chrysler decided to enter the station wagon business in 1941 it did so with a flourish, introducing an attractive six- or nine-passenger wood-trimmed wagon called the Town and Country. Rather than the usual commercial looking box-like wagon, it had a rounded rear end with double, side-hinged “clamshell” cargo doors. Chrysler had built approximately 2,000 by the time automobile production ceased for the Second World War early in 1942.

Following the war Chrysler resumed its wood trimmed Town and Country. Chrysler, like others, was offering slightly revised 1942 designs, and it hoped that the prestige of its woody models would attract buyers to its showrooms. This time, however, the T & C was not a station wagon, but came as a two-door convertible and four-door sedan. The most captivating of these was the convertible.

In the 1946 Town and Country models, everything from the cowl rearward except the fenders and the sedan roof, was panelled in mahogany and trimmed with white ash framing. For 1947 the mahogany was replaced with very realistic looking decals, although the white ash would continue.

The interior appointments were as elegant as the exterior. Wood was also used inside, and this, combined with leather, Bedford cord fabric, and colour coordinated carpets, gave it an aura of sumptuousness befitting a fine luxury yacht.

Production of the Town and Country was a slow and expensive operation. Because there was no roof structure for stiffness in the convertible, reinforced body framing had to be added. This required a lot of individual hand work, as did the preparation and fitting of the wooden body parts. The result was a production rate of only about 10 bodies per day.

Of the 2,159 1946 T & Cs built, 1,935 were convertibles, riding on a long 3,238 mm (127.5 in.) wheelbase. These woody land yachts were all powered by Chrysler’s big, side-valve, straight-eight, 5.3 litre, 135 horsepower engine.

Town and Country production jumped to 5,787 for 1947, of which 3,136 were convertibles. This would prove to be the T & C’s best year; 1948 sales would slip to 4,484, 3,309 of which were convertibles.

Chrysler introduced its all-new post-war styling in 1949 and in the process reduced the Town and Country offering to just the convertible, now part of the New Yorker series on a 3,340 mm (131.5 in.) wheelbase. The simulated wood panelling was discontinued, but the T & C still had the decorative ash framing, now applied directly to the metal body.

Nineteen-fifty would see the end of the real wood-trimmed Town and Countrys. The once popular convertible was now gone and the T & C was offered as a two-door Newport hardtop and 4-door Royal wagon only. Final year production totalled 1,399.

Chrysler had used the Town and Country in the same way as Ford had used its Ford/Mercury Sportsman wood-clad two-door convertible: as an interest generator to increase showroom traffic. But the new models introduced in 1949 were expected to produce their own excitement. The T & C’s glamour was no longer required, and when sales fell below expectations, the corporation discontinued it.

Although the wood was gone, Chrysler continued to use the Town and Country name on station wagons, but they were pale echoes of the classic wooden beauties of the 1940s. In 1982 it applied the name to a stylish, simulated wood-clad version of its little K-car derived Chrysler LeBaron convertible. It would also be used on the front-wheel drive Chrysler minivan.

But none of these later incarnations of the Town and Country had the glamour and panache of the original woodies. Although expensive to build and maintain, and not altogether practical, they were nevertheless like a nostalgic throwback to the elegance of a bygone era. In a time of synthetic materials and mass produced jelly bean shaped cars, their like will never be seen again.