Tour The Country In Classic Style In This 1984 Pontiac Parisienne Station Wagon

What is a station wagon to you? The ideal image of the great American road trip? Are they the perfect alternative to the monster SUV that costs as much as houses used to decades ago? Maybe you just want something a bit custom to tool around in and take to shows. This 1984 Pontiac Parisienne long-roof, which is available on Hemmings.com, fits the bill perfectly. 

For many, the station wagon is the icon of family travel. Many, many words have been printed that extol the virtues of the station wagon. Packing the family into one to hit the road is still the image of post-war American family life… at least, until the early 1980s. Once Chrysler’s minivans hit showrooms in late 1983 for the 1984 model year, the days of the station wagon were numbered. By the time the minivan gave way to the mid-size SUV in the early 1990s, the station wagon was all but extinct, with just a few long-in-the-tooth examples creeping on for a few years more. Today, “station wagon” is an unwelcome phrase for the manufacturers. One of the more recent examples, the 2018-’20 Buick Regal TourX, was called everything but a station wagon by GM’s advertising types. 

For those who grew up with them, station wagons have a place. Whether used as designed as an all-in-one workhorse or as a polished and shined-up hobby vehicle that is a beloved throwback to their past, their ability to swallow up both people and cargo is a positive. Then again, there are those who only see the Wagon Queen Family Truckster from the National Lampoon movies and run as fast as they can towards the nearest SUV safe haven. Chances are good that the younger you are, the less favorably you may look at the humble station wagon.

This 1984 Pontiac may come across as a clean Chevrolet Caprice by a different name with aftermarket wheels at first. A 305-cu.in. Chevrolet V-8 is attached to an automatic transmission; nothing out of the ordinary here. It’s a 1980s GM B-body station wagon with a very clean appearance that harkens back to the time when the family vehicle didn’t need to be a leather-lined luxury offering with all the latest in tech gadgetry, an off-roader and a U-Haul truck, all in one.  You don’t need built-in wi-fi, you don’t need eight hundred horsepower and the ability to slog through up to three feet of water. What you need is a road trip. Take your family, take your friends, or just lay the seats down, roll out a sleeping bag for yourself and a blanket for your dog, and ditch your phone for a week. 

The station wagon has been a pariah for far too long. In the age of compact utility vehicles that have minimal cargo area behind the rear seats, light-duty trucks that are edging precariously close to medium-duty in size, and the sedan a near-endangered species, this Pontiac looks like a great way to return to simpler times… when everybody piled into the wagon and the kids watched the world pass by through the rear tailgate glass, without a personal entertainment device in sight.

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