You need to look back more than 70 years when you think of wood-bodied cars. Station wagons and convertibles were the in thing for the affluent, and posh hotels would use woody wagons to transfer passengers back forth from rail stations. Wood was plentiful for car manufacturers and labour was cheap.
The average wood body had 150 pieces of hand formed and shaped wood, but they were expensive to build and needed constant attention to maintain. The golden age of wood bodied cars was the Forties. They were phased out in the early Fifties with some manufacturers continuing to turn out cars with faux wood side accents. Then the era was gone.
Revivalist Cliff Haller loves woody wagons and has the patience to painstakingly build them back to their showroom glory. First it was an ultra rare Canadian-built 1950 Monarch woody wagon. Ford of Canada turned Mercury bodied cars into Monarchs by changing the badging, grilles and ornamentation so they could have Ford dealers would have an upscale car to sell.Ford of Canada had two sets of dealers: Ford-Monarch and Mercury-Lincoln. Although they were basically the same car, Monarchs were more attractive than their Mercury cousins and sold better in Canada.
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After he sold his rare Monarch to a U.S. collector, Haller started looking around for another project. He and a group of other Vancouver-area vintage woody owners would attend the Woodies on the Wharf event in Santa Cruz, California where 200 examples were on display. It was there that Haller got a tip on two 1947 Ford woody hulks with boxes of parts that were for sale in Spokane, Washington. Haller has been building cars since he paid $20 for a Ford Model A coupe in Winnipeg when he was 13 years old, but he wasn’t sure he was up for this challenge. All that was left of each car was a frame, suspension, firewall, piles of parts and a few pieces of wood. The wood bodies were gone. He persevered.
The wild card in his garage was a Canadian-built Mercury 114X sedan that he could use as a platform to build a 1947 Mercury 114X woody, the same way Ford of Canada put Mercury badging and grilles on their 114-inch wheelbase Fords in the 1940s to change them into the Mercury 114X. Fewer than 30 Mercury 114X wood-bodies station wagons came off the Ford of Canada assembly line and Haller was determined to recreate one. It would be an enormous job. He sold the best of the two woody hulks to a friend in Maple Ridge who was also looking for a project.
Haller spent several years collecting all the parts he could find to build the 1947 Mercury 114X woody, and bought a wood kit from Kline Brothers Woodworking in Pennsylvania. Long-time friend Dennis Groundwater, who restored a 1947 Ford woody station wagon, would provide encouragement and guidance throughout the build. But nothing fit when Haller went to install the wood kit. Being out a centimetre installing wood along the lower body could result in unacceptable door gaps in the upper body. He needed help.
He trailered his project to woody expert Tim Veley in Oregon who assembled the wood body so everything fit perfectly. The body was painted medium metallic green, like the Parrot Green that was originally available, and the car was trimmed in light green leather by Russ Jenvey of RJ’s Upholstery. The running gear is from a 1988 Ford Thunderbird with a 5 litre High Output engine delivering power through an automatic overdrive transmission.
Haller’s Mercury 114X woody looks just like it might have as it rolled off the Ford of Canada assembly line back in 1947 with its glossy varnished wood body and shining paint.
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“I don’t know how many hours I put into building this car, but it doesn’t matter. I love doing it,” the retired screen print company owner says. “With all modern mechanics, the car is a pleasure to drive.”
Haller can’t wait to get at his next build. It’s a U.S.-built 1947 Mercury 118 club coupe that spent much of its early life in Saskatoon. He will give it the same suspension and mechanical underpinnings as his Mercury woody.
“The body and maroon paint are so good, I think I may leave it the way it is,” Haller says. “I want it to be a car that can be driven daily, rain or shine.”
Alyn Edwards is a classic car enthusiast and partner in Peak Communicators, a Vancouver-based public relations company. aedwards@peakco.com
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