Eagle Limited Wagon has 4 doors and 4 x 4

At first I had my doubts when the Wisconsin Society of Automotive Historians selected the theme for the 2014 Iola Old Car Show (www.iolaoldcarsshow.com). They picked “Four for all in ‘14” to honor four-door vehicles. It was the 50th anniversary of the Mustang—and the GTO, so my initial reaction was why go after four-door cars? Now, I’m warming up to the idea.

Why did I change my thinking? It’s because I see the young people involved in the car hobby owning four-door cars. A teenager or a 20-something can rarely afford to buy a collectible Mustang or a GTO, but what about a ’62 Mercury Monterey four-door hardtop or a ’57 Buick Century four-door sedan? Those are the old cars my youngest son has owned. Sure he would have liked an S-22 hardtop with bucket seats or a Roadmaster convertible, but the four-door versions were his cars. He had a lot of fun driving them even with “extra” doors.

This was also evident during the 2011 Iola Old Car Show when a special “Old Cars / Young Drivers” display was arranged. I didn’t see a Corvette or a ‘Cuda in that display, but I saw cars like Robert E. Warren Jr’s. 1983 AMC Eagle Limited station wagon. Robert probably knows more about AMC Eagles than the rest of us reading this combined. His window sign pointed out that his car had factory four-wheel drive, a rare factory AM/FM/CB radio and other unusual options. He invited people to look inside and see all the 30-year-old design and styling features. You could tell that Warren loved his car.

Hopefully, the young man from Wisconsin Rapids took something away from his hobby experiences. Hopefully he learned something new about his car at the show. Hopefully he taught someone else something about it that they didn’t know. And hopefully the black 4 x 4 wagon will show up in the four-door car display at the 2014 Iola Old Car Show.

We’ll be looking for the sporty little luxury wagon with its shiny black paint, woodgrain trim roof rack and factory style mag wheel covers and we won’t be worrying about how many doors it has!