Splinter Group

Wood-sided automobiles started out unglamorously, usually sold by body builders based on a commercial chassis. Ford initially lumped station wagons in with its truck lines in the catalogs, in fact. Fitted with side curtains in lieu of windows and stretched-canvas tops, they were ever only meant to be functional — rough-hewn custom bodies that were a means to an end. But despite the Great Depression, automotive advancements came thick and fast; once General Motors’ all-steel car bodies arrived on the scene for 1936, the days of wood seemed numbered.

Yet steel, with all of its strength, durability, and manufacturing efficiency, failed to eliminate wood altogether, at least for a while: Rather, the handwork-intensive timber-bodied models were driven upmarket. Pontiac’s wood-bodied station wagon was a $1,015 proposition in 1940; a year later, a woodie was the first Ford with a base price over $1,000.

Before the war, wood was used for