My Father owned two station wagons - well, tecnically only one, the other I would barely catagorize as a car.
The first was a '61 Peugeot 403 wagon. It was tan. If it was 25 degrees F outside it wouldn't turn over. He wondered what the 2" hole in the front of the car was, low towards the bumper, and a crank in a trunk. That's what Peugeot provided to start the car under those conditions. You cranked it like a Model T Ford.
To jack the car up to change a flat, you had to insert the Peugeot-provided metal bars in the front door openings so the car wouldn't fold like a jackknife when you jacked it up.
Once underway, the car had the acceleration of a Trabant, with the torque charateristics of a sewing machine. At 55 mph it sounded like a tortured lawn mower.
He traded it in on a big, white '62 Chevrolet Bel-Air wagon, with a 283 and THM trans. He loved that car. We loved it, too. Roomy! Compared to the Peugeot, that Chevy was a muscle car.
He wouldn't buy another "foreign car" until 2002, when he got a Lexus.
