Remembering the woody

David Miller has had a lifelong fascination with vehicles made of wood. "Cars, bicycles, motorcycles, roller skates, trucks. If it had wheels, I liked it. If it was wood, I could work it."

With that explanation, Miller introduces readers on his Web site to his own wood-paneled vehicle or "woodie." It's an ungainly (Miller's word) one-ton 1940 GMC truck-based station wagon emblazoned with mahogany panels. Custom-built for a wealthy Californian to reach his mountain retreat, this massive woodie embodies everything Miller loves about this classic style of vehicle.

"Woodie cars and trucks in their purest form have visible structural wood," he says. "The wood is not just a decoration, but an integral part of the body. The wooden rail and panel construction recalls the methods used to build wagons, carts, carriages and boats. I consider woodies to be the 'vestigial tail' of primitive forms of transportation."

Miller is a Web designer and developer in Nashville, Tenn., who celebrates his love of the woodie on his Web site, oldwoodies.com. He is one of thousands of woodie fans and collectors around the country who are drawn to the classic cars framed primarily in ash and mahogany.

On Miller's site and others including the National Woodie Club (nationalwoodieclub.com) and woodiesusa.com, collectors share information about their vehicles, post photos and news about shows and events and buy and sell cars and their parts.

Though manufacturers and buyers often considered Woodies to be top-of-the-line autos, relatively few remain in use today. Miller's site features painstakingly restored one-of-a-kind vehicles, including a sporty 1924 Renault Labourdette Skiff with a mahogany deck, dash, floors and internal body structure, a 1938 Bantam woodie and a 1947 Dodge woodie bus.

Before World War II, Miller says, "Woodies were often found on country estates, where affluent owners had the staff to maintain the wooden body." During the war, some woodie station wagons were built on converted sedan chassis to provide extra carrying capacity without using steel that was required for the war effort. And after the war, woodies became popular as suburban family transportation, but soon grew out of favor due to safety concerns and the upkeep maintaining a real-wood wagon in top shape.

By the 1950s, so-called "wallpaper woodies," or "phantom woodies," in which faux-wood appliqués replaced the genuine article, appeared on the scene. The cars were much less expensive than their real-wood counterparts, and the look was adopted by surfers along the California coast.

In the 1970s, Jeep took that wood-grained vinyl look to a new level. The Jeep Wagoneer was introduced in 1963, but it wasn't until 1978 that the woodie look was an option for buyers, says Leon Miller, owner of Wagonmaster, a Kerrville, Texas, company that buys, renews, sells and ships classic Jeep Grand Wagoneers and Jeepsters.

The woodie look, created with a 3M-brand vinyl product, was an instant hit amongst Jeep buyers, Miller says. "In 1981, it became a standard offering on the Wagoneers, and it stayed on, all the way to the final edition in 1991."

Miller says the Wagoneer's classic look appeals to a variety of buyers, but it seems to attract people who are in creative careers. In the 17 years he has restored and sold Jeeps, he says he noticed some buying patterns. "One-third of our vehicles have gone to architects and/or designers, and more than half of our customers are women."

What is it about the wood-grain vinyl that's appealing? "It's a fresh, clean look that's different than anything else on the market," Miller says.

But that appeal hasn't been strong enough to keep the woodie look alive. In the 1970s and '80s, many car companies offered the woodie option. During that time Chevrolet, Buick, Oldsmobile, Chrysler, and Mercury all sold vinyl-clad vehicles. In recent years, only the nostalgia-infused Chrysler PT Cruiser had that wood-grain look.

"PT Cruiser and its limited-edition 'woodie' model generated a lot of excitement to the Chrysler brand when we introduced it in 2001 (for the 2002 model year)," says Chrysler spokesman Jiyan Cadiz. "With PT Cruiser's timeless design that embodies the romance of American automotive design, our PT Cruiser woodie offered customers an extra dose of 1940s nostalgia."

Cadiz says the Cruiser has now gone in a different design direction, and the woodie look is no longer offered. So woodie enthusiasts will have to look to the past again. But it appears their enthusiasm isn't waning. A recent auction of Nick Alexander's Woodie Collection in California brought in $7 in sales of 51 pre- and post-war Ford and Mercury wood-bodied station wagons. The top seller of the night: a 1946 Mercury Sportsman Convertible, which sold for $368,500.