The A-Body was a bit narrower, and three across seating was never going to be quite as comfortable as in the B-Body.
VISTA CRUISER FULL SIZE
But still it’s a bit odd, with Chevy and Pontiac selling full size wagons, and Buick and Olds selling these smaller ones, all the way through 1970 (Buick did bring their full size wagon back for 1970). Well, one could argue that the Vista Cruiser was a legitimate alternative to the full size wagon, and perhaps a somewhat more sane alternative at that, given that it was more compact in every way that counted positively, and had better space utilization than the full sizers. Were these super-mid-sized wagons designed to fill the gap between the two-seat only F-85 wagon and the two or three seat Dynamic 88 wagon? It would seem so, except that Olds and Buick killed their full-sized wagons for 1965. That raised glass roof was not just for fun after all. But for some inexplicable reason, Olds and Buick decided that they would stretch the F-85 wagon by adding 5″ to the wheelbase, all of it right behind the second seat, thus creating room for a third forward-facing seat row.īut it wasn’t all that simple the stretch also meant new, longer rear doors, to make access to that third seat a wee bit less difficult, as well as raising the roof height, since that third seat was now directly over the rear axle differential. And Olds already had a full-sized wagon, the 123″ wb Dynamic 88, as did the other divisions, except for Cadillac. These wagons appeared in 1964, along with the rest of the new A-Body GM mid-size cars, which rode on a 115″ wheelbase.
But it’s much more than that which makes the VC so unusual, in the annals of American wagons and the traditional definitions of the station wagon market segments. Yes, the glassy roof is what the Vista Cruiser (and the analog Buick Sportwagon) is known for, and that alone is a playful touch that nobody else tried on a wagon.
And play they did if you were a kid hired by GM to develop a new station wagon concept, wouldn’t you have come up with the Vista Cruiser? Before emission controls and fuel economy requirements put the hands of the GM engineers to the fire, they had the luxury to play. Nobody but General Motors had the kinds of huge engineering and development budgets that spawned cars like the Corvair, the Aluminum V8 Buick Special, the flex-drive-swing-axle slant-four Tempest, the FWD Toronado, the Vista Cruiser, and so many others.
( first posted ) The Vista Cruiser had “GM” written all over it.
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