#FamilyWagon

Remember the era, around the middle of the 2010s, when we were all supposed to desire a brown station wagon with a manual transmission (or mock those who liked brown wagons after it was cool)? Well, today’s Junkyard Find is just that!

Chevrolet built Cavaliers for close to a quarter-century, selling something like five million units. If you count the all the other J-body siblings sold around the world (including some really weird stuff), the extended Cavalier family is one of the largest in automotive history. Somehow, though, the once-ubiquitous 1982-1987 first-generation Cavaliers have all but disappeared from North American car graveyards; I’ve documented plenty of later Cavaliers during my junkyard travels, sure, but the early ones seem to have been crushed decades ago. Finally, here’s a reasonably straight ’85 wagon in a northeastern Colorado yard.

Tim writes:

Tim from Hooniverse here, looking to see what you and the B&B have to suggest.

I’m writing for recommendations to replace my ’69 Wagoneer as the Family Dirtwagon. The Wagoneer’s great as a 46-year-old classic, but it’s a 46-year-old classic, and is a little too old, project-y and fragile for what I need. We’re talking about the fourth car in the fleet, aside my wife’s Mazda5 (6MT FTW!), my ’64 Falcon and the ’62 Ranchero LeMons racer.

What’s it need to do?