Here's Why General Motors Should Bring Back The Vista Cruiser Oldsmobile Station Wagon - HotCars

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Is there any car as closely affiliated with the American dream as Oldsmobile’s iconic Vista Cruiser station wagon? A veritable boat on wheels, an unashamed gas guzzler that dominated the nation’s riverine highways throughout the 1960s and ’70s, the Vista Cruiser gave thousands of families the exhilarating thrill of freedom on the open road, the chance to bring all the kids and the dog and as much luggage as they wanted on a tour of the entire country. Until 1977, that is, when General Motors drastically downsized the biggest cars from its fleet in a desperate bid to recoup its losses after the hardest decade in the behemoth company’s history. The Vista Cruiser was survived for several years more by its close cousin, the also-classic Custom Cruiser, but that boxy faux-wood-paneled station wagon favored by ’80s soccer moms didn’t have the charisma, the derring-do, the wide-eyed optimism of the Vista Cruiser, hailing as it does from a more innocent time when the road to progress seemed shiny and filled with possibilities.

Could they, would they ever bring the Vista Cruiser back? It’s a question we can only dream about, for now. Of course, there’s the fact that General Motors’s Oldsmobile brand shut down its Lansing operations back in 2004 in yet another devastating blow to what used to be the heart of America’s motor country. And then there’s the fact that more recent vehicle emissions standards might preclude station wagons as a class from ever making a significant comeback, coupled with the contemporary market’s vast preference for SUVs and minivans. (Vehicles which, it must be noted, had an immediate leg up when they came on the scene since they were officially categorized as a type of truck, and hence weren’t held to the same emissions standards as the station wagon—so unfair to the loyal Vista Cruiser!). But still, if only General Motors could find it in their hearts to revive this beloved antique—maybe, just maybe, some of that wide-eyed optimism and pure joy born of road-trippin' would make its way back into our troubled present.

Why should General Motors bring back Oldsmobile’s Vista Cruiser Station Wagon? Let us count the ways…

A Tragic Tale of Fuel Crises, Lawsuits, Tax Fraud, DC Meddling, And Drastic Downsizing: Here's What Happened To The Vista Cruiser

1967 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser station wagon — Via: Ebay

Oldsmobile first introduced the Vista Cruiser station wagon in 1964, and the car arguably revolutionized its class, especially in terms of design. The raised roof with its never-seen-before glass paneling, the powerhouse engine, the more than 100 cubic feet of cargo space! It was like any regular Joe living in the suburbs could suddenly buy his very own personal futuristic train! The car was a huge success, updated over the course of two more generations before its untimely end in 1977. Year to year, it was often Oldsmobile’s best-selling car, and we all know how it went on to become a part of American road history—so what happened?

A very, very bad number of years for General Motors is what happened. Until the early 1970s, GM was probably the most robust corporation in America, a thriving, downright imperious company of such gargantuan size and influence Ralph Nader described it as its own nation-state. But then, 1973 came along. As explained in a 1974 New York Times expose into the woes of the suddenly ailing organization, that year’s oil crisis hit General Motors worse than probably any other business in America, bringing it to its knees in a swift and dramatic fashion. GM had bet big on the large cars that defined American culture in the 1960s, and, in a major managerial oversight, carelessly failed to bolster its small cars division. When ’73 hit, though, drivers across the country were suddenly terrified to approach the pump, resulting in a thunderous crescendo of demand for vehicles with the smallest-possible footprint (it’s telling that the now-ubiquitous term “gas guzzler” was first coined during this time). “American-made” didn’t mean a whole lot all of a sudden—more fuel-efficient imports started to be increasingly attractive to the American consumer. General Motors was basically caught with its pants down.

The deep fault lines caused by the ’73 crisis (and the fuel market volatility that would continue into the 1980s) were worsened when the legislature issued the 1975 Energy Policy and Conservation Act, which marked the very first time the federal government would mandate vehicle fuel economy standards. The Vista Cruiser, the star of GM’s midrange fleet, with its big, thirsty V8 engines, would suddenly face a new set of manufacturing challenges in order to meet the new standards going into effect for the 1978 model year. And this wasn’t the only governmental hurdle GM had to clear. In 1971, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration put forward a bill introducing new roof crush standards—standards that almost no General Motors vehicles could meet. Though the final standards that would be effected in 1973 were less stringent than that first proposal, the whole process was worrisome enough that the famous, spaceship-style windowed “Vista Roof” ended up relegated to the history books: GM nixed that roof on models from ’73 on, and the once-visionary station wagon would never quite be the same.

In addition to all this meddling from Washington, GM was also going through its own internal hullaballoo at the time: the feds launched a tax fraud investigation into the company in 1977, and that same year, newspapers were breathlessly following certain class-action lawsuits filed against the carmaker: it turns out GM hadn’t been informing consumers that it was selling some of its Oldsmobiles with Chevy engines instead of their famous, brand-unique “Rocket” V8s (engine swapping might not raise any eyebrows in this day and age, but this was a huge scandal at the time). The picture was grim—and all these challenges just proved too much. In 1977, General Motors took the drastic decision to eliminate a whole swathe of its full-sized car fleet, the Vista Cruiser included. What had been a trusted mechanical steed for so many families no longer seemed like a safe bet in this uncertain new world.

So now that we know why General Motors took the ax to its most iconic station wagon, the time has come to list the reasons why the carmaker should bring it back!

Reason 1: It Was A Space-Age Marvel

Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser Station Wagon — Via: Hemmings Motor News

Station wagons were already de rigeur on American streets when the Vista Cruiser first hit the road in ’64, but there was something revolutionary about Oldsmobile’s design. It started with those unique, space-age windows in the raised roof (hence the “vista” in the model’s name), which were a huge selling point for the car. In ads from the ’60s, Oldsmobile stressed that the raised roof made extra room for ladies’ high-flying hairstyles as well as any hat-wearing passengers who might decline to remove their headwear for the ride, while the glass paneling (which included skylights over the second-row seats, which were also thoughtfully equipped with their own sun visors, and lateral windows along the roof over the back third row and rear cargo area) let those passengers gaze upon the natural wonders whizzing past them on the highway. The tinted glass was specially designed to let in light, but cut out glare and heat (though, admittedly, reviews were mixed as to whether or not the glass was that effective at the latter). The genesis of these pioneering, ultra-modern roof windows is the subject of much lore. We know that in 1947, GM designed a “Train of Tomorrow” whose cabins were equipped with upper-story glass observation deks; and in 1948, the Scenicruiser prototype bus created for Greyhound (an important GM customer) introduced the glass-paneled “Vista Dome” roof situated atop the vehicle’s middle and rear. There’s some dispute as to whether or not Oldsmobile designer Pete Wozena was specifically referring to these antecedents when he dreamed up the first iteration of the Vista Cruiser, but there’s no denying that its glamorous window-ringed roof shared the country-touring spirit of those then-mighty buses and trains.

Reason 2: It’s Surprisingly Powerful, And Drives Surprisingly Well

Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser 455 — Via: Car and Driver

One could be forgiven for looking at this battleship of a car (whose roomy interior could accommodate practically a whole football team) and assuming it would be a handling nightmare. But the fact is, according to a 1970 Car and Driver review of a tuned-up model from that year, the Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser station wagon was lauded by the nation’s top engineers as the most stable, best-handling vehicle of its class. “It goes, stops, steers, and handles like hell,” enthused the magazine, and “it is perfectly happy to turn a corner or stop at the end.” Not to mention, Oldsmobile equipped the Vista Cruiser with a V8 engine that only grew more powerful with the introduction of each new model; by 1970, one super-powered model was getting up to 400hp (and accelerating from 0 to 60 in a blazing six seconds!) on a mighty 7.5-liter engine borrowed from the brand’s iconic muscle car. And let’s not forget it had a race car’s sporty rear-wheel drive, unlike basically any other family vehicle, ever. AND, you could even get the car with a manual transmission! In fact, this family car was considered so mighty, in 1972, a small fleet of that year’s Vista Cruisers were modified to serve as support cars for the Indianapolis 500.

And that’s not even counting all of the many luxuries the station wagon’s interior had to offer, from its first-in-class front-facing third row of passenger seats to cup holders and sun visors galore, to the many other amenities that made a driver feel like they were cruising along in a Cadillac. C’mon, GM: Don’t American families still deserve to tote their kids to gymnastics with a trunkful of groceries in the back while still feeling like they’re joyriding a luxury sports car? Bring back the Vista Cruiser!

Reason 3: It’s An Essential Piece Of American Pop Culture

Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser station wagon in the film A Perfect World — Via: IMDB

If you had to distill the very spirit of America into the image of just one vehicle, you might, of course, think of a Ford Mustang, or maybe a Harley-Davidson chopper—or you just might think of an Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser station wagon. It’s that iconic. So iconic, there’s an entire IMCDB page devoted to the vehicle’s many appearances in TV and film. Perhaps most famously, of course, a 1969 Vista Cruiser was a character in its own right on the popular multi-season sitcom That ’70s Show, but it’s also been featured in so many other TV shows and movies, from National Lampoon’s Vacation to A Perfect World to Malcolm in the Middle to Everyone Hates Chris. It is the car representing the 20^th-century American middle-class family experience. Doesn’t it deserve to be back on the road?

NEXT: The Vista Cruiser: Here's Why We Miss This Classic Oldsmobile

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About The Author

Anne Cavaciuti (13 Articles Published)

Anne Caviacuti is a sport car enthusiast and professional journalist and editor based in New York City. Over the past fifteen years, Caviacuti has written for a wide range of news outlets and blogs in the US and internationally. She has degrees in literature and journalism, and professional certificates in editing from the University of Chicago. When she’s not busy restoring vintage automobiles or hitting up a car show, she can be found hiking with her dog.