At the Ford Motor Company in 1951, the age of the beloved wood-bodied station wagon came to an end.

By 1951, the traditional woody station wagon was already an anachromism. Willys-Overland introduced an all-steel wagon in 1946, Crosley in 1948, and the giants General Motors and Chrysler switched from wood to steel in 1949. Meanwhile, Ford continued to produce its popular woodys, their bodies constructed at the company’s remote Iron Mountain plant in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (above).

Henry Ford himself had launched the facility back in 1920, just a few miles from the Wisconsin border, acquiring 430,000 acres of timberland. With the Iron Mountain plant, Ford became he most prolific producer of hardwood-bodied station wagons. While other automakers often outsourced their woody wagons, Ford produced its own bodies at Iron Mountain, complete minus interiors, which were then sent to Ford assembly plants for completion.

The ’49-’51 wagons used significantly less wood than previous Ford woodys—the photo above provides a good view of the construction  The one-piece roof pressing and inner body structure were steel from Dearborn, while the outer door and quarter panels were mahogany framed with Michigan birch or maple. These wooden panels were pressure-bonded together using a proprietary Iron Mountain process.

Due to this hybrid construction, some purists maintain that the previous ’41-’48 models were the last true Ford woodys. But clearly, this can’t be called conventional steel construction by any means, so we’ll offer that these ’49-’51 wagons were the final, final woodys. By the way, Mercury station wagons in these years used the same bodies.

While the 1951 Ford wagon was a throwback in its construction, down to the externally mounted spare tire, it was thoroughly modern in other ways. The Fordomatic automatic transmission became available that year. Three-row seating was provided, but access to the seats was limited as the only body style was a two-door. While the ’51 wagon was the last of its kind, it was also a first with the introduction of the Country Squire model name.

While woodys were admired for their distinctive style, it’s a little surprising that the form of construction hung on as long as it did. Wood bodies were not terribly quiet or durable, and they were costly to build, too, as reflected in the retail pricing. At $2,029, the wagon was the most expensive body style in the Ford lineup for 1951.

Still, Ford managed to produce more than 29,000 wagons in 1951, outselling the all-steel Chevy wagon by 5,000 units. But for the 1952 model year, wagon production was moved to Wayne, Michigan, near Detroit, and the Iron Mountain property was sold off to the makers of Kingsford charcoal. The ’52 wagons were entirely steel—their only wood was in the decorative framing.