Family Truckster

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The Wagonqueen Family Truckster is a station wagon created specifically for the comedy National Lampoon's Vacation. The Truckster is a Ford LTD Country Squire station wagon with a modified front end and a "metallic pea" paint job.

"Vacation's" producers and actors deliberately designed it as an absolutely ridiculous and disgusting station wagon. The Truckster featured overdone wood paneling, eight headlights (four on each side in a rectangular cluster), a grille area largely covered by bodywork having only two small openings close to the bumper, (similar to that of a 1982 Oldsmobile Toronado) a separate oil cooler grille (but had no oil cooler), large chrome hubcaps with an obnoxiously large "Wagonqueen" logo in the middle, a badly-placed gas tank access door (in the hood), a dull brown cotton interior, and a very poorly built engine. The car also had an airbag made out of a household trash bag, before airbags were a required feature of cars.

Clark and his son Rusty go down to the fictional Lou Glutz Motors at the movie's beginning and trade in their old station wagon, an Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser, for an unnamed Antarctic Blue Sports Wagon, with a C.B. radio and "The Rally Fun-Pack". The salesman Ed (played by Eugene Levy) attempts to fool Clark into buying the Truckster (because their lot is packed with unsold Trucksters, as the viewer can see at the beginning of the scene) by telling him the car he really wants hasn't come in yet. When Clark asks for his old car back, the dealership has it crushed. We don't see any more of the dealer again, but we can assume Clark bought the car out of desperation; he tells his wife it was "a great deal".

As the film progesses, the car is subjected to a large amount of abuse:

• In East St. Louis, the hubcaps are stolen and "Honky Lips" is spray-painted on the side. Clark then falls asleep at the wheel and nearly wrecks the car, only to (by luck) spin out and stop in a motel parking lot.
• At the first stop for gas, Clark accidentally rips off the rear license plate (thinking that the gas cap was behind the license plate).
• In Arizona, Clark gets lost en route to the Grand Canyon, and is too busy arguing with Ellen ("Jesus, it's only the biggest goddamn hole in the world") to realize the road is closed. He then drives the car off the road's end at high speed, flies through the air, and almost destroys it, blowing all the tires, bending the axles, and obliterating the front end. He is able to get the car towed, but instead of receiving a properly repaired car, he gets four bald tires and is robbed of all his money by the garage manager, who also happens to be the dishonest county Sheriff.

At the end of the closing-credits photo montage, Clark, Ellen, Rusty, and Audrey are seen flying home in an airplane, suggesting that they got rid of the truckster after the events of the film. In the sequal National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, the Griswolds drive a Ford Taurus wagon designed to replicate the truckster.

Several fans of the movie have created reproductions of the Family Truckster, and some may be seen at car shows and similar events. The only Truckster that survived filming is currently sitting in a museum.