There in the back, hiding quietly behind the old chairs, the boogie board, the lawn tractor, and the fender sits a proud 1952 Chevrolet Styleline Deluxe Wagon, one of 12,756 built that year, a true blue Tin Woodie in the raw. This wonderfully patinaed wagon is for sale right now here on Facebook Marketplace, for an $8,000 asking price in Huntington, West Virginia.

Tin Woodies in their final finished forms come in every variation from stock to wild custom.  This particular car is advertised to have only 40,000 miles on it before it was parked and it is a good candidate for either end of the classic car spectrum.  There is some rust at the bottom of the tailgate; other lower body areas are hidden from view.  But if you’re looking very closely, you can see the remnants of the “wood” décor that seem to be rusting right along with the rest of the car, something wood doesn’t do.  The success in producing these cars was not actually using wood at all—the “wood” areas were painted with a base coat and then a laminate film developed by 3M called “Di-noc” was applied like decoupage or somewhat like wallpaper.  The “decal” was soaked in liquid and applied to the base painted metal.  A little rust, maybe, over time but no wood decay from exposure to the elements like more ancient woodies that actually did use hardwoods abundantly in the build of the car.  Di-noc is still in use today with hundreds of wood patterns developed over the decades as seen here. The bumper, tailgate handle, and single rear tail light housing seem intact and in decent condition.

The seller claims that this running 235 c.i. straight-six engine is ready to install in the car. Research on 1952 Chevy Wagons suggests that this car originally came with a 216.5 cui six-cylinder engine coupled to a three-speed manual (on the tree) transmission, contrary to the posting’s claim of an automatic. Probably not a numbers matching car, although there is no mention of verification either way from the post.  Queries to the seller prior to this posting were not returned in time.

Hatch doors seem to be operating with decent looking latches and supports. The side trims are missing on the front fenders and though many 1952 Tin Woodies have lobster-eye taillights at the side/rear haunches of the car, there are none here and no evidence of holes.  The exterior patina of this ’52 is even and maybe a good candidate for slammed and patinaed finished stylings.  The five-tooth bumper with its turn signal lamps is seen in here as well as some pretty impressive-sized boxes of who-knows-what but likely Tin Woodie components.

The interior dash looks completely stock and in good condition (no radio).  The knobs and steering wheel suggest that this car was built with Deluxe trim.

Final analysis: a sweet garage find, mostly intact and ready for whatever direction the artist wants to take it. For an idea of what can be done to one of these Tin Woodies, take a look here at what a $51,995 asking price finished car looks like.  Pretty good inspiration right there. See where the “Deluxe” chrome mark would ordinarily be found is missing. Notice that the rear fender well gravel guards are intact. For a little further inspiration and a comment about the rarity of this car, consider that the number of Tin Woodies manufactured in 1952 represents only 1.5% of Chevy’s impressive production of more than 825,000 passenger cars that year. This is one of those great garage find cars where we can only repeat, incomplete encouragement: “OK, Picasso, here you go.”