Many of us took a look at the DOTS '56 Willys Station Wagon and imagined ourselves tearing through the woods or desert in such a fine specimen of vintage off-road machinery. Thing is, parts are getting tricky to find for these proto-SUVs, trickier even than fitting a Super-Fructo Distendo-Abdomen™ five-gallon soft-drink bucket into an undersized European cup holder. What you need is a parts car! That's why you'll be overjoyed to find this pair of Willys Station Wagons, a '51 and a '58, for the survivalist-friendly price tag of one thousand dollars (or a bit more than an ounce of gold, for those of you who fear the Trilateral Commission/Federal Reserve cabal and their so-called "currency"). One of them has a complete-looking Tornado 6-banger (and is "Tornado" one of the best engine names ever or what?), and both have at least half their components; you might even find enough unrusted parts to assemble one good body! Oh yeah, and with a Willys Station Wagon, you don't use a goddamn cup holder for your drink of kiddie sugar-water- you use a canteen full of manly swamp water!

But let's say the SUV/cup holer stigma is so powerful that it manages to taint even such an excellent motor vehicle as the Willys Station Wagon (impossible, but just for the sake of argument). You want cars for your Two-For-One Hell Project, do you? Step right up for this Mercedes/Pontiac deal, folks! For a very optimistic- yet subject to relentless downward negotiating pressure- price tag of $4,000, you could have a 1958 Pontiac "Fire Chief" (we're assuming it's actually a Star Chief or Super Chief) and a 1962 Mercedes-Benz 220. The Benz "has not run in a few years," but we're talking about a car that's just getting broken in at 500,000 miles! How hard could it be to get this Heckflosse rolling again? It's in Reno, so maybe rust isn't a problem... in fact, think of all the things that might not be problems here! Then, once you've finished getting your Mercedes-Benz into perfect condition, you can look forward to many happy decades weeks working on your '58 Pontiac. It "needs engine and rearend," which doesn't make it clear whether you get any rebuildable components. That won't matter, however, because you'll be building up a monster Tri-Power 421 with the biggest, shiniest blower your food money can buy sticking through the hood, and the factory differential might as well be carved from Velveeta when it comes to dealing with all that power. OK, so this project might cost a few bucks, but your Mercedes will give you the requisite feeling of wealth to keep the stress down.

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

Just look at that handsome lump of bulging, muscular Americana (on the right). You know the story by now. The Interceptor is a four-door Mustang (no matter what Ford says and then denies). Which means it's a rear wheel drive sedan powered by a torquey V8. We like this fact so much that us bothering to explain why is a waste of our collective breath. We also enjoy the aggressive, battering ram design, even though the big Ford 4-door looks a little too much like last year's Super Chief Mega-Truck. Looks? Why are we talking about looks? FoMoCo — can you drop the TwinForce Turbo in this sucker and paint it black? Oh screw it; we want our 500hp Supercharged Shelby Interceptor and we want it now. With the stripes. – Jonny Lieberman

Related:
Detroit Auto Show Preview: Ford's Non-Mustang Mustang-Platformed Interceptor Concept [Internal]

"NEEEEON KNIIIIIIIGHTS! NEON KNIIIIIIAAAI-IIAGHTS!" Okay, now that we've got that out of our system, we thought we'd mutter a bit about Plexineon, the lighting system used on the Ford Super Chief Concept. Full disclosure: while one of the Super Chief's design engineers totally went off on us for not calling her before we'd even managed to arrange a date, we still like the truck, and we thought the lighting appointments were pretty cool (a part of the vehicle she had nothing to do with, although we very much liked the part of the vehicle she did work on).

The lights, with the exception of the headlights, were all part of iLight's LED-based Plexineon technology, which allows the look of neon without the annoying hum and fragility. In fact, the stuff's designed to last the life of the vehicle. Which in the Super Chief's case should end around the time of the Los Angeles Auto Show this November.

iLight Making Inroads in Cars [Chicago Sun-Times]

Related:
Atchison, Topeka Santa Fe and Detroit: The Ford Super Chief Introduced [Internal]

We're up too early, and somehow David Johansen's transition from NY Doll to Buster Poindexter and back again, as well as his role in Mr. Nanny (the actor who played the protagonist in that film, by the way, owns a vintage Charger), makes us think of Ford's end-swap in design directions. As our pal Ray pointed out to us last night, the "Gilette look" has been officially internally named; it's now known as "Modern Styling." While we think the Super Chief was pretty damn cool and find the Reflex interesting, the blandness in naming of such a sea change in identity suggests that while there are some creative people over at Ford, the folks at the top are officially out of ideas. Sad, really.

Ford's new design identity: The European look is dead [Automotive News]

Related:
Ford's Biggie Smalls: Concepts From Pasadena Students May Point to New Entry-Level Cars [Internal]