By JERRY GARRETT
The New York Times

The drive from Henry Trulson's home to Moonlight Beach is just five miles, but his journey to the Wavecrest Woodie Meet, held at that beach in Encinitas, Calif., next weekend, actually began in 1965. That year, he bought his first wood-body station wagon, a 1948 Chevrolet Fleetmaster that he drove to high school - and, with his surfboard on board, to the beach.

Mr. Trulson said he fondly remembers that he paid $35 for the car. (It had a blown engine.) With less fondness, he remembers trading it a few years later for a stereo and some other trinkets, then spending the next 30 years regretting that swap and trying to find a replacement he could afford.

Mr. Trulson, a home inspector who lives in Carlsbad, near San Diego, has since settled on a 1948 Ford wagon, which he said has become more than a possession - it has shaped his lifestyle. A member of the National Woodie Club, he is chairman of the Wavecrest meet this year. He still surfs, too.

The show, which begins at 7 a.m. Saturday, brings together 300 woodie owners and their entourages to do what they always have: surf, cruise the beachfront in their cars, eat diner food and swap tales about how much they paid for their so-called termite traps.

"I learned to surf in Huntington Beach in the 60's, driving the 30 miles or so from West Covina in my woodie," Mr. Trulson said. "It was like living the movie 'The Endless Summer.' Just like it."

The 1960's not only gave rise to the surf culture, the decade left its permanent stamp on the carefree, sunny lifestyle, at least in the popular imagination. And the woodie became an essential part of the lore.

"A woodie was the perfect vehicle for a surfer," Mr. Trulson said, "because you could pick one up cheap. People had originally bought them in the 1930's and 1940's as utility vehicles. Mine came from Wyoming, where it had been a farm vehicle. I know that because there was prairie grass, weeds, seeds and leaves in the radiator - and hay and manure in the back!"

Automakers recommended that the wood framing and panels be sanded and refinished, or at least have a coat of marine varnish applied, every 6 to 12 months. Most owners could not be bothered.

"After a while, the owners would let the maintenance go on the wood, and they became too costly to restore," Mr. Trulson said.

The need for such frequent refinishing hurt the resale values of woodies, which were often the most expensive vehicles in a car line. Too much of an investment to abandon, but still mechanically sound, many sat unused for years.

Until, that is, bargain-hunting surfers started looking for them. Not only were woodies perfect for carrying 10-foot "longboards," they could be slept in. Perhaps just as important, the wood-framed sections would not rust away in the salt ocean air.

"You have to remember woodies were just the original station wagon," said Bob Solheim, a National Woodie Club director. "They were the original S.U.V., used at dude ranches, train stations, estates and so on, to haul people and luggage. In the 50's and 60's, they were just cheap used cars."

The wood bodies creaked, flexed and leaked, even when new. Held together by dowels, bolts and glue, an old woodie groaned so loudly going down the road it was difficult to hear the Beach Boys crooning surf tunes on the radio, Mr. Trulson said.

Wood has been an essential ingredient in cars, either as a structural material or for decorative purposes, since the early days of the industry. Indeed, the first cars were little more than wood carriages or coaches with engines attached. Wood was supplanted only as auto manufacturers learned how to better shape steel sheets into the complex contours of fenders, hoods and doors. Many vehicles were built entirely of steel by the 1930's but wagons retained their wood framing until 1948.

The next year, automakers started to simply bolt wood pieces onto steel bodies, a practice that lasted just a few years before man-made materials took over entirely.

The 1953 Buick Roadmaster and Super Estate wagons, with trim of white ash and insets of mahogany, were among the last vehicles to use real wood body panels. Other popular types were birch and maple.

"Hardwoods were necessary to give it structural integrity," Mr. Solheim said.

A popular misconception was that the wood was steamed to make it conform to the curves of car bodies. In fact, the curved swaths of wood over a wheel opening would usually be made of three or more separate boards stitched together with glued joints. This permitted a gentle arc in the finished piece while keeping the grain as parallel as possible to the body line.

Most wood car bodies were done by specialists who received bare chassis from carmakers. Manufacturers offering woodies with bodies by independent builders included all divisions of General Motors and Chrysler, Packard, Willys, Hupmobile, Graham, Hudson and Studebaker. A notable exception was Ford; in 1929, it started producing Model A woodie wagons manufactured entirely within its own factories - Ford even owned the forest. The 1953 Country Squire still featured birch exterior framing from Ford's own Iron Mountain, Mich., timber stands, but its fake woodgrain insets leave some collectors sneering that it is not a true woodie.

Wood framing and body panels were not exclusive to station wagons. Stylish sedans and even convertibles, like the Chrysler Town and Country and the Ford Sportsman, were produced after World War II.

Today, accessory companies offer complete woodie bodies, from the windshield back, for as little as $4,500. These recently made woodies seem to command nearly the same price that a well-maintained original can expect in today's collector market.

Even the owners of the garish faux woodies of the recent past, like a 1991 Buick Roadmaster, are welcome to join the National Woodie Club.

"You see them around these meets from time to time," Mr. Solheim said. "But they really have no value as collectible vehicles, and never will."

For the 2002 model year, Lincoln began producing the Blackwood pickup truck, a model based on an earlier design study. Among the attractions of the show truck were exterior panels of real wenge wood on the cargo bed. Late in the development process, plastic was substituted; engineers said they could not assure the wood's durability without maintenance by truck buyers. The no-wood Blackwood was a failure, canceled after just 4,000 trucks were sold.

"What a missed opportunity," Mr. Solheim said. "With real wood, they had a new American classic on their hands.

"I don't know why car companies never got this, but there's nothing like real wood."