For $100K, this LTD Family Truckster replica must be “a damn fine automobile”

As jaw-dropping and mind-boggling as we find Vacation’s original Wagon Queen Family Truckster, we’re struggling even more to make sense of the $100,100 that someone paid for a 1981 Ford LTD custom wagon Truckster re-creation at Barrett-Jackson’s Palm Beach auction last weekend.

True, the replica may be “a damn fine automobile,” but more than likely there’s truth in the assertion that “You think you hate it now… wait until you drive it.” Even if Chevy Chase himself bought the wagon with plans to drive his family from Chicago to Walley World, $100K for a modified ’81 LTD seems a tad high. Wait, did Steve McQueen own it? No? OK, there goes that theory.

“It looks like a very well-done replica, but that’s a ridiculously high price regardless,” says Hagerty valuation editor Andrew Newton. “And we thought $45,000 for a 1974 LTD Country Squire Wagon at Amelia Island (Gooding & Company) was crazy money for an LTD.”

Painted in Hollywood-correct Metallic Pea and decked out with wood paneling and eight headlights, the ’81 LTD is certainly true to the film. In fact, it may be the best Family Truckster replica we’ve ever seen. Still not enough to shell out one thousand Benjamins.

Needless to say, that’s a record price for an LTD, one that Newton predicts “won’t be broken any time soon—unless the real one is out there somewhere.” It’s enough to make Aunt Edna turn over in her… luggage rack.