This 1965 Dodge Coronet station wagon is one of four wagons owned by Bill Lininger, 74, of St. Marys.
Jim Krumel | For The Lima News
ST. MAYS – Bill Lininger owns 41 cars.
That’s right.
Forty-one.
“Twenty-eight of them are nostalgia drag racers,” the 74-year-old St. Marys man said. “The other 13 are all street legal.”
He drove his 1965 Dodge Coronet station wagon to the Happy Daz Cool Car Cruise-In recently in Lima.
That’s what may seem a little unusual about Lininger’s collection. For a guy growing up with a need for speed, and one who spent a good part of the 1960s and ’70s at Pences Drag Strip in Kettlersville, Ohio, and Shelby Raceway near Sidney, the favorite cars in his collection are station wagons.
It is easy to explain, he says.
“I grew up in a family of seven kids. Some of the best times I can remember back then were going here and there in a station wagon.”
What’s not so easy to do is to name all 13 of his street vehicles. He made an attempt at that while sitting with friends at the cruise-in, only to come up with 10.
“Are you sure you have 13, or is your mind going numb in your old age,” his friends teased.
“It’s 13,” Lininger retorted. “I just counted all my cars yesterday.”
For the record, he has a pair of muscle cars – a 1956 Corvette and a 1966 Pontiac GTO. There are four station wagons: a 1965 and 1966 Dodge Coronet, and a 1962 and 1963 Plymouth wagon. The addition of a 1965 Coronet hard top gives him five Chrysler products. He has four other Chevrolets: a 1962 Bel Air, a 1963 Biscayne, a 1963 Chevy and a 1938 Chevy. And there are two Willys.
What you won’t find in that collection are a station wagon with the fake wood on the side and anything made by Ford.
“I’ve had some Fords, but not now.” he said.
As for the fake wood on the side of a station wagon, he has a one-word answer.
“Never.”
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