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The Allure of Station Wagons
I freely admit that I haven’t been immersed in car culture for my entire life like some North American enthusiasts. My Dad always loved cars while I was growing up, during my life he’s owned a Capri, two Thunderbirds, a C320 and now a Mustang GT (not all at once), so you could say my life, especially when I was younger, was dominated by two door sports cars.
One thing we never had when I was growing up was a station wagon of some sort. Part of me wonders if that’s why I don’t understand the love that they get from enthusiasts of all ages, not just ‘old fogies’ but people of my generation and the younger generation. They all seem to love these station wagons. For the most part, without modifications, they’re slow, bulky, and don’t seem to handle well. Obviously there’s some exceptions to this rule but for the most part they’re just not a good overall example of performance and handling, but that’s not what they’re designed for right? They’re people carriers, grocery haulers, right?
Part of me wonders if it’s because of movies like National Lampoon’s Summer and Christmas Vacation, the family all piled into the car and driving across the country or driving to the middle of rural Illinois to cut down their own Christmas tree (or getting stuck beneath a logging truck.) Does it bring fond memories to the station wagon enthusiast of days hauling their families on vacation or being hauled on vacation?
Nowadays it’s rare to find a new car that could be called a station wagon, however we are seeing a lot of new ‘cross-overs’. First it was SUVs, a mixture of cars and trucks, and now cross-overs, a mixture of cars and vans that really seems, to me, to basically be a smaller version of a station wagon. A five-door hatchback that looks like someone stretched a regular car out. When the Mazda5 first came out I called it a station wagon and was widely booed for it by my circle of friends, but I maintain that’s basically what it is, depending on how you define the term ‘station wagon’.
There’s a good chance that I’ll never understand the allure of the station wagon, whether it’s because of how I grew up, distaste for station wagons and mini-vans was rampant in my household, or just because that’s not my preference. All that really tells me is something I already knew, which is that car culture is possibly more diverse than music enthusiasts. If there’s enthusiast groups for station wagons and Reliant Robins then there’s probably enthusiast groups for every kind of car out there, and really, despite my personal feelings, there’s nothing wrong with that.
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I grew up in the very back seat of my grandfather’s ’75 Caprice Estate wagon, which was awarded its own ZIP Code. Wagons now are just different. Either drive a car or a minivan, not any of the wagons pictured in this post.
All I want is a station wagon! And I am not alone! As a kayaking, camping, hiking, track and field enthusiast I want a vehicle that gives me plenty of storage, a space to sleep if necessary but more importantly that has a low profile that will make it easy for my to load my kayak or kayaks! I don’t want to huff and puff at the end of a 20 mile paddle just to get my gear up! I was all set to buy a Subaru in spite of the poor gas mileage and what did they do to the outback? Turned it into an SUV with a higher profile! so moving on to the VW, nice low profile, good MPG especially the TDI what do I hear from a mechanic friend who only works on foreign vehicles? “Stick with the Subaru” they don’t make VW’s like they used to, you ever seen a Subaru in my shop?” So I am left to wait till 2012 to see what Hyundai will do with their prototype. I don’t know what the designers are looking at but they are definitely missing a niche in the market for 50+ independent, adventure minded women!