May 19: Love those wagons

Thank you, Volvo. Once again the good ol' wagonmaster has risen from (almost) the ashes and with its Chinese owner at the helm is producing great new cars and suvs. More importantly, as before they are selling their wagons in North America. Just look at the beautuful lines on the V90 above and the smaller V60 below. Gorgeous. Who needs an suv?

Of course, this is North America, so because these two are wagons, their appeal is limited to those few folks who haven't drunk the suv Kool-Aid. As I've said before, there are a few people who understand that a wagon is a great vehicle, very practical (hate that term), but more importantly to me and should be to you, they look great and handle like a car. So, Volvo has the guts to try to sell a real station wagon to us folks on this side of the Atlantic. But even Volvo is aware of the suv tide and offers both of these models in an suv kind of vehicle, the XC (for cross country)........

Raise them up a couple of inches and add those charcoal fender flares and voila', here is a bona fide suv, at least in the minds of those suv-centric folks, like this happy lass above, who feel that a regular wagon is beneath them or won't do the job. Strange, since even the normal Volvo wagons are all-wheel drive.

Another question. Why is it that with one exception, only the premium brands attempt to sell us a station wagon?

Mercedes has done this for years and have given us one wagon from their varied assortmant available in Europe. Ok, so they sell a few wagons here, but even Benz are not stupid, so seeing an opportunity, they will soon be selling us a raised wagon like the Volvo, the All-Terrain........

Even Audi gave up on their wagons over here a few years ago. For a while in the '80's and '90's, they actually moved quite a few of these sensible vehicles. Now, using the Volvo trick, they have brought back the Allroad.......

.......because a regular wagon, like this blue one, on which the Allroad is based, just didn't cut it over here.........

Why are we so stuck on those suvs? It's not because they have that much more room for stuff, because compared to these wagons they don't. They also aren't much, if any, more capable. The other question is, why with one exception, are only the premium brands even trying to sell a wagon over here? Thanks to Volvo, Mercedes and BMW for having a real station wagon in their line up and at that, the latter two only have one each.

And now to that one exception. The wagon for those poor unfortunate folks, who cannot spend into the stratosphere for their daily transportation, the VW Golf Sportwagon............

But even VW are not stupid (putting aside their decision to screw around with their diesels), so they too have seen the suv light and just last year have modified their the Sportwagon into this Alltrack........

All because, us North Americans believe a vehicle like this denotes a certain amount of cool. I mean, can there be any other reason for this change?

Now Buick is planning to bring the Opel Insignia to us in wagon form.......

Gorgeous, but quite frankly are they nuts? Caddy couldn't sell their beautiful CTS wagon, so why in the world does GM think that this Buick wagon will crank up their sales? Good question. But of course, there will be another version of this model........

Yes, you guessed it.........slightly raised and with those ubiquitous fender flares. Will it sell? Not sure, but knowing our market, it has one heck of a lot better chance than its wagon sibling.

Am I a lost soul crying in the wilderness with no one to hear me? Hey, folks, give your head a shake and take a step back to those days of yore, when a wagon was a smart choice as a family vehicle. Back in the day, the station wagon was usually the most expensive vehicle in the line, so there was a certain amount of status, if you had the top model. Can those days ever reappear or am I dreaming in technicolour?

You decide, but I already know the answer.

Until next time.......