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Rebirth, or Looming Fizzle? The Station Wagon Had a Pretty Good Year in 2018 In the absolutely superb 1949 war film Twelve O’Clock High, a doctor stationed at a U.S. Army Air Force base in WW2 England uses an interesting comparison when describing a character’s mental breakdown. “Have you ever seen a light bulb burn out? How bright the filament gets right before it breaks?” A similar phenomenon could be at work in a certain vehicle niche, one which gets more press than actual sales warrant. The lowly, reviled, and suddenly revered station wagon, now referred to in terms meant to dispel the stodgy family hauler image of decades past. Never mind that BMW just announced its 3 Series wagon won’t make a return trip from Europe. There’s wagons aplenty these days, and it’s this writer’s firm belief that you’ll never have a better change to bring home a competent non-light truck cargo hauler. It’s now or never. While wagon variants allow automakers to rack up additional sales of a given nameplate, the wagon community remains a small one. Loyal and passionate, but small. And what room there is for growth depends on your level of optimism. As Bloomberg notes, 2018 was a great year for wagon sales, simply because consumers suddenly found themselves with choice. Buick has the new Regal TourX, Jaguar has the new XF Sportbrake, Volvo has the tony V90 and V60, Mercedes-Benz has the dignified E 450 4Matic wagon and disgruntled AMG E63 S wagon, Audi has the A4 Allroad, and Volkswagen will still gladly sell you a modest Golf SportWagen. All of this choice resulted in a bigger niche than years past. Some 212,000 wagons left U.S. dealer lots in 2018, representing a 29 percent sales increase compared to five years earlier. Still, wagons amounted to less than 2 percent of the new vehicle market last year. That’s plug-in car territory. This group of buyers, described by Buick marketing director Sam Russell as “almost violently opposed to being mainstream,” doesn’t want to be seen driving an anonymous crossover. And let’s face it, it’s easier to sculpt a sexy wagon than a high-riding, bulbous crossover. Thing is, though, wagons sales are a slim wedge of the overall volume of a particular nameplate. As sedan sales falter, wagons, despite their snob appeal, won’t pick up enough of the slack. All a wagon can do is delay a model’s discontinuation, if we’re to assume today’s market shift continues uninterrupted. If sedans disappear from our streets, so too will wagons, despite wagons being a happy middle ground between sedans and crossovers. A sad situation, if the worst-case scenario comes to pass. While Bloomberg reports Buick’s TourX sales “increased steadily” over the past 12 months, Volvo’s gorgeous V90 is now available by custom order only, and Jaguar’s XF Sportbrake, while sultry, has to contend with the fact that no one’s interested in buying Jaguar cars these days. Even the brand’s crossovers can’t keep sales in the black. Despite the recent uptick in wagon interest and availability, it’s hard not to see this phenomenon as a tired light bulb valiantly burning its way towards destruction.

Many people know what a station wagon is. Basically, it is a sedan car with its roof extended towards the rear and the rear boot is usually replaced with a lifting tail door. The station wagon comes in two distinct design; a four door (the most common design that we get to see) and a two door which is also known as a shooting brake. Many automakers give unique names for their station wagon versions. For example, Volkswagen names their station wagons as Variants. Other than that, we have heard of other version names for station wagons such as estate, carryall, touring, sportwagon and etc. But the most common names used are the station wagon, estate and shooting brake. If you are wondering how these 3 names come about, then read on. Back in the early era of the automotive industry, the first station wagons people got to see were the wooden-bodied Ford Model Ts and at that time there were known as

This may be quite a shock to some die-hard Ferrari fans, but Ferrari is preparing an estate version of one of their cars for the Geneva Motor Show in March this year. It is said to be based on the 612 Scaglietti and it is meant to give the mighty 612 one last hurrah before production ceases as the model is approaching the end of its life at Maranello. This is not the first time Ferrari has tried to put their heads together to make an estate version of one of their cars. They've tried it before to satisfy their wealthy Middle-Eastern customers and the Sultan of Brunei who bought a 456 GT based Pininfarina designed shooting brake. This design has been taken care of by Fiat Group design boss and ex-Pininfarina head Lorenzo Ramaciotti and the sudden decision to create this estate V12 model (which has not been officially named yet) is apparently to 'see how far Ferrari can stretch its brand away from traditional supercars', in other words, ruining it!! I cannot believe that Ferrari, the marque that has steered clear of being a practical supercar for donkey years now has finally joined the bandwagon of Maserati, Porsche, and Aston Martin to create something 'practical' for the 'family man' who still wants to drive fast and have all that 'look at me!' attention seeking idiocy. Frankly I think it looks nothing like a Ferrari should, even though this is just an early render from AutoExpress, but it just looks so confused. A bit of a California, the grille of a 612, shaped like a 612 but with the back of a Punto! If this is meant to be the 612's successor, I think it'll be a massive failure. Who knows, the Panamera looks hideous but its selling like hotcakes. I wonder why. I guess Ferrari still has hope!