Great comment from the Jalopnik QOTD, “What Modern Car Will You Have to Explain to Your Kids?” I had no idea the Passat W8 engine existed. Could the same idea be applied to 2 red-blocks?
Assuming I find a woman desperate/masochistic/imbalanced/whatever enough to settle down and raise a family with (I think I have better chances of growing a third arm at this point.), the resultant offspring would probably be most puzzled by the Volkswagen Passat W8 Wagon.
The conversation would probably go something like this:
Kid: Daddy, what’s that car in the picture?
Me: Well sport/princess, that’s a Volkswagen Passat W8 Wagon.
Kid: What’s the W8 mean?
Me: It was basically two overlapping V4s driving a common crankshaft.
Kid: Why?
Me: So they could cram eight cylinders under the hood longitudinally and still have room for the all-wheel-drive system.
Kid: But if it was all-wheel-drive and the back was shaped like a box, why not just buy a crossover or something?
Me: Well, some people – including your old man – preferred proper station wagons because they usually handled better and got better fuel economy. Even better when they were available with manual transmissions like this.
Kid: You mean flappy paddles?
Me: No, you had to move the gear lever up or down and left and right while lifting off the gas and pressing down on the clutch pedal to change gear.
Kid: Wow, driving one of those must have been a lot of work. Good thing the government outlawed cars that can’t drive themselves.
Me: Go to your room.
Kid: But-
Me: DON’T “BUT” ME, YOUNG MAN/LADY, GO TO YOUR ROOM!
*Kid runs off crying*
Wife: How can you be that way to our son/daughter?
In the wet dream of Bob Lutz, the 2010 Cadillacs are a multi-stage rocket blasting across the salt flats under the watchful eye of the NASAesque GM launch team. The new CTS Sportwagon bursts forth as the first stage in a cycle that ends with a new coupe.
Over the Thanksgiving holiday I had the please to read Chuck Closterman’s “Eating the Dinosaur“. In it he talks of how, as a culture, we’ve come to accept the lies that the advertising media presents us, and the fact that we don’t take things literally. The media business knows this, and presents products to us with the knowledge that we don’t take them seriously. Advertisers moved from presenting their clients products factually to evoking an impression to the subconscious of how a consumer will feel when they buy their product. We’re at a point now where we know it’s all lies, so advertisers can just present any hyperbolic scenario and know that we won’t think they’re presenting truth; it’s just stuff that looks cool blowing up! Therefore, we get a 264hp V6 station wagon being compared to a rocket burning hundreds of gallons of fuel each second to achieve earth orbit.
BONUS: The first few seconds of this Cadillac ad show a woman grinning as she drives a new SRX. I was pleasantly surprised to recognize Paula Merritt, a woman I knew briefly a couple years ago through a friend in Brooklyn. She used to play drums for Grandma’s Boy (now Bad Girlfriend) before moving to LA to further her modeling career. Looks like she’s doing well. Way to go Paula!
The Truth About Cars lays waste to the 2010 Outback, claiming it’s moved from being a cool off-road wagon into a cookie-cutter CUV. The last redesign was in 2005 and looked handsome and relatively sleek; not quite as sexy as the Legacy Wagon but still cool. Now it just looks chunky and clunky. Let’s hear what TTAC has to say:
Towering more than four inches higher than its predecessor, spanning two inches more across the beam, standing another awkward inch higher off its tires, the new Outback looks—IS huge. The super-chunk roof rails are grossly exaggerated (until you discover the trick design that allows the crossbars to disconnect and swing 90 degrees to find residence integrated in the longitudinal rails). The rear quarter view screams “Venza!”—which is like shouting “movie” in a crowded firehouse. Curiously, there wasn’t a Tribeca on the showroom floor. Cannibalism avoidance? Either that or the former “flying vagina” was hidden by the swollen Outback.
…
The Outback’s ergonomics couldn’t be further from Audi’s if they were designed by Daewoo. Every button on the Outback’s dash now requires reading glasses, a precise finger, and a map. Twin Big Gulps and a swollen armrest bin take precedence over the handbrake, which has been demoted to a tiny button buried left of the steering column amidst a myriad of other tiny, illegible, and obstructed switches for stability control, external mirrors, trunk release, and a bunch of curious blanks. To compensate, the twin steering column stalks are chunkier. Thanks. So much.
The Ghostbusters wagonhearse ambulance was for sale yesterday on eBay. Final bid was $45,100, which didn’t reach the reserve for this 1959 Caddy. So you’ll have a chance next time.
This almost-a-convertible-not-quite-an-El-Camino wagon was created by Studebaker on the Lark station wagon body. The retractable roof was built into the rear to allow tall cargo to be transported upright. From the ad above, I assume this meant your fishing poles, or your daughter, but I’m sure there were other ways to get them into a converntional wagon.
Any owner of a 240 with a sunroof can guess what problems arose from the Wagonaire’s retractable roof; it leaked like a sieve. Although Studebaker fixed this problem in later years, the model was doomed to a production run of 3 years and open air rear styling for wagons never caught on.
Lawrence Ulrich, the self described “pro-wagon” auto critic for the NY Times, spends almost a third of his Audi Q5 review today analyzing the state of the American station wagon:
There’s no longer any debate or any doubt: Americans hate station wagons. Deep down, they still love and want their S.U.V.’s, even if most of these are now marketed as crossovers, a politically soothing yet increasingly pointless distinction.
Car companies foreign and domestic have learned that the best way to stumble in this market is to design and market a station wagon, no matter how practical, sporty or affordable. (Make an exception for Subaru and its wagon fanatics.) The best way to succeed is to offer a decadent, overweight would-be S.U.V. that looks bulky and capable but is mostly used for mall reconnaissance; even a weekend trip with two parents and two children can overwhelm the cargo-carrying ability of the typical downsized, do-little luxury crossover.
He pulls out the sales figures for European wagons to prove it:
Audi sold nearly 21,000 of its big Q7 crossover in 2007, compared with barely 2,800 of its sprightly A4 Avant wagon and just 758 of the larger A6 wagon.
…the BMW X3 crossover outsold the hotter-performing, higher-mileage 3 Series wagon by better than 10 to 1.
…Even Volvo’s wagon sales were halved when it introduced its XC90 crossover.
In stating that “The Dodge Magnum and Mazda 6 wagon are two recent examples of conventional wagons that critics loved and consumers rejected,” he highlights an American phenomenon I find difficult to understand.
Capriceshop.com has an image collection of modified Chevy Caprice and Buick Roadmaster wagons that looks pretty bad ass. These huge sleds have acres of trunk space, are rear-wheel-drive and are one of the last American wagons, becoming extinct in 1996 when SUVs took over the market for gigantic, gas-guzzling family cruisers.
Jalopnik reports that Honda will be selling an Accord wagon in the US, similar to the European Accord Tourer pictured above. But it’s not a wagon, It’s a “CUV”. Whatever you call it, it looks pretty sweet.
Jalopnik