Why buy an SUV when you could have a wagon? | My top 6 picks

calteg said:

06HHR (Forum Supporter) said:

Puts flame suit on:

I owned one of these once upon a time, in almost this exact spec. I miss it dearly, if I could find one in decent shape i'd snap in up in a heartbeat.  They are nicer than they look.  And will easily swallow an SR20DE drivetrain and the engine hoist I used to pull it. 

  

 

It's disgusting that a wagon thread went 10 replies without Volvo 240 being mentioned.

The SS version of the HHR has a few parts that are NLA, knocks them out of contention in my book

Here's my volvo 240 wagon 

In reply to buzzboy :

It was a 2001.  Subaru paid for the guaranteed to fail head gaskets, but declined to replace the clutch, which had the typical Subaru judder.  The car was painfully slow and got mid-20's mpg.

This one has served us exceptionally well for 5 years and 70k miles now.  Twin turbo V6 has plenty of power, can go from serene and calm to quite quick on its feet with the push of a button, plus it drives itself on the highway, and gets an avg of 25mpg, 28-30 all highway.  No real problems to speak of.  

Hard to imagine that lots of the now-classic muscle cars were also available as wagons.  Here are a couple that I wouldn't mind having around:

Wagon, you said?

docwyte said:

I love wagons, particularly fast ones and I've owned plenty in the past.  However, for me, SUV's have several advantages...

#1  I can drive over the berm of snow at the end of my driveway without ripping off my rear bumper cover

#2  Tow hitch for towing trailers, bike tray and motorcycle tray

#4  They weigh enough that I can take advantage of tax codes with my business, allowing me to buy a nicer, newer SUV vs a wagon.

Other than #4 you have described the best ever Wagon/CUV/SUV/? which is my Jeep XJ

The best car ever made! Period!

TravisTheHuman said:

I understand the argument for smaller SUVs also.  A lot of wagons in the first post are BIG.  The Lexus is 177" long, but all of the rest are longer than a Rav 4 (181") by varying amounts while also having a lot less interior volume.

Parking long cars sucks.

The rav4 interior volume is a bit misleading.  Adding cubic inches of space vertically is nowhere close to as useful for typical wagon-style cargo as adding it horizontally.

For the $10-20k category, I'd go E36 (and I did)...  The higher end of that range might just get you an S52 swapped car.  I've seen a few 318 Tourings go for under $10k in the last year...

buzzboy said:

My friend has(may be for sale with some tree damage!) 5.0/T56 swapped Volvo 960. That is a fantastic size and very fun wagon.

Oh, my! The want is tremendous! The need is even there!

But the financial ability, not so much 

I've had several. 
First was a Plymouth Suburban, two door wagon. Same color as this one. First year of the slant six, 3 on the column. 

 

I had two Chevrolet wagons. First was a 67 Impala, and a 77 Caprice Estate Wagon with the plastic woodgrain, of course.

A 95 Accord, two very different Subarus, an 85 with a two speed transfer case and part time four wheel drive, and a disappointing 04 WRX that was sold in six months. 
 

Still in the fleet is my very rare but not valuable 04 Lancer Ralliart wagon. 
 

I recently considered buying one of the last Honda wagons, the European Accord that was sold here as an Acura. For a few reasons, including my resolution to never buy another Honda with an automatic, it didn't happen.instead, we finally bought our first front wheel drive, unibody SUV. The wagon era is over. We've moved on. 

Okay but hear me and my stolen photo out:

If you slam an X5 or similar... you've basically got a Great Value brand wagon!

mainlandboy said:

It's a shame that there aren't more wagons on the road these days. Nice article, but I'd like to see what everyone's favorite choices would be in a $5k to $10k range. I always had a soft spot for the Accord wagons:

Yeah, $5-10k is a glaring omission here. If sticking with cars built in the last 20 years, my pick would probably be a Subaru Legacy with an H6 - these seem to have fewer head gasket issues, especially compared to the sort of history you're likely to have on a cheap WRX.

The Golf / Jetta wagon is nice and I nearly bought one, but you could only get the TDI with vinyl seats that wear out pretty quickly instead of cloth or leather.

Or skip the 20 year rule and grab a slant six Aspen or Volare - but it's hard to believe these are creeping up to $10,000 or more.

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

TravisTheHuman said:

I understand the argument for smaller SUVs also.  A lot of wagons in the first post are BIG.  The Lexus is 177" long, but all of the rest are longer than a Rav 4 (181") by varying amounts while also having a lot less interior volume.

Parking long cars sucks.

The rav4 interior volume is a bit misleading.  Adding cubic inches of space vertically is nowhere close to as useful for typical wagon-style cargo as adding it horizontally.

 

I dunno.  I would agree above a certain height, but bikes are a critical difference.  Can't do this in a wagon. 

Its one of the main reasons I would consider an SUV, even though I would prefer to drive a wagon.

I love the idea of slamming an SUV and making it a wagon, but with the exception of the older Foresters and CRVs, don't most of them have geometry that goes completely to E36 M3 when you do that?

Tom Suddard said:

Okay but hear me and my stolen photo out:

 

If you slam an X5 or similar... you've basically got a Great Value brand wagon!

Somewhere I have a photo of a slammed X5 like that–saw it in the flesh. Yeah, looked pretty cool. 

Slammed x5 look hot. I'm thinking of dropping mine if I can do it reasonably and not ruin the ride.

The Buick TourX should at least get an honorable mention, if for no other reason it's one of the last wagons available... until it wasn't!

In reply to slowTA :

The TourX is definitely on the honorable mention list–especially for the reasons you mentioned. Like the TSX Wagons, there was a time when I seriously shopped for one.

I'm still amazed that it was Buick that gave us one of the last wagons.

In reply to Rodan :

I'm highly interested in one of these, but worry about having to source euro only body parts, plus a rwd car isn't the best for running up to the mtn's skiing vs something with more ground clearance and awd.  I run snow tires on everything... 

Even though I grew up during the waning years of Great Station Wagon Era, my family never had one. Yet, oddly, since then my parents and I have both owned wagons. 

I've had a bunch of wagons, this is the current one - 1968 Plymouth Suburban 

In reply to David S. Wallens :

I had the opposite experience: I grew up in wagons. Two VWs (a 411 and a 412, I think), then a Ford Fairmont, an Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera, a Tercel AWD, and a Nissan Stanza AWD (somewhere between a wagon and a proto-SUV). After a brief dalliance with SUVs, my father went back to wagons with a succession of four VWs (Passat, Jetta TDI, Jetta, and Golf, the last three of which were all white and all suffered ignominious deaths).

I only bought my first wagon a couple years ago for whatever reason. In the cheap category, the V50 T5 is a good, if small, sporty option. Not as common as the contemporary XC70, at least around here, but lighter and more powerful. Pretty decent to drive, too.

This VW is local and does give off a vibe of a station wagon that has been inflated a bit, like DigDug got two pumps into but not the third that would blow it up.
 

I had one of these for about a year:

2005 Dodge Magnum RT. Sure the interior quality was laughable but it was supremely comfortable and the Hemi made great noises. I bought it in 2010 with 84k miles on it. I put a JBA cat back on and modified the traction control to be able to be turned completely off. Stupidly, I traded it in after about a year because I was concerned with the amount of miles on the transmission which is ironic because the transmission was probably the most durable part of the car. I really, really wish I would have kept it. I'd love to have another one but they are hard to find. Either they are $30k for a pristine SRT-8 or $3k for a ratty 2.7L turd.

Trent said:

This VW is local and does give off a vibe of a station wagon that has been inflated a bit, like DigDug got two pumps into but not the third that would blow it up.
 

 

That does look pretty cool.