Station Wagon questions

With the current trend is CUV/SUV and 4 door hatchback. What are your opinions as what is station wagon and what is not?

What does it take for a 4 door hatch to be a station wagon?
Is the Outback a Wagon?
Dodge Journey? Ford Flex?

 

All "crossovers" and SUVs are really just macho station wagons. 99.9% of them never go offroad unless the driver accidentally backs over the landscaping on the way out of the driveway.

 

I know this has been discussed a number of times on here before. In my opinion, a station wagon is car based and has proper rear cargo area. There are varying degrees of this of course and sometimes it just comes down to appearance. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it must be a duck...
A four door hatchback is exactly that. A hatchback.
My Freestyle is (again, in my opinion) a wagon. It does have a rear hatch. But it has a proper rear cargo area. Many folks however refer to their Freestyles as SUVs. As if there is a stigma in calling something a wagon.

The Outback is a wagon. The Flex is a wagon. The Magnum was a wagon. The new Buick is a wagon. Volvo still offers one and I believe Mercedes still offers a wagon, but I'm not certain.

I am thinking that I would like to replace our Ford Freestyle in a few years. I want a wagon style vehicle and my wife wants something with 3 rows. She doesn't want a full-size SUV (doesn't want something that big) so that eliminates most of the available options. Unfortunately there are very few wagons available on the market right now.

The Flex is a natural choice, unfortunately my wife doesn't care for the styling. I refuse to buy a Subaru, the Magnum (though I would love to have one) would be a lateral move at best considering their age and I don't have the coin to purchase a Buick.

So what's a wagon loving family guy to do in this day and age of the SUV/wanna be SUV (crossover)?

 

So is this a hatchback or a wagon?

 

OK, is this Nissan a wagon?



How about now?

 

A wagon.

 

Nope and nope.

 

I have always thought of a wagon as model option of a line within an offering of 4 door, and or coupes that have body simularity but the wagon offers a continuous roof and load floor vs trunk. Like the Magnum even though it’s a hatch type rear door, it’s as much a wagon as a ‘73 Buick Century with the same lift tailgate. That’s my simple answer. I know there are probably more answers to what denotes a wagon, but the above covers 99.4% of wagons I like. Lol

 

I'm not suggesting that a wagon can't have a one-piece tailgate - my 62 F-85 has exactly that. My point on the Magnum is that if you simply made the hatch straight from the hinge point to the bumper instead of having a kink in it, you'd call it a hatchback.

 

That probably falls in the area that denotes what a wagon is. I just also considered it cause is is a continuous roof off of a 300 body style.

 

Well, since the thing that apparently makes the Magnum a "wagon" is the shape of the hatch, that is why I showed the two pictures of the Nissan. Same car, one has a "hatchback-shaped" hatch and one has a "wagon-shaped" hatch. What's the difference between that and the Magnum?

 

I think it comes down to two things. Personal opinion being one and the other being intent. What was the original intent of the designers? Were they trying to make a station wagon? Or were they trying to make something else? I can look at a Magnum and see that it was designed to be a modern day station wagon, just like a Mercedes E class or a Volvo V70. They weren't trying to build a crossover or a hatchback, or a cross-hatch. Yes, the rear cargo opening of that particular model goes into the roof. To me that has no bearing on what type of car it is. But that is where the personal opinion comes in.

 

Well I guess it would also help to see literature there was on this Nissan, and if they called it a wagon. I have Wagon Brochures and they certainly use the word wagon. Did Nissan call this a wagon. Whether it is or not is above my pay grade. I guess to my original post, this might also fall into the .6% of wagons that I don’t follow, or want to figure out what their gender is.

 

The problem with car classifications is that manufacturers keep building cars that seem to intentionally not fit in them. Accord Crosstour for example. The whole "Crossover" category exists because of this, and in some cases I would say the classifications are not mutually exclusive.


To me it is really the proportions that determines it.

If the roofline is too high, it is an SUV/CUV. If the roofline is too short it's no longer a wagon.

 

That's a really small Ute with a canopy...