Station Wagons

Saab

At various times in automotive history, the humble station wagon has been both very popular, and very unpopular. Way back when, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and the minivan and SUV hadn't been invented yet, the family station wagon was the way to haul people and stuff. Of course plenty of children survived riding in the back of the family pickup truck too, but with the station wagon those kids could stay dry in the rain!

Audi

There aren't a LOT of station wagons being made today, but they really do exist. Personally I would prefer a Clark Griswold woody version like the car in the National Lampoon Vacation movie, just to score more geeky driver points, but there are some other worthy cars out there too. Not common in the US is the Jaguar estate, with "estate" being a fancy English word used for those who can't be bothered to spell "Station Wagon." Maybe there is some history to the Station Wagon term, but since I don't feel like Googling today, I'm just going to guess that it's a hand-me-down descendant from the Wild Wild West and stagecoaches. Or stage coaches that rode from station to station, and since they were wagons, well, there's got to be a station wagon in there somewhere. 

Ford

OK, I lied about looking it up! The station wagon term probably comes more from the train stations and the wagons or carts that were used to move luggage and other bits of stuff around. I kind of like the Wild Wild West version with stagecoaches, but who said life is fair? Regardless, you can read more on the term station wagon and "shooting break" from our funny friends over at Jalopnik.com at this link: why-is-it-called-a-station-wagon

Audi

Yesterday's Cars and Coffee offered these station wagons, ranging from a current Audi wagon that's been lowered or bagged, a Ford Taurus that was turned into a wagon (at least I think that's where it came from), and an awesome Saab wagon. The one cool thing about old station wagons like the one my friend Tom had in high school was that they generally came with giant motors, so you didn't have to worry about not much power back in the 70s.