Evaluation

When people purchase station wagons, the beauty of the car is not their primary interest, as it might be if they were purchasing a car for less practical reasons. In fact, many automotive design engineers have expressed dislike for most station wagons because they weren't like sports cars and sedans. "They [station wagons] just didn't look like cars," said one engineer (Roberts). In any case, their extreme popularity showed that consumers weren't as interested in the car's aesthetic quality as in their convenience and usefulness. In recent years, station wagons have come to look more sporty, as demonstrated by the restyling of the Ford Taurus Wagon for 1996 (Dunne 46). (there will be an image of a taurus somewhere in here.) In the fifties, station wagons even acquired the fins that other, more fashionable cars had. In 1955, the Chevrolet Nomad wagon was named the most beautiful new car of the year (Hine 91). In earlier years, the bodies of station wagons were made entirely of wood, and the fake wood paneling of many station wagons today is carried over from that era (Holcombe).

Station wagons are equipped with five doors so that loading and unloading cargo is easier. The fifth door, which doesn't exist on sedans, is located on the back of the car, and it serves basically as a trunk lid does on a sedan. Often, the door's window can open separately from the door, so if something doesn't quite fit into the cargo bay, part of it can stick out of the window opening. Here is a photograph from a Ford advertisement for the 1937 Ford Station Wagon that demonstrates the amount of room station wagons have. Station wagons seem to perform fairly well, as the Taurus wagon shows by being the best selling car in America (Dunne 46). They have a good reputation, and American consumers remember that.

The early eighties brought the station wagon's closest competitor to the American market with the minivan. As these small versions of recreational vehicles are becoming better and more affordable, the popularity of station wagons is slowly declining. More and more car companies are producing their own versions of minivans. Chrysler was the first company to introduce the minivan to the American commercial market with their Caravan (Westbrook). Now Ford, General Motors, and even Japanese car companies like Honda and Nissan have come out with minivans. Minivans have cornered the family car market so well, in fact, that General Motors has stopped all production of rear wheel drive vehicles, station wagons included, as of 1996. The only rear wheel drive vehicles offered by GM are trucks, vans, the Suburban, and , of course, minivans (Holcombe).

Minivans are probably so popular because they offer the comfort and space of a van without making the driver feel like a road hog. Station wagons tend to be long, wide, cumbersome vehicles that are difficult to manoever and park, even for the most experienced driver. Minivans, mainly because of their height, offer a big car with a small car feel. Also, minivans are a lot more versatile because their seats can be removed or put in with relative ease. To see a good argument on why minivans are better than station wagons, check out Sharif's Project 1 Page.