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Wagon Train

1963 Mercury
Dodge Magnum
Alfa Romeo
Audi A3

In this day of SUVs, minivans, crossovers and a bunch of other made-up names, the lowly station wagon seems to have been forgotten. I bet that many of you reading this have memories of riding in the back of one (perhaps similar to the 1963 Mercury pictured on this page)—without seatbelts, even. Yikes! It seems like years ago every manufacturer had a station wagon version of each model they produced.

Nowadays actual station wagons are scarcer than hen’s teeth. For some reason hardly anybody sells them here in North America anymore. Oh, sure, there’s a few. The Ford Focus and Dodge Magnum come immediately to mind, even though DaimlerChrysler seems to skirt the whole “station wagon” issue in all of its publicity material, refusing to pigeonhole the Magnum, instead referring to it only as a “vehicle.” Ford comes a little closer, calling the Focus a “wagon.”

While the Magnum continues to turn a lot of heads on the roads of North America, you can’t say the same thing for the Focus. I guess the difference between the two is the statement they make—the Magnum screams, “Look at me,” while the Focus says, “I just need to get from here to there.”

There are other station wagon choices you can make, however. Unfortunately, one of the handsomest isn’t available in North America—The Alfa Romeo 159SW. (In case you’re wondering, the SW stands for Sport Wagon. Sigh.) It just went on sale last month, and I dare you to find a better-looking family car. This one’s pretty compact, exactly the same size as the sedan model—about 15 feet long, or half a foot longer than the Focus. You can even get it with a 3.2-liter V-6, which has a top speed of 147 mph. That’ll get your kids to the soccer game with time to spare.

Another good-looking wagon is the Audi A3 2.0T, which Automobile magazine named to this year’s 10 Best List, which I gather to mean it’s available in the US. And it is. The A3 is another wagon that will transport you and your things in style.

Other station wagons you can buy here are made by Jaguar, Volvo, Saab, VW—hey, where are the Americans? We pretty much invented the station wagon (or at least made it popular) decades ago. Auto manufacturers have been bitten by the image bug. No one wants to be a member of the “soccer mom” club, even though millions are. They drive around in SUVs (tall station wagons), minivans (taller station wagons) and crossovers (shorter tall station wagons). You can see for yourself in any mall or Little League parking lot. Many owners of these vehicles like to refer to them as “trucks.” As my sage 15-year-old daughter once said, a truck should have one of those “thingies” on the back, which the rest of you may know better as a pickup.

So there. Admit it. You like station wagons. And you will now go to alfaromeo.com and drool over their cars. Meet you there.

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