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The New York Times is right: What did happen to the station wagon?

 

The Gray Lady’s simple yet provocative headline to the story about the Audi Q5 nailed it. It also prompted me to think about the wagons my parents drove when I was a kid.

It’s not that I’m super old. But wagons back in the 1970s had steel, chrome, vinyl seats, white-wall tires and heft that would make heavy-car enthusiasts proud.

Just don’t ask about gas consumption.

When my friend, Bill, and I were kids and had a car wash one time at his house, we thought it was the coolest because we had to use SOS pads to clean those white-wall tires.

If my memory is right, my parents owned a 1970s Buick SportsWagon. We called it The Great Pumpkin because of its bright orange hue. 

And man, did it get us around.

Yes, there were soccer games and shopping trips. One year, for our vacation, my parents drove my sister and me to Southern California, Utah and Arizona to see the great outdoors.

We even hightailed it to Las Vegas, back when a gas-guzzling, steel-and-chrome orange station wagon from a U.S. company truly fit in. 

By the late 1970s or early 1980s, the idea of fuel efficiency had sunk into my dad’s head. So, he bought a Volkswagen Dasher station wagon.

Diesel powered it. Yes, great mileage. And diesel was relatively cheap.

Just don’t ask about power, speed, the thud-thud of the engine or why diesel smells the way it does.

Since then, it seems like automobiles have become a bit more bloated. I suppose it’s the extra steel, air bags and more interior room.

One great thing about searching for online photos of wagons is coming across sites such as oldcarbrochures.com and stationwagon.com, which has an online gallery.

One Web site, Hemmings Auto Blogs, even has images of old U.S. sedans and stations wagons that were stretched and used as limousines. 

And I actually like looking at the old wagons. When I owned a 1980s Honda Civic sedan, I sometimes pulled up next to an old 1970s or 1980s wagon.

I marveled at how, compared to those floating boats on wheels, I would actually be sitting across from the front tire of a wagon – or close to it.

NOTE: I forgot to ask: What type of old wagon did you or your family drive?

Two friends in California (Brandy, who runs the blog NatomasBuzz and Martin, who I’ve known since I was in kindergarten) say their families once owned Ford Pinto station wagons.

Nice.

There are some online images of Pinto wagons with that cool, darkened bubble window in the back. Other images show that popular, fake wood paneling.

My cousin, Karen, tells me that her family once owned a Chevrolet Impala station wagon, which I recall as looking like this one.