Wagons away
Hi, I'm Jack Smith and right now, it's station wagon savings time in the
west. Time to hit the trail in high style with all a will comfort, but
only a Rambler station wagon can give you.
The station wagon was once a fixture of American family life.
It was a common sight in American garages and frequently featured in
popular culture.
These days, however, it has nearly vanished from US roads.
Americans, at least most of them, just don't like the segment.
And it shows in the tiny number of wagons sold every year, Americans just
don't like wagons for whatever reason.
We we have rejected the body style for many years.
It's been declining. You know, we think back to perhaps some of those
movies like National Lampoon's Vacation, where a family travels across the
country in a wagon. Those days are long, long behind us.
And these days, wagon sales are less than 2 percent of all industry sales.
Meanwhile, crossovers and sport utility vehicles continue to swallow
market share, leading many manufacturers to believe that if they want to
sell a wagon, they need to lift it a bit, maybe cover it with some
cladding and call it a crossover.
You want the crossover tag associated with it because that's what people
are buying and that's what they want to buy.
At some point, they may want another tag because it's no longer cool to
own a crossover, an SUV.
But right now, that's not the case yet.
In 2018, consumers around the world bought just under 2.5
million wagons, roughly a mere 3 percent of all new cars sold in the
United States the segment represents only about 1 to 2 percent of all
sales. But in some European countries, sales are several times that.
Wagon's represented nearly 20 percent of all sales in Germany and at least
a quarter of sales in some Scandinavian countries, such as Finland and
Sweden. wagons also comprised 23 percent of all sales in Czech Republic,
16 percent in Slovakia and 15 percent in Poland.
In Sweden our home country, close to 50 percent of our volume is related
to wagons. You have the best residual values, you have the most loyal
consumers. And also that is how we were live in Sweden.
You know, nature is very important.
We do exactly in line with Americans.
You know, it's a lot of football and a lot of sports associated with our
kids. So we need a space.
And so the legacy of wagons is really in our DNA.
Also you see them all over the place and the roads in Sweden and in
Europe. More than 70 percent of all wagon's sold in the world are sold in
Europe. There the wagon is still seen as an efficient blend of function
and performance, especially when fuel prices can be quite high.
In Europe, the station wagon continues to be the
prototype for many families, even though it they have lost traction as
well in Europe. Despite the fact that Europe is the world's wagon
stronghold, data do suggest that sport utilities are eating into its share
on that continent as well.
Of course, on the other end of the spectrum, US data show that sport
utility vehicles have completely eclipsed the wagon as the family hauler
of choice. Wagons have steadily lost share in the US new car market
from 3.69
percent of new car sales in 2008 to 1.4
percent in 2018.
Cross-overs and SUVs grew their share of the new car market in the US by
20 percent from 2008 to 2018.
They now make up nearly half of all new car sales.
For now, wagons have managed to find a way to keep a foothold, albeit a
small one in America.
For example, the segment straddling Subaru Outback has been a tremendously
successful product for that company part wagon, part crossover.
The Outback was introduced in the 1995 model year as a variant of the
Subaru legacy, but was soon spun out into its own distinct brand and has
become something of a phenomenon.
The outback alone accounted for the vast majority of wagon sales in the
US. Of that, 1.4
percent of the US market wagons have the outback alone makes up 1.2
percent. In other words, almost all of it.
That means all wagons sold by all other brands combined would account for
just 0.2
percent of the total US new car market.
So when we talk about wagons, we're essentially talking about one model
with with a very decent industry share and then a handful of other models
that, quite frankly, don't sell very well.
The outback is an example of how wagon like vehicles can be successfully
marketed in the United States and perhaps gives an idea of how they are
likely to look in the future if they stick around.
Though it retains many of the basic features of a wagon, the car is lifted
a bit and covered in plastic cladding to give it more of a rugged outdoor
appearance. It retains the basic silhouette of the wagon, but the outback
has evolved over time to incorporate more attributes of SUVs and
crossovers Subaru told CNBC.
This includes standard all wheel drive, the ability to tow up to thirty
five hundred pounds and a full eight point seven inches of ground
clearance higher than what is found on many SUVs.
The company said they were one of the early players obviously in this
crossover space before the term crossover was even mentioned.
And that's again when they were being called wagons.
So I think they've done well if they've got a very loyal buyer.
They've expanded into the certainly the outdoor lifestyle buyer has has
has long been a Subaru advocate.
So I think, you know, is that as that continues to to develop and people
are more interested in an active, active lives and in certainly what what
super has to offer from just an honor and capability.
But but also on dirt and on on trails even.
The outback shows that selling a wagon in the US may be a lot easier if it
happens to look like a sport utility vehicle.
In fact, it might be one of the only wagon like vehicles to survive in the
United States. But yeah, no question about it, the wagon market is
certainly taking cues from the from the SUV and crossover segments and
adding, as you said, a little bit of cladding, raising that ground
clearance up a little bit to give it that that view that essentially it
can compete with a crossover.
That rather dire outlook has not stopped other automakers from rolling the
dice, though. General Motors sells the Buick Regal Tours X, a US version
of the Opel insignia wagon.
GM used to sell in Europe when it owned the Opel brand.
Notably, the US version has the same plastic cladding and slight lift,
which is not seen on the European version.
But with a lower center of gravity, it gives more sedan like driving
dynamics and a lower roof for easy rooftop access key features wagon
buyers want in a car.
There are several positive signs for wagon fans elsewhere in the US if
they have the cash.
Much of the variety in the US wagon market is found at the higher end,
where luxury and high performance can gloss over the otherwise dowdy and
domestic image the wagon has.
Given the fact that the countries with some of the highest wagon sales are
Germany and the Scandinavian nations.
It makes sense that most of these premium wagons are from German and
Scandinavian automakers.
The Swedish brand Volvo is perhaps the brand best known for wagons, and
its among the brands most committed to the segment in the United States.
Though Volvo has lately focused intensely on building out its lineup of
sport utility vehicles, a substantial portion of its portfolio is still in
wagons. I see the same opportunities in us.
So one part of me is a bit confused that this should be much bigger.
The volume should be much, much, much bigger.
But then we have the SUV trend in the US that probably overlaps that kind
of because could get the space to an SUV.
But I would say the wagons are for me they're beautiful.
And I think you'll see the cars here, the size wise that are boxy anymore,
and they are not boring.
You get both. You get the driving capabilities as a sedan and you get more
space. And also it looks sporty and that's what we aim for.
Volvo sells the mid-sized V60 wagon and the larger V90.
Both can be bought in the cross country trim, which means the car is
lifted and comes with the familiar dark cladding on the sides of the car.
And Volvo also has a 415 horsepower performance hybrid version of its V 60
bearing Volvos Polestar brand, which was once its in-house performance
shop and now specializes in making high performance electric vehicles.
Mercedes Benz sells its E-Class wagons in the US, mostly to well-heeled
buyers with families.
The car sells especially well in the Northeast.
Wagon sales make up a tiny portion of Mercedes US total zero point seven
percent to be exact.
But buyers are loyal and they pay an E 450 for Madoc wagon starts at about
sixty $66000 and the higher performance AMG e63 S starts above one
hundred eight thousand dollars.
Fellow German automaker Audi said in August of 2019, it plans to bring the
R.S. Six a vaunt wagon to the US.
The R.S. Six Avante is a performance wagon.
Audi will sell alongside the eight for all road wagon it currently offers
and the a six all road, which Audi said in October.
It will also be bringing back to the US.
In recent years in the United States, Audi has only sold its a for all
road wagon, which is also a popular choice among premium wagon buyers.
Even Porsche has a wagon like vehicle.
However, the number of wagon loving diehards seems to be shrinking and
many in the industry are not optimistic that the wagon will make a
comeback anytime soon.
I just I wonder how many more cracks at the bat we're gonna get here from
from this forbidden fruit.
And these wagons coming from overseas.
So things are getting, you know, even even slimmer for for a wagon
enthusiast out there.
And so guide the future for wagons.
It's going to be tough for for future European wagons, too, to really come
to United States. What buyers are more likely to end up with is a
crossover, which some say is really a wagon in a slightly different form.
There isn't a lot of what I would call pure wagon development going on
right now. So, you know, with that as a backdrop, the I guess prospects
for the wagon aren't necessarily strong.
But the caveat here is you're getting into then that, you know, blurring
area where what is a wagon and what's a crossover?
And a lot of the stuff that is being developed is, you know, what I would
argue is a shorter height twice vehicles that that have kind of crossover
style, but are probably more like a wagon.
Sport utility vehicles do seem to have certain practical advantages over
traditional passenger cars that consumers seem to find irresistible.
Most importantly, their taller height gives drivers a better view of the
road and often more comfortable upright seating position.
Customers also consider them easier to get in and out of fuel.
Economy has also improved on SUVs to the point where they are often about
as efficient as comparably sized passenger cars.
But their image as more rugged, sporty and versatile vehicles has played a
significant role in their appeal, say many industry watchers.
They have become so popular as family vehicles that they may one day end
up with the same reputation wagons themselves earned over the decades.
Practical but deeply uncool.