I always like comparing other cars to my own, and couldn’t help but check out this Mini Clubman a few months back. Very different style-wise from the Volvo, but pretty nice. I do prefer the look of the Clubman over the standard Cooper. Let us not discuss the bicycle-helmeted Coupe…
You can still get new wagons, but their numbers are dwindling. The V50 was discontinued for the U.S. market after 2011. The V70 left the building a year prior, along with the VW Passat. Seems that most folks who want space go for CUVs, which offer the advantages of a wagon while providing the experience of driving a bar stool.
There is a small third “club” door on the Clubman’s passenger side.
Count me in as another one who slightly prefers the Clubman to the standard Mini.
If I could get another (new) base model 1990 Honda Civic three-door hatch (it’s a station wagon in my book!), I’d snap it up in a heartbeat. One of the best (and highest utility) cars we’ve ever owned, that regularly got 40+mpg.
If a car has an adult-accommodating back seat, then I want four doors. If it doesn’t, then I’ll only consider it if it has two doors. This is one of the reasons I have no use for today’s “four door coupes.”
My Honda Fit is kind of a station wagon. 🙂
Honda Fit Estate Wagon Brougham. You just need to add some “Brougham” emblems and a healthy dollop of Di-Noc wood contact paper 🙂
I still think not giving the Clubman four real doors was a missed opportunity.
BMW made lots of noise with their record economy run using a diesel ‘mini’ then shut up fast when word got out its not their powertrain its from the Peugeot 206.
That’s funny. Crow about an engine that isn’t theirs. Ha! I bet Peugeot appreciated it though.
What’s BMW going to do for Mini diesel power when Peugeot goes out of business?
As far as I know BMW already uses its own N47-series (1.6 and 2.0 ltr) diesel engines in the Mini.
I’ve read that next year Toyota models in Europe will get this BMW diesel engine too and substitute Toyota’s own 4 cylinder diesel completely.
I have ridden in both and driven the Mini. No contest. The one on the left in the photo.
Your Volvo is much better than the Mini. If I got a wagon it’d either be a Mercedes E350 or an Audi Allroad.
Personally, if I’m looking for a sports car, I don’t care about the extra space. The Clubman, while cool, IMO is less of a true sports car than the standard Mini and certainly not a real wagon either. I would take the Volvo (obviously) over most CUVs today. I really don’t get the whole CUV thing either. I know that they’ve improved, but they’re not as rugged–or rugged at all–as a truck-based SUV (are these becoming extinct too?), and not as nimble, fuel or space-efficient as a car. I hate them, actually. I really wanted my wife’s next family hauler to be an Outback, but they’ve chunked up and become a CUV as well. Unfortunately, if you want a new family-sized wagon and don’t have $50k to spend on one, you’re SOL.
Setting aside the polarizing styling, I think the Ford Flex is a good station wagon value.
Our Flex has 3 row seating for 7. We paid $29,000 for it two years ago.
How odd it is that station wagons are so unpopular, so shunned, that they mainly survive among the expensive luxury brands.
I got excited about the Volvo V50 until I test-drove one. I didn’t make it around the block. The non-adjustable was tipped so far forward, it was painful, like a dentist’s chair adjusted badly. When I held my back and shoulders normally upright, head against the headrest, there was three inches of free space between the seatback and my shoulder blades. I appreciate Volvo’s historic focus on safety, and I certainly want headrests, but these were unbearable.
My parents were looking to replace their Hyundai Tucson last year, and while searching with them, we rejected many otherwise fine cars because the headrests were ridiculously far forward – and mostly too hard too. They finally bought a Subaru Legacy (they had two before the Tucson) and the headrests in it are fine. My workmate’s Holden (aka Chevrolet) Captiva headrests are too far forward and I have to raise the headrest as high as possible and then slouch in the seat so that my head goes in the gap between the seat-top and the headrest… Hardly comfortable, but I don’t get a sore neck… Stupid headrests and over-high waistlines go hand-in-hand I feel.
Too bad about the popularity of wagons, they have many good virtues. I gave up the CUVs in favor of a wagon, and I wouldn’t go back.
I’ve been meaning to check out the Acura TSX sport wagon, but I have my reservations about it.
I managed to convince two people this year to buy Outbacks. It’s a start…
Funnily, when a friend asked what kind of car I got, I told her an Outback. She said “That’s a station wagon!”.
We have a long way to go.
(Ahem)… make that “…the non-adjustable headrest…”
Its not just Volvo. I sat in a Ford Flex a few years ago that was the same way. That non-adjustable headrest was thrust aggressively forward. Supposedly you can tilt the seatback backwards, but I don’t like that driving position.
I think the last true 2 door station in the USA was the 1993 VW Fox. I always liked that silly little VW. It offered two transmission choices like all other cars except that it was a 4 speed manual or a 5 speed manual. No auto trans
Doesn’t Wal-Mart advertise their name on their buildings anymore? Or…did you Photo-Shop it out?
As you’ve probably heard, the V60 is coming to the US this fall – its a stunner and thankfully brings a Volvo wagon back to our side of the pond……..
Yes, I have. It looks good and I may have to get one eventually but I like the extra glass area on my current wagon much better.
My local dealer wasn’t terribly excited about it coming, as they never sold many V50s (about 5-7 a year) and he thinks the V60 will flop in the U.S. I can see where he’s coming from, but I hope he’s wrong.
I have always liked 2 door wagons of this variety.
When I was growing up in the pre-seat belt era, some considered a 2 door safer because kids did not have a rear door to open and fall out of. This body style pretty well died out in the US car business in the sixties, only to come back when the sub-compact cars (Pinto & Vega) came out in the seventies. Now that we have to strap our kids in a car seat in the back seat 2 doors are less popular.