(WYTV)- The American Heritage Dictionary says a station wagon is “an automobile with one or more rows of seats behind the driver and no trunk but a compartment with plenty of space you can load through a tailgate.”
You use it to go tailgating. It was the minivan and the SUV of its day.
The “station” in the station wagon refers to a train station. The first powered station wagons were custom-built Model T, a car with enough space in the rear to bring several people and their luggage from the train station to their country estate…and back again.
While we started calling them station wagons, the British referred to them, and still do, as an estate car, the Australians call them simply wagons.
The modern design of a station wagon reached its peak in the 1960s with compact, mid-size and full-size wagons. The back door could be up or down or open to the side.
After the gasoline crisis of the 1970s, the station wagon began to lose popularity, the minivan design was more practical, and then came the SUV.
You can still buy a station wagon today but it looks like an SUV. Want to see a station wagon in action?
See the movie “Vacation.”
