Estate car
A station wagon (United States usage), wagon (Australian usage) or estate car (United Kingdom usage) is a car body style similar to a sedan car but with an extended rear cargo area.
The first station wagons were a product of the age of train travel. They were originally called 'depot hacks' because they worked around train depots as hacks (short for hackney carriage, an old name for taxis). They also came to be known as 'carryalls' and 'suburbans'. The name 'station wagon' is a derivative of 'depot hack'; it was a wagon that carried people and luggage from the train station to various local destinations.
Most station wagons are modified sedan-type car bodies, having the passenger area extended to the rear window (over the normal trunk area of the vehicle). Unlike a hatchback car, which otherwise meets this description, a station wagon is the full height of the passenger cabin all the way to the back; the rear glass is not sloped too far from vertical. A station wagon is distinguished from a minivan (MPV) or SUV by still being a car, sharing its forward bodywork with other cars in a manufacturer's range.
The vast majority of today's station wagons have an upward-swinging, full-width full-height rear door supported on gas struts, and a few also have a rear window that can be swung upward independently to load small items without opening the whole liftgate. Historically, however, many different designs have been used for access to the rear of car; the following summary concentrates on U.S. models.
- The earliest common style was an upward-swinging window combined with a downward swinging tailgate. Both were manually operated. This configuration generally prevailed from the earliest origins of the wagon bodystyle in the 20s through the 40s. It remained in use through the 50s on several models.
- In the early 50s, tailgates with hand-cranked roll-down rear windows began to appear. Chrysler is generally credited with the first of these in 1950. Later in the decade, electric power was applied to the tailgate window--it could be operated from the drivers seat, as well as by the key in the rear door. By the early 60s, this arrangement was becoming common on both full-size and the new compact wagons.
- The Studebaker Wagonaire station wagon of the 1964 model year had a unique retractable rear roof section as well as a conventional rear tailgate which folded down. This allowed it to carry tall objects that wouldn't fit otherwise. This design became known for troublesome water leaks and did not catch on. However, a similar arrangement was brought out for 2003 on GMC's mid-sized Envoy SUV.
- Ford's full-size wagon models for 1965 took the conventional tailgate and disappearing window a step further. The rear section was made to open either downwards like a regular tailgate, or like a door, outward from the curb side. The window had to be retracted for either operation. This was called the Magic Doorgate. For 1969, Ford made another innovation by allowing the glass to stay up when the door was opened sideways, thus creating the Three-Way Magic Doorgate. This versatile style quickly caught on and became a fixture on full-size and intermediate wagons from GM, Ford, and Chrysler.
- Full-size GM wagons (Buick,Chevrolet,Oldsmobile, and Pontiac) of the early 1970s brought a completely new design to market. They had a rear window that would slide upwards into the roof as the tailgate dropped down below the load floor. This was referred to as a "clamshell" arrangement. Both parts were power-operated, and this was the first power tailgate in station wagon history. This system was large, heavy, and complex, and was never adopted for any other car line--its production years were 1971-1976. After that, GM reverted to the doorgate style for its full-size line.
- As the 70s progressed, the need for lighter weight to meet fuel economy standards led to a simplified, one-piece liftgate on several models, particularly smaller wagons, such as is commonly seen on SUVs today. On the same principle, and quite ironically, the last generation of GM's full-size wagons returned to the upward-lifting rear window as had been used in the 40s.
Station wagons were originally considered commercial vehicles. They became more consumer-oriented and enjoyed their greatest popularity and highest production levels in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s. This was also the period of greatest variation in bodystyles, when such oddities as two-door pillarless hardtop wagons were sold. In the 1970s, the fuel crisis of 1973 and the instituting of strict emissions controls in the U.S. in 1972 caused the full-size station wagon to lose much of its appeal to U.S. consumers. The introduction of the minivan in 1983 was a precipitating event which helped push station wagons out of mainstream consumption. The later popularity of SUVs which closely approximate the traditional wagon bodystyle was a further blow.
After struggling sales, the last full-size wagons (Chevrolet Caprice, Buick Roadmaster, and Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser) in U.S. production were discontinued in 1996. Since then, small wagons (such as Subaru's "Outback" line) have enjoyed an increase in popularity in the U.S., as safer, sportier and (in most cases) much less expensive alternatives to SUVs and minivans. Domestic wagons also remain in the Ford, Mercury, and Saturn lines.
In Europe, Australasia and South Africa, these vehicles remain popular and in volume production, although minivans (MPVs) and the like have had some impact. Station wagons are lower in profile than a minivan or SUV and thus have less air resistance when driving on the highway.
In the early days, many station wagons were aftermarket conversions and had their new bodywork built with a wooden frame, sometimes with wooden panels, sometimes steel. These vehicles are called woodies and these days are highly collectable. Vestiges of this style survived for a long while on the American market (but never elsewhere) in the form of attached, non-structural wood-grained panels attached to the sides of some station wagons. Originally, these were real wood but more often they are artificial 'fake wood'. The appeal of these is such that even now there are aftermarket suppliers of them for such modern vehicles as the Chrysler PT Cruiser.
Station wagons were the originators of fold down seats to accommodate passengers or cargo.
In the United Kingdom, a very specific type, rare these days, is known as a shooting brake. These are modifications of luxury coupés with an estate car-like back fitted. They generally remain with two side doors. The purpose of them, historically, is obvious from the name; they were vehicles for the well-off shooter and hunter, giving space to carry shotguns and other equipment. They have rarely been made by the factory and are generally aftermarket conversions; some are still made. Up through the early 1960s many of them were built as woodies, making them some of the most exclusive and luxurious woodies ever built.
