Station Wagons - Station Wagons Around The World

Station Wagons Around The World

European manufacturers often built two-door station wagons in the post-war period for the compact class, and not four-door models, a practice that continued at Ford (amongst others) with its Escort Mark III, for example, well into the 1980s. Usually, by that time, manufacturers created four-door models. In Europe, Australia and New Zealand, these vehicles remain popular and in volume production, although minivans (known in Europe as MPVs—multi-purpose vehicles) and the like have had some impact. As in North America, early station wagons were aftermarket conversions and had their new bodywork built with a wooden frame, sometimes with wooden panels, sometimes steel. Station wagons were the originators of fold down seats to accommodate passengers or cargo

In the United Kingdom, station wagons are generally called estate cars or usually just estates. The term shooting-brake, a term for an original hunting vehicle, came to be known synonymously with station wagon and were also custom built as modified luxury coupés with an estate car-like back. They generally retain two side doors. Until the early 1960s many of them were built with structural wooden rear frames, making them some of the most exclusive and luxurious "woodies" ever built. A smaller Estate car was the very popular Morris Minor Traveller Estate which copied the wooden side panel frames of larger designs. Most small cars produced in the UK from the 1950s until the 1980s had Estate versions, some of which were also used as small delivery vans minus the rear windows.

In the 1950s, the British companies Rover and Austin produced 4×4 vehicles (the Land Rover and the Gipsy respectively). Apart from the standard canvas-topped utility vehicles, both these 4×4s were available in estate car bodystyles that were sold as "Station Wagons". These bodystyles incorporated more comfortable seating and trim when compared with the standard editions (which were typically aimed at agricultural and military buyers) and together with options such as heaters these changes made the Station Wagon vehicles more attractive to private buyers. The name was alien in the UK, but was probably chosen because of the high number of these vehicles that went to export markets such as Africa and Australia, where the name was understood. Early advertising for the Land Rover version took the name literally, showing the vehicle collecting people and goods from a railway station. Land Rover still calls the passenger-carrying variations of its Defender model "Station Wagons".

In France almost all station wagon models are called the Break (note the different spelling from the English shooting brake). French breaks from Peugeot and Citroën in particular were available in seven- or eight-seater "family" versions long before MPVs became known in Europe.

The German Volkswagen Polo crossed type divisions by offering a two-door station wagon shape (not named as a wagon) as the standard, main model in its range in some markets in the 1980s—despite the existence of two-door sedan and hatchback ("coupé") variants.

Japanese manufacturers did not value station wagons highly until very recently. For many years, models sold as well-appointed station wagons in export markets were sold as utilitarian "van" models in the home market. This explains why station wagons were not updated for consecutive generations in a model's life in Japan: for instance, while a sedan might have a model life of four years, the wagon was expected to serve eight—the 1979 Toyota Corolla (built until 1987), and the 1987 Mazda Capella (built until 1996) are examples of this. The Nissan Avenir is an example of a model that began its life as a utility vehicle, and became a well equipped passenger car in the 1990s. Toyota no longer offers a wagon version of the Corolla or Camry.

In Australia and New Zealand, the most popular station wagons are the large Ford Falcon and Holden Commodore models. These are usually built on a longer wheelbase than their sedan counterparts, though they share the same door skins, leading to a slightly unusual appearance with the rear door not reaching all the way to the rear wheel arch. Mitsubishi's Australian subsidiary designed wagon versions of its Magna and Verada for the local market, although it no longer offers a large wagon. Smaller wagons have declined in popularity, in comparison with Europe, although they have traditionally been more popular in New Zealand than in Australia. For example, the Ford Telstar was offered as a wagon in New Zealand, but not Australia, even though the mechanically identical Mazda 626 was sold in both countries.