American Reacts to Why Station Wagons Sell in Europe But NOT America..

I think road and parking space sizes are very important. Scandinavia and Germany (to some extent) has pretty wide roads, and open spaces, and stations wagons are fairly popular.
Go down to southern Europe, and they are much rarer. There the smaller hatch-backs reign supreme. In the US the roads are so wide and big, you can easily drive around with a full size SUV of pickup.

I live in Norway, and I would not want a huge US size SUV mainly because it would be too much of a hassle to use and park. And of course the gas consumption part of it, doesn't help either.

In the US one gets the feeling that luxurious means big. So of course people go big.

I'm from South Africa, and also a Estate/Stationwagon fan. Unfortunately they are also not very common anymore here in South Africa. I'm an Audi driver, and trying to find me a nice Audi Estate, but they are quite rare these days.

I like the station wagon. I have a 2011 BMW 535 F11 Twinturbo diesel in Finland, almost 400 hp and 720 nm, 0-100kmh 4 seconds. adaptive air suspension with hydraulic stabilizers. consumption on the highway 5.5L/100km. very good and efficient car even though it is already old

I always liked Stationwagons, maybe because my dad drove them when I grew up. The way I see it is if you buy a stationwagon, you get the same driving experience as with the sedan model of the same car, but you have a lot extra room and often stationwagons have a little bit higher top-speed because they often are better streamlined. The down-side is they are more expensive, but not by much, mostly they cost like € 3.000 to € 5.000 extra. That is not that much when you buy new car costing lets say between €40.000 and € 100.000. And second hand there is no price difference at all. The only other thing is, you might find the model less ecstatically pleasing. But even if you do, that's not worth the trade off imo vs the practicality of the extra room.

I have a Volvo V40 2.0 Turbo from 2004 with the sportspackage. The thing is spaceous, sporty enough to drive, does 140 mph and comfortably and stably cruises at 100 to 110 mph, and I can throw my roadbike (or anything else) in the back without disassembling it, and it doesn't guzzle gas and is not as big and lumpy like a SUV or pickup truck, and because it is not very heavy I the roadtax is affordable.

In Europe we are more restrained in that we buy everything for the sake of family economy and ecology and we don't mind not looking good. A small car takes us to the same place as a big car. And they are cheaper to buy, more economical in fuel consumption, more economical in motorway tolls, cheaper in annual taxes, easier to park in cities, less polluting.

J'ai 2 peugeot 406 break (sw) phase 2 ... Parce que je trouve que ces voitures sont très pratiques et leur design est intemporel ... Même si elles ne sont plus fabriquées leur design est toujours d'actualité !! En plus un break tient mieux la route que n'importe quelle voiture à cause de son empattement et sa consommation de carburant est exactement la même qu'une voiture normale, car la hauteur et la surface frontale sont les mêmes que la version berline du modèle et ont donc un bon cx ...

I think it's probably the cost of maintenance that affects what cars are popular in certain countries. My understanding is that's European cars tend to be pretty expensive for maintenance in the US. Same goes for US cars here in Europe.

Now when folding rear seats is present in sedans.
You can fit large cargo in a sedan. You rarely load the car above the windowline anyway but then you cannot accomodate rear seat passengers....
The downside of a SUV is that the loading-length is limited so you need to stack your bags on a pile if you wanna put plenty...
If you dont have a large SUV of course.

Wanted the new G70 Wagon in America, I ended up buying a 2022 Stinger GT. It will do for a sport back, would of loved that G70 though.

I can tell you why in a few simple, easy to understand words - guys thought they could look more studly in a jacked up SUV, vs a Corolla or Camry station wagon and even have their wife's permission! Women felt safer in a taller, wider, longer unit - one that allowed them to feel safe enough to dick around on their phone while taking their kids to soccer practice. I was a mechanic for fifty years and I heard those words constantly.

They are popular in Europe, but in the past (and it's not that distant past), they were more like shame when you was a kid and your family had station wagon instead of normal "proper" car. 😀

Minivans are better than weagons or suvs if don't go off-road. More spacios, better view

What the hell is a station wagon?

The biggest difference between cars in American and in European is that in Europa you hardly will see any pickup trucks. Specially not the big(ger) ones like the Ford F-150. Europeans mostly prefer quality and ecenomics over car size. Even when it comes to buying SUV's/station wagons, Europeans often opt for not simply the bigger/biggest ones, but more for the (technical) best ones out there. And let's be honest, what the heck you need a F-150 for, besides from showing off ?

Maybe the 4 wheel drive off road cars are so populair in today's America, because of the (in general) poor conditions of the roads out there?

When buying a European/Scandinavian car, also keep in mind that those cars are (almost always) on the high end of safety measures, due to strict government safety regulations. Specially Volvo is famous in that category.

First of all... Europe tends to like slick and sober design... US like bald and big... it's always been like that. And I'm not only talking about cars then...
I'm from Scandinavia and always felt the american designs being a bit over the top.

Americans are less enviromentally aware/friendly So carry on polluting with those Gas guzzlers!😮

The more I look at it the more SUVs seem to be just very bad station wagons…

The problem is that SUVs are trendy while common sense is not.

rs6 over a ferrai everytime an incredible car

Station wagons became redundant in the US once the SUV and Mini Van market took off in the US. Mini vans were priced similar to station wagons but you got more room. SUV's also give you more room and also four wheel drive, which is a must have in a lot of areas of America.

The modern Combis are the term germany use.
My car bens c220 combi 2.250 ccm 177 hp diesel from 2017. I cane esaly toe two horses or can go up to 120 mph wive 8 liter diesel on 100 km.
In normal live 5 to 6 L on 100 km it is a question of driving.
It is a nice Power full car not high end.

The streets in the US that bad so peopel think they need a suv?

$7.00-$8.00 per US gallon and high road tax is the reason
SUV use a lot more fuel than wagons

Vagons are the best 🎉🎉🎉🎉 strong swifty, not overly large. They are awwwesome

The cars that you have are now estates/wagons nor SUV but in Europe they would be Crossovers. Also Subaru is almost non-existent in Europe. It just cannot compete with other European brands that not only beat it on value, prestige, badge but also quality and refinement. The reason why Americans dislike estate cars or wagons, as you call them, is simply because of the label. They want to feel sporty and large on the roads even though most of them never ever take their crossovers or SUV off the road.

I don't know the reason but Subaru in italy are not selling well, you spot some here and there

I dont get the (pick up)Truck thing in US. Isnt it always dirty or wet cause its open? Or if you need to go in second store, can't your stuff not be stolen? Even at traffic lights stops anybody can grab things... and if you are able to close/lock the back, you have only a third of the space that a station wagon offers...

Audi RS6 ABT/755Ps max.347km/h🫡🫡🇩🇪🇩🇪💥💥

Europeans like the practicality of what we call an"estate"the large covered boot is ideal for grocery shopping if like most you shop for a week or longer at one time or for holiday travel or for transporting larger pets

as with age i find my taste in vehicles is now different im 37 and i want a wagon!

SUVs are expensive, full-inefficient, dangerous and difficult to park. But golly gee everyone has one so I must too

My American mom drives a Volvo, really nice

Idk, Outback doesn't seem like a wagon to me, more like an SUV or a crossover. I like it though. It's actually one of a few SUVs I consider sensible. It's not unnecessarily thick which makes it not as big and heavy, yet it has the same amount of usable space.

We have style, a truck is a working tool 🤣

One reason Swedish car people likes wagons is because they can fit big ass base boxes, speakers and other sound equipment.

I love my Mercedes station wagon and so does my dog.

I love my Dad power wagon! If I could put wood grain decals on my Subaru Outback I would.

Can't kill people well enough with a station wagon.

(those are both crossovers, not wagons)

I’m very happy with my bmw f31 330d. Does the job with problems. Genuinely get 45mpg on my daily commute on B roads and it’s 10yrs old with 70k on the clock. Plenty of legroom in the rear, and more than enough power to overtake safely and the 8 speed zf is a joy.

In Europe we just see less and less options because more manufacturers build SUVs, so even if we would prefer a wagon, there might be no fitting option in some cases.

Becouse in Europe we are smart and care for the environment

My wife wanted an SUV and we tested many, the ended up with an Astra wagon. More space, better driving dynamics, better economy. I drive a Calais V Tourer (Buik Regal), same reasons, no SUV has the features and driving dynamic.

Volvo are no longer Swedish, they are owned by a Chinese corporation

I had a Passat 2000 sw, saw bmw series 3 sw, even vw Jetta sw, Volvo and Mercedes. They were available but people didn’t buy them…

I am from and in Northern/Eastern Europe, and when I watched TV shows or movies about Intelligence agencies, military, war movies, thrillers, shooting movies basically, it always showed those heavy SUV's that I kind of fell in love when I was little, especially the ones similar to, if not exactly the Chevy Suburban types, always in movies FBI and secret agents portrayed with these SUV's, and even recently on one of my favorite TV shows - Blacklist that ended a year or two ago after many seasons.

But now... SUV's, small ones or medium are saturated in the Europe as well, I don't like them, I like station wagon, or how we call them here - universals.
I still like the big ones, because that's how I feel they should be like, family off roader basically to pack whatever tents and so on.
A lot of people buy cars, jeeps, SUV's without practical reasons and use them not the way they are supposed to, and that's slightly annoying. If you buy a jeep, a truck, then it should be used as one, not to drive with a single grocery bag in there. I am guilty of it too because i like universals/station wagons, but not entirely, because my gf owns a '98 Audi A3 1.3 or something, but she has a small summer house or garden so to say, it's tiny for American standards so to say, but normal in Europe. And we use her trimmer from her work, and it barely fits if it all, front passenger has to move slightly forward with the chair and it still kind of disturbs the passenger as the end is next to the head.

So I personally would like to get myself something like Audi A4 Universal/wagon or A6 Universal/wagon, but since I want sportiness I am looking for used S4's or S6's universals/wagons. I do like Audi Allroads, but they mostly come in diesel and I don't want a diesel, but I kind of wouldn't mind, just in winter times it could be time consuming to fire it up, though I don't know how easy or hard for Audi's it is with diesel engines, despite them being so common here, not only Allroad models. And reliability I keep reading about Allroads is not great, some say they never fail them, some say that it's a constant maintenance hell. Maybe it's just the first generation and not the rest.

I like the station wagon for the same reasons you listed, but I still prefer to sit higher up in an SUV and have a better view. But that is probably because I drove many farming and construction equipment before getting my proper drivers licence.