ViniZaoD

No one in this image conscious country would ever buy a station wagon. "Ew that's for women. I know! I'll get a much smaller SUV instead! Then I'll feel manly!" When I grow up (it will eventually happen) I'm definently getting a rocket wagon like the legacy GT or Magnum SRT8 to haul my stuff around.

DASHOCKER

iTrader: (2)

I can see a next gen GS & IS wagon in the future.. Why not? I have a feeling the next generation of these cars will be more sport oriented.

A sport pack wagon option with the ski rack would be hot. I love how Audi does wagons.. I see so many of them in Manhattan with the ski rack..

Gojirra99

I can never understand why a SUV has a better image or more "manly" than a station wagon , I would tend to say "ew that's for women" more so for SUV's than wagons *IF*(but I don't) I have to ......

SLegacy99

Im more of wagon person myself, than an Suv person. Been trying to understand for years why high gas prices haven't led to increased wagon sales.

92 SC400

Lack of choices maybe? Lot more SUVs to choose from compared to wagons IMO.

ViniZaoD

I don't understand either. Most 'crossover SUVs' look much girlier than wagons anyway (like my mom's Nissan Murano, the car I had to drive while my IS was in the shop).

LexFather

x3.........

IS-SV

Good question, but I read the offsetting increase in sales has been sedans mostly (versus decreasing SUV sales).

LexFather

Well on another forum I stated that while automakers have put their best and brightest on their SUV teams (b/c SUVs are more profitable) and put all innovations, style, tech in them.

Meanwhile they have basically abandoned wagons, continuing to basically make them sedans with extra cargo room. Only Volvo and maybe Audi has done more with wagons but they have also invested more heavily in wagons. We don't get the Audi AllRoad no more

Whats next are these crossover things, wants to be a car with higher rideheight and with hatches.

mmarshall

I don't think that is true of some automakers. Big domestic SUV's, for instance, took forever to get any real improvements to them. The big full-size GM truck-based SUV's, for instance, for quite some time, had notoriously poor, unreliable, Push-and Pray brakes. That problem did not get addresssed until the 2007 redesign (I noted that in reviews).....and even then, the improvement was not that huge. Same with their interiors. The dash and steering wheel got much nicer materials in 2007, but the rest of the interior, IMO, remained the same old GM dull plastic.

And, over at Ford, the enormous Excursion was a real flop. I test-drove one while I was at a Ford dealership, but didn't formally write it up in a review. The chassis and brakes were WAY overburned by the vehicle's enormous weight.....almost 7000 lbs, unloaded. The suspension crashed and thumped on small bumps and the whole vehicle bobbed up and down like a boat coming to a stop.....you could actually watch the horizon go up and down in the windshield when you tapped the brakes at low speeds. And a 90,000-ton Navy aircraft carrier had better steering response.

Don't forget Subies. (and I don't just say that because I'm biased) . A huge proportion of the cars Subaru sells are traditional wagons with AWD. (I, of course, drive one myself)

dunnojack

well there's your answer

lexus sales suck in europe.

and americans don't like wagons.

so it's not worth it to build.

mmarshall

Americans DO buy plenty of hatchbacks in lower-priced model lines, but generally not in higher-priced ones (though Saab, an upmarket brand, was sucessful in the past with hatchbacks until GM dropped them with its buyout of Saab).

Just WHY Americans don't go for upmarket hatchbacks has never been really understood. I think that, instead of continually talking about HOW Americans shun higher-priced wagons/hatchbacks, we need to start discussing WHY. My own opinion is that it is just ignorance.....chalk it up to another concession to the old "image" factor, and how it affects human thinking, that does so much harm to the automotive market.

LexFather

Yeah hatches and estates (wagons) sell big in Europe, though SUVs have picked up steam in Europe recently. Who is suffering? Sedans in Europe.....

Here is a mix of some (not all) of the odd hatch/SUV/crossover vehicles sold there we don't get.