Ready For The Wagovan Redux?

Technically, in NA, possibly in Canada too, the traditional wagon body never existed after 1983, the tall wagon, dubbed the Wagovan was the only wagon available for the Civic through 1992 before the wagon was dropped all together. The wagons and 4 door sedans were both the same overall length, only the 3 door hatchback was shorter. The wagon was first introduced in 1976 and was a low roofed long bodied wagon, much like the Mazda Protege5 in shape with a full height liftgate in the back. It had a longer wheelbase and overall length to the 3 door hatchback and coupe. The second generation Civic now offered a 4 door sedan, and it shared the same chassis as the wagon, same wheelbase and overall length, with, again, the hatchback being shorter and with a shorter wheelbase. The third gen Civic did the same thing, the wagon sharing the same overall length and WB with the sedans, with the difference being that the wagovan, which came in both FWD and real time AWD configurations, but had a taller boxier roofline/profile. And they weren't the only ones back then, the Toyota Tercel wagon was another tall boxy wagon, same out that same year, as did the Nissan Stanza wagon, except it was a pillarless 4 door with the 2 rear doors being of the sliding variety, the others had conventional swing out rear doors. The 1 generation Ford Focus had 3 basic body styles, 4 door sedan, 4 door wagon and a 3 and 5 door hatchback. The hatchbacks tended to be the shortest body with the sedan being in the middle and the wagon a mere 3 inches longer, mostly due to the rear overhang, though they all shared the same wheelbase. I would not classify the Wagovan as a hatchback as it really was a wagon, my Protege is more a wagon than a hatchback, for starters, it's the exact same length as the 4 door sedan variant of the Protege. Typically, a wagon will have a bit larger cargo hold behind the seats than a typical hatchback and that their rooflines tended to be flatter and don't slope down like many hatchbacks now do. However,I read that the first gen CRV was supposed to bring back the tall wagon format, but it's really that in an mini SUV package, despite it originally being available as a FWD model as well as AWD. Even if the Wagovan was AWD, it was only slightly higher off the ground than its FWD sibling if I recall. Otherwise, I'd have one of these overly boxy wagons myself as I've always like these and the 84-87 Tercal wagons too.

The Wagovan's unique combination of practicality and butt-ugliness has already been reincarnated, in the Kia Rondo. Doubtful Honda will ever go there again as long as the CR-V exists.

Funny how the Rondo is condemned for being "butt ugly" while absolute monstrosities like the Suburban, Escalade, Durango and Expeditions get a pass.

Has anyone enlarged the picture of this Civic station wagon. If they had, they'd notice cloth seating surfaces, and NO Wagovan emblems, just "Honda" and "Civic". Clearly just a Civic wagon,not RealTime model, not a Wagovan. As I posted before, a Wagovan is distinguished by all vinyl seats, and a rear "Wagovan" emblem . A RealTime model has steel wheels unique to that model.