QOTD: It's Okay, You Can Tell Us - What's Your Dream Wagon?

At some point in the late 1980s or early 1990s, the minivan officially took the lead in the race for family-hauling supremacy. Various models, most notably the Ford Taurus, soldiered on into the 2000s, joined by a fading Volvo lineup and a few other models. But the jig was up.

With minivans already fielded by almost every mainstream automaker, the burgeoning SUV craze sealed the wagon’s fate, sending the once-hot bodystyle into the category of rare, boutique niche vehicle — usually bought by affluent Euro-centric snobs.

In their heyday, however, boxy wagons signaled to the world that the driver’s free-wheeling single life was now collecting dust in attic-bound photo albums. Sorry, no time for that anymore — too busy building a nuclear family here, pal. And hey, it’s so convenient for hauling Crisco and Velveeta and marshmallow fluff and various other Baby Boom food staples!

Jokes aside, they were useful vehicles. Good for sleeping (if need be), hauling large items, and sporting a minimum of two bench seats, wagons could do almost anything except be sexy. Still, we all have fond memories of at least one wagon from our childhoods, if not later in life. The first car I ever drove was a 1983 Oldsmobile Cutlass Cruiser — a gray, Alabama-sourced barge with a 307 cid V8. My dad’s first driver’s test, which took place during a snowstorm, was in a six-cylinder 1959 Ford Ranch Wagon with vacuum-operated wipers. It was, by all accounts, a hair-raising ride.

Yesterday, we got our first glimpse of the Opel Insignia Sports Tourer, the basis for the next Buick Regal’s TourX wagon variant, and it’s quite a looker. The wagons coming out of Europe lately, the Volvo V90 especially, are lithe and athletic and boast modern platforms and drivetrains that shouldn’t serve as a constant reminder of a long-lost lifestyle.

It looks like Buick will test the waters and see if the Regal wagon can stimulate some interest in a market that has passed the bodystyle by. Will customers bite? Is a mini wagon resurgence upon us? On that, the jury is definitely out.

But that brings us to the Question of the Day. Deep down, tucked away behind your lust for Mustangs, palatial SUVs, taught sports sedans and oddball exotics, there might lie a kernel of longing for one particular wagon.

Maybe it’s a pre-war Ford woodie with room for surfboards and beach blankets.

Perhaps the object of your desires is an Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser and its acres of glass.

Or, maybe you’ve always pined for a Studebaker Wagonaire, the sliding-roofed predecessor to the early-2000s GMC Envoy XUV.

Of course, there’s also the possibility that the ass-hauling abilities of an LT1-equipped GM B-body from the 1990s has always tickled your fancy. That eight-passenger lineup sent the bodystyle out with a Queen Mary-sized bang over at The General.

Where does your wagon lust lie?

[Images: Alden Jewel/ Flickr ( CC BY 2.0); Greg Gjerdingen/ Flickr ( CC BY 2.0); Wikimedia Commons ( CC BY-SA 3.0)]