Photo: Kolesa
Is it really too late for wagon body styles to make a furious comeback in the United States? Sure, you could buy one if you wanted to, but mostly from premium carmakers such as Mercedes, Audi and Porsche.
Since the discontinuation of the Buick Regal TourX, the Subaru Outback endured as your only non-premium alternative for this type of vehicle and as you can imagine, one is simply not enough. Then again, the demand just isn’t there, thanks to all the crossovers and SUVs that have saturated the market in recent years.
To be fair, SUVs are technically more practical than wagons (including jacked-up wagons like an Audi Allroad or a Volvo V90 Cross Country). They have more ground clearance, a higher driving position, it’s easier to get in and out of them, and depending on segment, they have way more room inside for your passengers and luggage.
SUVs can of course be more expensive than wagons (both the MSRP and their maintenance costs). But again, there are so many variables here, it’s not even worth having a debate about it.
What we should talk about instead is this rendering by Kolesa, depicting a wagon version of the 2022 Hyundai Elantra, now in its seventh generation. The artist didn’t use the term CrossWagon – we added it, because there’s a precedent of Hyundai using this moniker before. It was for regular station wagon models though and not something more offroad-ready.
We like the design though. It’s very modern yet has a certain ruggedness, thanks to those black fender arches (if this was a real car, those would be made from plastic), big wheels and reasonably high ground clearance.
Ultimately, even if this car existed, we’d probably still take the Subaru Outback, especially since it comes with all-wheel drive as standard, whereas the Elantra is a run-of-the-mill FWD car.
To be fair, SUVs are technically more practical than wagons (including jacked-up wagons like an Audi Allroad or a Volvo V90 Cross Country). They have more ground clearance, a higher driving position, it’s easier to get in and out of them, and depending on segment, they have way more room inside for your passengers and luggage.
SUVs can of course be more expensive than wagons (both the MSRP and their maintenance costs). But again, there are so many variables here, it’s not even worth having a debate about it.
What we should talk about instead is this rendering by Kolesa, depicting a wagon version of the 2022 Hyundai Elantra, now in its seventh generation. The artist didn’t use the term CrossWagon – we added it, because there’s a precedent of Hyundai using this moniker before. It was for regular station wagon models though and not something more offroad-ready.
We like the design though. It’s very modern yet has a certain ruggedness, thanks to those black fender arches (if this was a real car, those would be made from plastic), big wheels and reasonably high ground clearance.
Ultimately, even if this car existed, we’d probably still take the Subaru Outback, especially since it comes with all-wheel drive as standard, whereas the Elantra is a run-of-the-mill FWD car.
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