Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles Wagons away Hi, I'm Jack Smith and right now, it's station wagon savings time in the west. Time to hit the trail in high style with all a will comfort, but only a Rambler station wagon can give you. The station wagon was once a fixture of American family life. It was a common sight in American garages and frequently featured in popular culture. These days, however, it has nearly vanished from US roads. Americans, at least most of them, just don't like the segment. And it shows in the tiny number of wagons sold every year, Americans just don't like wagons for whatever reason. We we have rejected the body style for many years. It's been declining. You know, we think back to perhaps some of those movies like National Lampoon's Vacation, where a family travels across the country in a wagon. Those days are long, long behind us. And these days, wagon sales are less than 2 percent of all industry sales. Meanwhile, crossovers and sport utility vehicles continue to swallow market share, leading many manufacturers to believe that if they want to sell a wagon, they need to lift it a bit, maybe cover it with some cladding and call it a crossover. You want the crossover tag associated with it because that's what people are buying and that's what they want to buy. At some point, they may want another tag because it's no longer cool to own a crossover, an SUV. But right now, that's not the case yet. In 2018, consumers around the world bought just under 2.5 million wagons, roughly a mere 3 percent of all new cars sold in the United States the segment represents only about 1 to 2 percent of all sales. But in some European countries, sales are several times that. Wagon's represented nearly 20 percent of all sales in Germany and at least a quarter of sales in some Scandinavian countries, such as Finland and Sweden. wagons also comprised 23 percent of all sales in Czech Republic, 16 percent in Slovakia and 15 percent in Poland. In Sweden our home country, close to 50 percent of our volume is related to wagons. You have the best residual values, you have the most loyal consumers. And also that is how we were live in Sweden. You know, nature is very important. We do exactly in line with Americans. You know, it's a lot of football and a lot of sports associated with our kids. So we need a space. And so the legacy of wagons is really in our DNA. Also you see them all over the place and the roads in Sweden and in Europe. More than 70 percent of all wagon's sold in the world are sold in Europe. There the wagon is still seen as an efficient blend of function and performance, especially when fuel prices can be quite high. In Europe, the station wagon continues to be the prototype for many families, even though it they have lost traction as well in Europe. Despite the fact that Europe is the world's wagon stronghold, data do suggest that sport utilities are eating into its share on that continent as well. Of course, on the other end of the spectrum, US data show that sport utility vehicles have completely eclipsed the wagon as the family hauler of choice. Wagons have steadily lost share in the US new car market from 3.69 percent of new car sales in 2008 to 1.4 percent in 2018. Cross-overs and SUVs grew their share of the new car market in the US by 20 percent from 2008 to 2018. They now make up nearly half of all new car sales. For now, wagons have managed to find a way to keep a foothold, albeit a small one in America. For example, the segment straddling Subaru Outback has been a tremendously successful product for that company part wagon, part crossover. The Outback was introduced in the 1995 model year as a variant of the Subaru legacy, but was soon spun out into its own distinct brand and has become something of a phenomenon. The outback alone accounted for the vast majority of wagon sales in the US. Of that, 1.4 percent of the US market wagons have the outback alone makes up 1.2 percent. In other words, almost all of it. That means all wagons sold by all other brands combined would account for just 0.2 percent of the total US new car market. So when we talk about wagons, we're essentially talking about one model with with a very decent industry share and then a handful of other models that, quite frankly, don't sell very well. The outback is an example of how wagon like vehicles can be successfully marketed in the United States and perhaps gives an idea of how they are likely to look in the future if they stick around. Though it retains many of the basic features of a wagon, the car is lifted a bit and covered in plastic cladding to give it more of a rugged outdoor appearance. It retains the basic silhouette of the wagon, but the outback has evolved over time to incorporate more attributes of SUVs and crossovers Subaru told CNBC. This includes standard all wheel drive, the ability to tow up to thirty five hundred pounds and a full eight point seven inches of ground clearance higher than what is found on many SUVs. The company said they were one of the early players obviously in this crossover space before the term crossover was even mentioned. And that's again when they were being called wagons. So I think they've done well if they've got a very loyal buyer. They've expanded into the certainly the outdoor lifestyle buyer has has has long been a Subaru advocate. So I think, you know, is that as that continues to to develop and people are more interested in an active, active lives and in certainly what what super has to offer from just an honor and capability. But but also on dirt and on on trails even. The outback shows that selling a wagon in the US may be a lot easier if it happens to look like a sport utility vehicle. In fact, it might be one of the only wagon like vehicles to survive in the United States. But yeah, no question about it, the wagon market is certainly taking cues from the from the SUV and crossover segments and adding, as you said, a little bit of cladding, raising that ground clearance up a little bit to give it that that view that essentially it can compete with a crossover. That rather dire outlook has not stopped other automakers from rolling the dice, though. General Motors sells the Buick Regal Tours X, a US version of the Opel insignia wagon. GM used to sell in Europe when it owned the Opel brand. Notably, the US version has the same plastic cladding and slight lift, which is not seen on the European version. But with a lower center of gravity, it gives more sedan like driving dynamics and a lower roof for easy rooftop access key features wagon buyers want in a car. There are several positive signs for wagon fans elsewhere in the US if they have the cash. Much of the variety in the US wagon market is found at the higher end, where luxury and high performance can gloss over the otherwise dowdy and domestic image the wagon has. Given the fact that the countries with some of the highest wagon sales are Germany and the Scandinavian nations. It makes sense that most of these premium wagons are from German and Scandinavian automakers. The Swedish brand Volvo is perhaps the brand best known for wagons, and its among the brands most committed to the segment in the United States. Though Volvo has lately focused intensely on building out its lineup of sport utility vehicles, a substantial portion of its portfolio is still in wagons. I see the same opportunities in us. So one part of me is a bit confused that this should be much bigger. The volume should be much, much, much bigger. But then we have the SUV trend in the US that probably overlaps that kind of because could get the space to an SUV. But I would say the wagons are for me they're beautiful. And I think you'll see the cars here, the size wise that are boxy anymore, and they are not boring. You get both. You get the driving capabilities as a sedan and you get more space. And also it looks sporty and that's what we aim for. Volvo sells the mid-sized V60 wagon and the larger V90. Both can be bought in the cross country trim, which means the car is lifted and comes with the familiar dark cladding on the sides of the car. And Volvo also has a 415 horsepower performance hybrid version of its V 60 bearing Volvos Polestar brand, which was once its in-house performance shop and now specializes in making high performance electric vehicles. Mercedes Benz sells its E-Class wagons in the US, mostly to well-heeled buyers with families. The car sells especially well in the Northeast. Wagon sales make up a tiny portion of Mercedes US total zero point seven percent to be exact. But buyers are loyal and they pay an E 450 for Madoc wagon starts at about sixty $66000 and the higher performance AMG e63 S starts above one hundred eight thousand dollars. Fellow German automaker Audi said in August of 2019, it plans to bring the R.S. Six a vaunt wagon to the US. The R.S. Six Avante is a performance wagon. Audi will sell alongside the eight for all road wagon it currently offers and the a six all road, which Audi said in October. It will also be bringing back to the US. In recent years in the United States, Audi has only sold its a for all road wagon, which is also a popular choice among premium wagon buyers. Even Porsche has a wagon like vehicle. However, the number of wagon loving diehards seems to be shrinking and many in the industry are not optimistic that the wagon will make a comeback anytime soon. I just I wonder how many more cracks at the bat we're gonna get here from from this forbidden fruit. And these wagons coming from