Station Wagon Type

A station wagon is in the two-box shape with an engine hood in the front, and passenger seat and a stretch of the cargo compartment in the rear.

Before the 1990s, many of them were equipped with spare seats (jump seats), and they could be used like today’s japanese minivan.

The origin of the station wagon is “Wagon (carriage) at the station,” so it became “Stagecoach.” The stagecoach that was used for transporting people and luggage between cities during the American frontier period is sometimes introduced as its origin.

The emergence is roughly like this: “Extend the roof of a three-box sedan to the tail end, insert glass windows and pillars between that roof and the shoulder line, and make the trunk part into a large cargo compartment.”

In Japan, a light van has been wrongly understood as the same thing as a station wagon because they both had glass windows on both sides of the cargo compartment, they were produced with the same exact body for cost saving, and even the car name was the same in many cases.

However, there is no light van with glass windows on both sides of the cargo compartment in Europe, which is the birthplace of cars. The sides of a van’s cargo compartment in Europe are made of the same sheet iron as the body with no window, so the difference between the two is clear.

However, the vehicle height and the full length is the same level as a sedan, and the cargo compartment behind the back seats can hold a larger load when the back seats are folded, so a station wagon is seen as the same thing as a light van that transports cargo.

Because of the increase in recreational use, station wagons with superior comfortability and high driveability have appeared, and today, they are recognized as vehicles with a high performance while having consideration for load capacity.

It is highly balanced and has high practicality in driveability, comfortability, maneuverability in parking lots, and fuel efficiency.