Hemmings Motor News Blog Blog

Hemmings Motor News Blog

Hemmings Motor News has been around since 1954. We're proud of our heritage, but we're also more than the Hemmings full of classifieds that your father subscribed to. Aside from new editorial content every month in Hemmings, we have three monthly magazines: Hemmings Muscle Machines, Hemmings Classic Car and Hemmings Sports and Exotic Car.

While our editors traverse the country to find the best content for those magazines, we find other oddities related to the old-car hobby that we really had no place for - until now. With this blog, we're giving you a behind-the-scenes look at what we see and what we do during the course of putting out some of the finest automotive magazines you'll ever read.

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Wagons: Family Vehicle of Obvious Utility

Posted June 02, 2011 7:00 AM by dstrohl

If there's anyone at Hemmings who doesn't dig wagons, they haven't had the courage to speak up about it. Wagons bring almost the same performance as a sedan version, but were almost always produced in much lower numbers. There were innumerable clever packaging solutions in the back, like jumpseats, two-way doors, sliding cargo trays and more. And of course, there's always the obvious utility of a vehicle that handles like a car but can swallow weeks of luggage without impinging on the seating area.

You might think the utility is less obvious when it's a two-door wagon (shooting brake), one of 12 1965 Aston Martin DB5 Vantages custom-bodied by Radford at a cost of around £7,000 (about $19,500, or one Ferrari 400 Superamerica, plus tax). But after an initial stint with the St. Brides Hotel in Wales, where it presumably functioned as an actual station wagon, it made its way to Aston enthusiast Denis Roy Smith in 1972, who, with a young son, needed a family vehicle.

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Re: Wagons: Family Vehicle of Obvious Utility

06/02/2011 8:20 AM

As a kid growing up with two siblings, I remember the many station wagons my father owned. Great for travelling long distances. He'd fold the back seats down and we three kids would hunker down, unrestrained, for naps with pillows and blankets, wrestle around or generally get into trouble. His arms were 9ft long, or so it seemed, but he could never reach us from the front bench. I loved the rear-facing back seat. Kind of cramped and scary when it looked like we were about to get rear-ended.

Todays minivans are also great for their utility. However, carseats and legislated seatbelt laws make travelling a nightmare for my kids. They're strapped in so tight that movement is nearly impossible. "Are we there yet?" used to funny, but not any more.

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