This Is One Of The Most Poorly-Defined Categories Of Cars: The Wagovan

As you may have already surmised, I enjoy taxonomies. And, sure, I only read the actual definition of “taxonomy” a few days ago and wasn’t really aware of the strong biological associations, but that won’t stop me from continuing to use the word to describe automotive categorizations. Today I want to tackle one of modern automobilia’s most blurry and contentious taxonomic problems: what is the difference between a minivan and vehicles that aren’t quite minivans, but also aren’t quite wagons? See, we don’t even really have a good name for this category! Something has to be done about this, and done now. So stop whatever you’re doing, parachute out of the plane, fling those dental tools to the ground, let that belt sander just launch itself into the shop wall, leave those customers hanging, let that baby cry, whatever it takes. Because we’re doing this now.

Fundamentally, here’s the problem, the problem that has caused long, drawn-out fistfights (and at least one mop-fight) at the last three Global Automotive Classification Summits, held every year in Zug, Switzerland: what do we call the strange and ill-defined space between station wagons/estates and minivans? Station wagons and minivans share a great many qualities: both are primarily passenger vehicles, designed to seat anywhere from four to eight or so passengers. Both can have two or three rows of seating, both are designed to hold considerable amounts of cargo, both have long been intended and used as family cars, both tend to have a generally two-box layout – they’re really doing essentially the same sort of jobs.

And yet, they’re quite different. A wagon is lower and has “longer” proportions, even if the actual overall length isn’t longer. Minivans tend to be taller, higher, but not necessarily any different in ride height or anything like that. A wagon tends to have a longer hood; a minivan’s hood is stubby. In character, even if they tend to be used in the same sort of roles, there are differences, and it’s possible these differences change over time and with changes in the overall culture. A minivan feels a bit more domestic and targeted at family use, where a wagon sort of retains a certain enthusiasts’ cachet.

This wasn’t always the case; wagons were firmly in the family-use category until the re-emergence of minivans in the 1980s freed them from guaranteed domesticity, and a new breed of 4×4 rugged wagons pushed the wagon into more sporting/adventurer territories.

That’s not to say minivans couldn’t be used for many of these same sorts of activities; many could, and 4×4 minivans do exist. But conceptually, there was something of a split, where minivans took up a bit more of the practical, smart choice for a family mantle, and wagons became at least a bit more iconoclastic, if only because of the rising popularity of minivans for people who ironically sought to escape the domestic stigma of the wagons they grew up with.

Of course, the story ended up getting flipped a bit as a result. Regardless, there exists a space between the wagon and the minivan, and that’s what we’re here to talk about. Sometimes this category is called the MPV category, for “Multi-Purpose Vehicle.” Mazda even just named their almost-minivan the MPV, and it was a good example of this blurry category:

Proportionally, it feels very minivan-like. But it has conventional doors and the scale is a bit closer to a wagon. Is it a minivan? If intent matters, then Mazda must have felt not, because why else would they go out of their way to call it an “MPV,” when “minivan” was right there? There was clearly a decision made.

Personally, I think this strange, transitional category may be best represented by the Honda Civic Wagon, also known, in some markets, as the Wagovan. In fact, I’d like to steal that name for this whole general category, as it explains everything right there in that portmanteau.

The little Civic Wagovan had minvan proportions, normal hinged doors, a focus on interior space, a smaller-than-a-minivan exterior, and plenty of domestic practicality but also a certain amount of defiant charm. It was the ultimate melangé of wagon and minivan, not at home in either category, exactly, but I think better at being an example of this new in-between state.

There’s many more, of course; I made a chart of some of the better-known ones to get us started thinking:

The Wagovans deserve their own classification, I think. I don’t feel like I’m at a point where I can make some hard-and-fast rules defining entry to this category, so I think for the moment we’re just going to have to do what Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart did with obscenity: know it when we see it. In our pants.

I’m open to some brainstorming to help define things here; remember, everyone is counting on us to get this right, so let’s do the best we can. These odd little half-van/half-wagons deserve nothing less.