Why I love station wagons (WARNING - Volvo content!)

[Neeek]

I can’t believe that it’s taken me this long. You see, I like station wagons, for many reasons. And upon viewing a thread in these very forums about “your favourite ever touring car”, I have realized where it all began.

It’s 1994, I’m 18 years old and an avid follower of the British Touring Car Championship in the UK, as well as a complete petrolhead. Some say that this was a golden era for the BTCC, but that’s not important. What is important is that at the end of the 1993 season, Volvo announced that it would contest the championship.

How we laughed. A Volvo? In a race? We all knew that the 850 T5 would be the car of choice as Volvo had recently set the press alight with tales of a front-wheel drive 850 series car with a dirty great turbocharger under the bonnet. Volvo had been doing turbos for a while, but no-one ever took them seriously. After all, they were still for old grandpas and dynamically about as advanced as a pitchfork. Volvos always looked like 2 small sheds either side of a big one (and just one big shed if it was the type favoured by antique dealers – the one with the roof the size of an aircraft carrier’s landing strip) and couldn’t possibly contend a race series.

Come race day, we laughed even harder – a station wagon! This HAD to be a joke, right? This was like a go-kart lining up on a Formula One gird. But Volvo didn’t think it was a joke, and neither did anyone else when they were competitive, straight out of the box. It’s fair to say that they didn’t blitz the field, but it was somewhat amusing to see a Ford Mondeo, being chased by a Vauxhall Vectra, being chased by… a Volvo station wagon.

How completely ridiculous is that? What appeared to be your Uncle’s old banger, painted in funky colours, dropped on its guts, big wheels and bouncing off the apexes on two wheels trying hard to win races! It was nothing short of hilarious, and no one could quite believe that these Volvos were being piloted by professional racing drivers, and not your Uncle in a flat cap and leather driving gloves, smoking a pipe. What made it even more mirthful was that the other racers used it as a pace car – they’d drive behind it and “hide” in the gigantic hole it punched in the air, then try to slingshot past it. It made for fantastically entertaining motor racing.

The next season, Volvo used a sedan for the BTCC. The wagon had been a massive publicity stunt - marketing at its finest. That BTCC car did more for Volvo than anything else at the time, and all of a sudden it was cool to have an 850 T5 station wagon. In bright yellow, as many of them were. They were faster than they had a right to be, and all of a sudden Volvos, in particular those that could carry wardrobes, were cool.

And it wasn’t just Volvo that got a slice of success. How about a BMW M5 station wagon? How about all of those AMG-Mercedes with massive engines in the front and 10 million cubic feet in the back? All down to Volvo.

I only hope that my humble XC wagon will be half as amusing when I’m done with it – there’s something totally demented about a station wagon that goes like the clappers. Thank you, Volvo.