A few weeks after my wife and I settled into our most recent home, we concluded our long-running quest for a replacement vehicle for our venerable-yet-oh-so-1984era 1998 Jeep Cherokee (sport). The short list leading up to our decision included the 2006 Volvo V50 Estate, the 2006 Mazda6 SportWagon, and a slightly used 2006 BMW 325xi SportWagon. In the end the Mazda6 SportWagon dazzled us with its performance in the quarter mile, its effortless consummation of the slalom course and perhaps more so, the discount-eagerness of a commission-junky with looming end-of-month quotas.
Wagon’s are Back? Estate Wagons never really left, they have been and remain (IMHO) the quintessential vehicle of the everyday person. They have simple been in disguise. Think of all the SUVs out there today, and now think of how many of them are actually built on truck chassis. In fact a large majority of them are built like sedans and often times share common platforms with them. We American’s love our SUV’s, not because they are trucks, often they aren’t, we love them because they aren’t estate wagons, but hang on, I think they are.
Whats in a Name;
They call it a sport-wagon, and at first, I thought I got it; it’s a square box of mild steel & Aluminum with four little wheels and they don’t want me to feel any worse for being a person who needs such a vehicle than is absolutely necessary. It’s a ‘sport’, in the same spirit as Microsoft Windows is 'professional' or Fox is 'fair and balanced' and the Pontiac Vibe is ‘cool’. We, as a society, have become desensitized to many things, chief among them, due to the rampant proliferation of the word, is ‘sport-x’, ‘sport-y’ on every 5000lb SUV that stumbles out of Detroit’s auto-works. So some of us may indeed be skeptical when we see someone pull-up in the Kia Sportage Sport-model with the optional Sport package. In fact the only car I have owned in the past seven years that did not explicitly assign the word ‘sport’ to some attribute of the car, was a SN-95 Ford Mustang. Instead the Mustang had the ‘performance package’ (you guessed it, leather wrapped steering wheel + fog lamps). If the past 176 words haven’t convinced you, My natural instinct is to consider the use of ‘sport’ in the context of describing an estate wagon to be a overstatement at best or a flat out lie of Plymouth ‘Reliant’ proportions at worst. But when you think about it..
'Sport' Justification;
It does come standard with the 210BHP 3.0 liter (Ford) Duratec (concerned that they felt a need to say ‘Dura’, would prefer ‘Sportatec’) motor rather than the base 160BHP 2.3L standard on the four door sedan and hatchback models.
Net horsepower becomes Effective(ish) horsepower via a six speed ‘Sport’ (not kidding) sequential-automatic slushbox (Mr. Bill voice;‘NO!!”) or a slick short-throw 5-speed manual.
It weighs 3461lbs (curb) far lighter than Ford’s Freestyle @ 4112lbs (curb) and slightly lighter than Volvo V70 @ 3488lb
While not usually considered a plus, the Mazda6’s underlying platform lacks support for an AWD system (at present). In my opinion that’s just as ‘sport’ suggests, somewhat minimalist (although anyone who says the AWD Mitsubishi EVO is not a great sports car, can leave now).
It drives like a sports car, taunt and composed in corners has abundantly precise steering (even if a bit numb), engine noise permeates the cabin when driving aggressively. When in manual-mode the sequential slushbox will allow engine to redline until you shift (some upshift regardless). Upshifts feel about right, predictably slow perhaps, while downshifts largely depend on the status of the torque converter, current wheel speed, engine rpm and the deltas of those (changes), thus ‘requested’ downshifts may not occur until you are parked in the garage and contemplating a mid-life crises (you were 26 when you parked).
Honestly though, the strongest argument for justifying the sport moniker maybe the leather wrapped steering wheel.
Conclusion;
At the end of the day, we may well conclude that my wifes new Mazda6 estate wagon is indeed a ‘sportwagon’, but we now implicitly have uncovered the ugly reality. The automotive marketing industry is using the word sport quite separate from that of ‘sport car’, in fact their definition of ‘sport’ may well be ‘without’. I can now see a day where honesty will triumph and at new car announcement events we will listen…“Here is the new Ford Unnecessarily-Large-Status-Utility-Vehicle (ULSUV) ‘Sport’, and by sport we mean; without Stability control, a couple doors, limited slip, four wheel drive, sculpted seating, style, reliability, performance and every useful piece of automotive technology except, of course, for the leather steering wheel and fog lamps..”
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