Building Our Dream Wagons: Window Shop with Car and Driver

Tech problems, swearing, and bubbling personal insecurities masked as automotive opinions? It could only be Car and Driver’s Window Shopping, the mostly but not always weekly video call in which we allow you to see why we’re always behind deadline.

This week’s challenge has C/D history: Find a station wagon and the parts to make it better, better, boss. Car and Driver has upgraded family haulers since the ‘60s, when the staff gamed the order sheet on a Plymouth Fury wagon with a muscle car’s 383 V-8. Since then, there’s been a Boss Wagon about every decade, with the most recent being K.C. Colwell’s Mazda 5 made speedy. The rules are loose: wagonesque shape and a plan for bossifying, with a $50,000 budget.

Our bossy group included favorite C/D contributor Jonathon Ramsey; Road and Track’s John Pearley Huffman, resentful at not being introduced as favorite contributor; Boss Wagon expert K.C. Colwell; actual Car and Driver boss, Tony Quiroga; and wagon weirdo Elana Scherr.

The choices include many rear-facing back seats, two non-lowering rear windows, enough woodgrain to build a (very thin) deck, several variants of Chevy powerplant, and a surprising overlap in wagon choice. Ramsey has technical problems with his Wi-Fi on the moon—or whatever exotic location he’s calling in from—and Pearley and Scherr discuss the correct usage of “fuselage,” as applied to Chrysler products. For the record, the full-size cars used it first.

In the end, a winner is chosen for wild boundary pushing and possibly to wreak havoc on the self-esteem of the other participants. We need counseling, but we have wagons. Tell us what you would choose or suggest your own Boss Wagon ideas.

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