Drew Dowdell

Oh.. the other part I forgot to mention. There is a huge "Caravan" culture there. They'll strap a camper up to just about anything and go take a road trip somewhere.

From 1957 through 1991, the Mercury Colony Park reigned supreme as the biggest and sometimes most expensive vehicle in the Mercury lineup. During the early years it was a hybrid of sorts, often sharing its platform with whatever full-size Ford sedan was in production at the time while occasionally plucking engines or suspensions from the Lincoln catalog. After 1978, the Colony Park's fate was forever tied to its Marquis sedan brother and the Ford cousins, no longer did it have equipment ties to Lincoln. For 1992, the big Ford and Mercury sedans were redesigned to the new Aero look introduced ten years earlier on the Tempo/Topaz and made into a best seller with the 1986 Taurus. Unfortunately for the Colony Park, that also meant the end of the line. By 1992 Mini-vans and SUVs were all the rage, so Ford canceled the big wagons. For some people, that end of the Colony Park just wouldn't do. If you're one of those people, you just missed out on a great E-Bay find. This 1999 Mercury Grand Marquis Wagon with 44,000 miles sold on E-bay for only $2500. It was a mere 900 miles old when it was rear ended and a shop teacher converted it (with parts from a Mercury Sable I presume) into the wagon you see here. The seller says that car runs and is complete with only a minor rust area over the right front wheel well. Unfortunately, there is no side facing third row in this conversion. So what do you think? For $2500, would you have rocked a 1999 Mercury Grand Marquis Woody Wagon? View full article

Why did GM kill the Avalanche and ditch QuadraSteer on GMC trucks? Low take rate on the Quadrasteer... The avalanche? Because they're idiots.

So why do Europeans in general (and Germans in particular) prefer wagons over crossovers? They don't see the benefits of SUVs. Cons for SUVs in Europe: 1. Less stable at very high speed driving. The autobahn is well known for it's lack of speed limits in some places, but other countries have very high speed limits too. France's top speed limit is over 80mph. 2. Lower fuel economy v. wagons. Pros for Wagons and hatchbacks in Europe: 1. 90% of the utility of a crossover... sometimes better utility than certain crossovers. 2. sedan like handling 3. better fuel economy than a crossover The fuel economy thing is probably the biggest factor. Even with a diesel, a FWD Opel Astra Wagon 1.6 CDi gets much better fuel economy (3.8 liters / 100km)* than a FWD Opel Mokka 1.6 CDi with the same engine and transmission (5.1 liters / 100km)*. *lower is better, converted to the US measurement it is roughly 51mpg v. 46mpg. Yet both vehicles have roughly the same utility. Europeans in general are highly conscious of fuel consumption due to the high cost of fuel, but Germans in particular are very financially frugal (even credit cards are looked down on there, the way they do mortgages on houses is very different too) Another factor is winter driving. In most parts Germany specifically and in all of the Nordic countries, you are required to run snow tires on your car during certain months of the year, so having AWD is less of a "thing" for them. If I could get by in a RWD CTS with snow tires, than a FWD Astra wagon would do at least as well. Many people in the US seem to think that if they spend $2,000 on AWD, then they can "save" having to spend $500 on snow tires... and people automatically equate AWD with SUV even though that isn't the case. And since AWD is a negative on fuel consumption, they value saving fuel over some marginal increase in snow going ability. Aside from freaks like Dfelt who are too tall , the vast majority of crossover drivers in the US would be better served by a wagon..... but because SUVs/CUVs are status symbols, wagons have become unpopular. That said, I would totally buy a wagon, but even I can't sell it to my other half.....

When do you take delivery?

At the rate we're going, I'm not going to get to do any skiing here on the east coast Careful what you say.. last year the north east got BLASTED! I'd like a little more snow than we got here in the STL area. While the rest of the US got hit hard at times we only really had 1 snow. and I didn't get to ski any of it because of my crazy travel schedule

Escalade just barely tickles $100k... if you buy an ESV Platinum. The Grand Wagoneer will need to start in the $50k range (base price of the Yukon XL is $51,260) and then maybe option up to $100k for the PHEV Summit Extended length.

At the rate we're going, I'm not going to get to do any skiing here on the east coast

Well, you happen to be wrong about the German attitudes towards road trips and such.... and the reason for their preferences for wagons.

I just have to LOL at this...

What shrinking product? Except for the compact crossover segment which is relatively new, almost all segments have grown substantially. Tempo -> Contour -> Fusion (which is as large as the old Taurus) The Civic of today is larger than the Accord of 25 years ago. I'd also wager that a lot of the sales of these compact crossovers are coming at the expense of small economy car sales rather than people downsizing from a Suburban.

The B-O-F factor is moot anyway as there are no B-o-F cars left in production. Approximately Zero S-Class/Continental/CT6/A6/LaCrosse owners are going to go anywhere near the limit of their cars. Most drivers, even ones with lots of money, cannot handle a Corolla at 7/10ths much less one of these high performance machines.... So if Lincoln can pry some old blue-hair out of her E-class, it's not going to be for how fast the Contiental can or cannot go around the Nurburgring.