A family friend of mine cycled through Commodore wagons for years - first a VX, then a VY - and refused to upgrade to anything newer. Why? Because every now and then, he needed to transport his daughter’s full-sized orchestral harp. The trusty Commodore wagon was the only vehicle on the market with a boot long enough to stomach it.

You'd think everyone was transporting harps, because that’s how things used to be. 

But then, as a global collective of car buyers, we decided we’d prefer to sit higher up. And we all started buying SUVs.

We were sold on the allure of "more space," but looking at the 1979 Holden Kingswood currently live in our Everything Holden auction at CARBIDS, it’s clear that was a lie. The boot in that thing makes the tub of a modern dual-cab ute look like a back pocket.

And not a lot else makes sense about the SUV either.

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The rise of the high-ri?der?

Common lore says the modern SUV began with the 1984 Jeep Cherokee, but it took a few decades of lighter, softer crossovers for us to fully warm up to them. In the 1990s, wagons still accounted for about 16 per cent of all new light vehicle sales in Australia.

By 2017, the tipping point arrived: SUVs officially became Australia's most popular vehicle type, pushing traditional sedans and wagons aside. Today, wagon sales have collapsed to a microscopic 0.5 per cent.

New wagons are almost extinct. BMW still builds a very smart 3 Series Touring, Skoda offers the Octavia and Superb, and Subaru sells a WRX Sportswagon (formerly the Levorg - which is 'grovel' backwards, in case you were wondering). But the mainstream herd has thinned drastically - the Mazda 6 wagon and Volvo V90 are both freshly departed.

The new CUPRA Leon VZe Sportstourer. Photo: CUPRA Australia.

CUPRA is one of the few brands to have dusted off a VHS for a movie night, recently introducing the all-wheel-drive, plug-in hybrid Leon VZx Sportstourer.

“Performance wagons have always inspired passionate enthusiasts because they offer something genuinely unique - the practicality and versatility people need, combined with the driving experience they truly want,” says CUPRA Australia Head of Product, Jeff Shafer.

You go, Jeff.

The fact, and figures

Car enthusiasts constantly rue the death of the wagon. It's become almost a rite of passage to petrolhead-dom to heap loathing on the SUV. But as a family man and a petrolhead, I do get the appeal of an SUV.

I have zero intention of ever taking my Alfa Stelvio off the beaten track, but the extra floor height alone does wonders for the squishy bits between your vertebrae when you're wrestling kids into car seats. SUVs are convenient. Easy.

I also suspect today's sedans and wagons are much closer to the ground than yesteryear's, so a gravel driveway a Kingswood could tackle with ease would tear the sump off a modern wagon. Hence the SUV. 

Beyond that convenience, though? SUVs make far less sense on paper than a proper wagon.

Take the Mazda CX-5 and Mazda 6 wagon, both among the most popular in their classes and fitted with the same 2.5-litre naturally aspirated engine.

The 2013 Mazda 6 wagon. Photo: James Coleman.

The CX-5 claims average fuel consumption of 7.4L/100km, while the lower, sleeker Mazda 6 wagon drops to 7.0L/100km because it isn't having to drag a heap of extra dead metal and plastic around.

Acceleration? The Mazda 6 wagon hits 0-100 km/h in roughly 8 seconds, where the taller CX-5 takes over 10 seconds to gird its more ponderous loins.

And because wagons sit closer to the tarmac, their centre of gravity is much nearer to Earth’s core, meaning significantly less body roll in the corners.

And let's be honest: which one are you turning around to look at in a car park? The CX-5, or the 6? A suburban crossover, or a low-slung wagon? Or let's make it impossibly easy: Audi Q5 or RS6 Avant. The proportions, the silhouette - the wagon is simply peak car design.

The enthusiast choice?

Wagons may have started as utilitarian workhorses for hauling large and cumbersome musical instruments, but that very practicality - combined with car-like handling - is also exactly why they have since morphed into the ultimate middle finger to SUV monoculture.

Why else do we have icons like the Audi RS6, the BMW M3 and M5 Tourings, and historical greats like the Volvo 850R, the Porsche-co-developed Audi RS2 Avant, and the Mitsubishi Evo IX wagon? The sharpest minds in the car industry have long known that a high-performance wagon makes eminent sense.

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It’s also why Mercedes let AMG pour its entire spice cabinet into a C-Class wagon to create the animalistic 2015 C63 S wagon we've currently got online in our Curated Auction - packing a 375 kW 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8, rear-wheel drive, and a dedicated 'Race mode'. (Fuel economy probably isn't the top priority on that one).

So, regardless of where it sits on the spectrum between nostalgic Aussie cruiser with a cavernous boot and bona-fide sports car with a butt lift and a fire-breathing V8, wagons still offer something an SUV never quite can.

CUPRA, we genuinely wish your new Sportstourer all the best.

Check out the 1979 Holden Kingswood and 2015 Mercedes-AMG C63 wagon currently live on CARBIDS.