THREE 600-HP WAGONS
REPRESENT PEAK CAR
WORDS JONNY LIEBERMAN PHOTOGRAPHY DARREN MARTINI
’ve been waiting my whole career to
write this story. See, I love station
wagons, and the more powerful, the
better. I’ve spent much of my career
championing them as the perfect
vehicle—some say too much, though I
say not nearly enough. Such is my rep, a
man from AMG told me he figures I was
personally responsible for half of all E 63
wagon sales. (It’s not a large number.)
I hit the wagon jackpot when I
first worked for MotorTrend, as I was
assigned chaperone duty for our long-
term Cadillac CTS-V wagon. Let’s say I
enjoyed my time with that 556-horse-
power manual station wagon. I was able
to compare it to a brown Mercedes E 63AMG wagon—as it was then called—but
then Caddy killed off its best product of
the past few decades, and I was sad.
The AMG remained the sole super-
wagon on sale in the U.S. until Porsche
delivered the Sport Turismo version of
the Panamera Turbo a few years back.
Then Audi did the seemingly unthink-
able and brought the ultimate verbotene
Frucht stateside this year, the long lust-
ed-over RS 6 Avant. That’s right, friends,
we suddenly have three 600-hp (or near
enough) wagons in a comparison. Turned
out 2020 had one small silver lining.
There’s an in-joke with, and perhaps
about, auto journalists: We all want
brown, manual, diesel station wagons.Part of that is true, and I’ll go so far as
to take some credit for the brown and
manual parts. The diesel thing? No idea,
as I despise diesel anything unless it’s a
pickup truck and involves hauling a boat.
Why do journalists like wagons so
much? Wagons give you a car’s handling
with an SUV’s practicality. Plus, long-
roof cars happen to look so much better
than three-box sedans. It’s true, don’t
argue with me. Going with that, let’s just
accept the idea that wagons are the best
type of cars, and enthusiasts know this
is the truth. As editorial director Ed Loh
once said, “Americans think they love
cars, but Germans actually love cars.
That’s why they drive so many wagons.”APRIL 2021 MOTORTREND.COM 27