‘Volvo does not leave the station wagon enthusiast in his shirt’, we wrote at the beginning of this week. But Mercedes reportedly does. The German manufacturer would no longer have faith in station wagons and would like to stop using them completely in a few years.
Mercedes and the station wagon belong together. That has been the case for decades. But what we forget in Europe is that the Estate, Combi, Touring, Break, Avant, or whatever a station wagon is called, hardly plays a significant role in the rest of the world. In Asia, sedans and MPVs dominate, and in North America, everyone wants an SUV or pickup. Wagons are not even delivered. It is purely a European body shape.
The last Mercedes station wagon will turn off the lights in 2030
According to the German newspaper Automobilewoche, Mercedes therefore wants to stop. The CLA Shooting Brake will disappear from the delivery program in 2025 and will not have a successor. In the following years, the Estate models from Mercedes disappear one by one, until the E-class Estate switches off the lights in 2030. The idea is that customers should just stick to the SUV, or else the crossover. The Stuttgart brand would think of SUV-like sedan models with a higher ride height as an alternative to the wagon.