Hot station wagons fill niche for families that crave performance

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The station wagon has been a staple of the highway for decades. A family with a wagon meant a family out for fun when summer rolled around, even on TV, like by the legendary "Brady Bunch." Or mocked sometimes in movies, like "National Lampoon's Vacation."

Today, wagons like those just don't exist in showrooms. But a different kind of wagon exists in an automotive niche all its own: high-performance ones that can hustle along like a sport sedan.

After years of merely teasing us in the U.S. with the M5 Touring sold in Europe, BMW has acquiesced in 2025, bringing their long-roof hot rod stateside for the first time, for a base price of $121,500.

A snarling V8 sits under the hood, but this is also a plug-in hybrid where a green tinge meets red hot performance thanks to gasoline and battery power. It's even a de-facto EV for 25 miles on a full charge. But stomp on the accelerator and 717 total horsepower is available.

The flip side to the complex powertrain is that this wagon stomps on the scales quite a bit. Curb weight is about 5,500 pounds. For reference, that's over 1,400 pounds heavier than the last Country Squire wagon Ford made back in 1991.

Though get behind the wheel of the M5 Touring and it is still agile and accelerates with the best of them, mostly earning its vaunted M badge.

The U.S. station wagon market thrived for years, but really started shrinking back in the 1990s. That's when the auto industry was introducing new SUV models like crazy, all aimed at families who may have previously chosen station wagons.

European families have continued to embrace the wagon, or estate car as it's often called there. And talk about an estate car, several years back Audi started sending us the RS 6 Avant. Over 600 thumping horsepower now, all-wheel-drive, and an attitude all its own. The six-figure price tag means it will always be a rare sight on the road.

But give Mercedes-Benz credit for being in this game the longest. Their AMG wagons have been around through multiple generations. Coming soon, the newest one will ditch the V8 engine but still put out 604 total horsepower thanks to the hybrid system already available in the AMG E-class sedan.

So yeah, that wagon that mom or dad drove was one thing. But these road burning imports play in a different space altogether. The fun-filled playground of super station wagons.