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Proving the pudding
This is cool. Michael Yacavone points to the coming arrival of a Volkswagen Jetta wagon. And it looks like a box, too! (BTW: I'm a radio freak, so my only complaint about Volkswagens these days is the standard little black foreshortened antenna, which works okay, but not great. Another form-over-function issue.)
Join a piece of the action
The latest JOHO is up, and with it an opportunity to help Dr. Weinberger work on his new book, Small Pieces Loosely Joined, the public draft of which is here. Of course it's brilliant; and worse, enviable. Dig it.
Too bad Radio Flyer doesn't make cars
My current vehicle is an 
'87 Subaru 4WD wagon, which is a terrific form factor but sucky in every other respect. I'd go into all the reasons, but one alone should do: the windshield leaks on my lap. I can't park it in the rain without covering the front of the roof and the top of the windshield with large black plastic bags held in place by magnets and rocks. And if that doesn't sufficiently suck as a chick magnet, consider the fact that all the leaked-in water mixes with thirteen years of spilled coffee and four years of scattered and ground-in toddler debris, producing a range of oudures des poubelles. After my daughter borrowed it briefly a couple months ago, she said, honestly, that she'd rather walk.
But again, I like the form factor. And I don't blame the car for its problems. I bought it used. The shit was beat out of it before I got it, and I've beat a lot more shit into it since. The roof leaks because one night, right after I entered the 5-mile-long causeway of the San Mateo Bridge, the hood slapped straight back on the windshield with a WHAM! as loud as a gunshot, smashing it to pieces, warping the roof and blocking the forward view completely. There was no place to pull over until the "high rise" section of the bridge, where it adds a third lane that starts with a pull-over space normally occupied by a cop car ready to pounce on speeders (where it says "trestle" here). The roof didn't leak right away after I replaced the windshield, but it's been getting a little worse every Winter. Now it might as well be an open hole. (By the way, the hood came loose because the its latch was screwed rather than welded on, and the screws came loose. Not Subaru's fault, either. Turns out the hood wasn't original — meaning the car is on its third hood.)
I keep coming back to form factor. This old Subaru shares a single virtue with old Volvo wagons: it's a box. You can put a lot of stuff in there. The rear seats fold down flat, opening enough room for two bicycles and a christmas tree. I like that. It's also small. Unfortunately, our two car garage only has room for one car bigger than the Subaru. That would be Joyce's '92 Infiniti Q45a, which isn't leaving. So: no Volvo wagons.
Lately I've been looking at some new smaller station wagons and SUVs, and it seems like they've all traded function for form. With the wagons the prevailing form is the suppository shape that's prevailed in automobile styling for the last decade. With the small SUVs it's an abundance of vertical space with squat in the horizontal. Great for potted plants,but lousy for sheets of plywood. The newer Subaru Outbacks seem no bigger inside than their boxy ancestors, but outside they seem to bulge in all directions. The smaller Forrester is kinda nice, but the cupholders are cheezy. I like a good cupholder. I haven't checked out the Legacy. Maybe I should.
I just looked at the new Toyota RAV4, which Consumer Reports top-rated this month. It's comfortable, which I like, but it's small. I like the Volkswagen Passat wagon, but with AWD it's expensive. The Audi Allroad Quattro A4 is ideal as a car but dinky as a wagon and way out of range price-wise. The bigger A6 Avant is gorgeous and has lots of cargo room, but costs even more. Same with the equally nice BMW 5-series and 3-series wagons. (Hey, I'm cheap.)
Speaking of cheap, Consumer Reports liked the Ford Focus wagon, too, but I hear it's noisy, which would drive me nuts on long trips.
So anyway, I'm devoting whole minutes to looking while I'm in the midst of the too much other stuff that's going on. Guess that's why I need a wagon.
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