The station wagon’s ultimate interval of correct mainstream profits relevance in North The usa took place during the 1990s, while the minivan and SUV experienced extensive since been shoving the wagon aside by that issue. Peak Wagon — measured by the range of new wagon designs obtainable here — happened in both 1964 or 1977, when 47 diverse wagons were being in American dealerships. The Ford Taurus wagon received the axe in 2005, 14 several years right after the Country Squire went away, with the Saturn L300 and Ford Focus wagons disappearing around the exact same time. Hyundai saw the creating on the wall a little bit previously, nevertheless, and gave up on the longroof here right after 2000. This is 1 of those people ultimate-design-12 months vehicles, found in a Denver self-company automobile graveyard just lately.
About this time, numerous of you are sputtering angrily, “But what about the 2009-2012 Elantra Touring?” I say that car was a hatchback, albeit a slightly stretched a person, developed for Europeans and then hurriedly geared up with Elantra badges for the North American market place. A genuine station wagon must be centered on a sedan, and which is particularly what Hyundai did with the 1996-2000 Elantra.
In reality, this wagon is derived so faithfully from the sedan that you can still see the first sedan roofline about the rear doorways. Why structure new doorways if you you should not have to?
The Elantra bought a new grille in 1999, and it may nicely have affected the snout of the then-in-development Pontiac Aztek. It ensured that no person would slip-up the Elantra for a Corolla (the wagon model of which was discontinued listed here after 1996), which most likely seemed crucial at the time.
This 2.-liter DOHC straight-four built 133 horsepower, 11 additional than the 2000 Ford Emphasis wagon.
A five-velocity guide was the foundation transmission in the 2000 Elantra, but approximately every American buyer forked in excess of an further $750 (about $1,300 in 2022 pounds) for the four-speed automatic.
The MSRP on this car was $12,499, or about $21,645 in modern funds. The Aim wagon cost $15,380 that 12 months, but it arrived with an computerized transmission as typical tools.
By the dawn of the 21st century (which, technically talking, failed to happen right until January 1st, 2001), air conditioning and some sort of audio procedure experienced turn out to be no-extra-charge machines in fairly a several lower-priced motor vehicles. The 2000 Elantra had the free A/C plus an AM/FM/cassette deck with 6 speakers, but this factory CD player was out there only with a person of numerous possibility packages ranging from $750 to $1,400.
Hyundai was nevertheless using mechanical odometers when this car was created, so we can see that just about 100,000 miles passed beneath its wheels prior to arriving at its last parking house. Most likely no person will mourn the passing of a unusual example of Hyundai’s Final True Wagon, but this is the kind of automotive historical past that this sequence tries to chronicle.
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