Vale affordable family wagon

[ToryMikey]

Originally Posted by DFB FGXR6

The very first car I drove was an white EB II Falcon GLi wagon with the 4.0 engine and BTR.

I was around 12 or 13 at the time, so about 1999/2000, and the car had about 240,000 km on the clock and pretty tired. I didn't care though, it was a car and I was driving it!

Dad would let me drive around the workshop yard on Saturday mornings, then he would take me way out way to learn on dirt roads. A live axle, low end torque and gravel roads..................

Seriously though, I learnt to drive before any of my mates, sort of got the hooning out of my system before getting my license. Sadly, my birthday is in late December, so I didn't get my license while still at school.

But that Falcon wagon sort of cemented me as a Ford man. The car was my father's company vehicle.............. or rolling smoko room. It's at this point where I became aware that my father and I are very far apart when it comes to cars. For him, they are an appliance or necessity. For me, they are an obsession. As such, he didn't care that the old Falcon had a collapsed drivers seat, that the brakes were shot, that it would occasionally have that hideous fan belt squeal, that interior was ALWAYS filthy with empty soft drink bottles and scrunched up pie wrappers.

The Falcon would eventually be traded in on a brand-new BA Falcon in 2003..............guess who made that choice The EB II was sent to wreckers with a busted gearbox, the BA became my mother's car and the first-gen Subaru Forrester then became my Dad's car.

I always hated that Subaru by the way. As a growing teen, the backseat leg room was woefully inadequate and the seats themselves rock hard and uncomfortable. I always preferred the Falcon from a back seat perspective, those seats were sooooo comfortable and the leg room exceptional. And the big 4.0 would cruise or overtake much easier than the asthmatic 92 kW boxer in the Subaru.

And so, we arrive at the point of a wagon............they are just better family cars than a SUV. They drive better, are better packaged, cheaper to run and service.

Funny that you mentioned that Subaru story. My extended family always had local Fords (because of course they did) with the occasional Euro mixed in, usually a BMW 3 series.

I would ride in friends' Japanese cars as a child and feel they were...a bit substandard. Even at primary school age. Cheap and chintzy interiors, uncomfortable seats as you say, and noisy! I know it's a bit of a meme to bang on about cheap feeling doors but it's absolutely true. Compare a similarly aged Falcon to the Forester's door shut sound, and you will know what I mean.

Why would I want to ride in a Forester when I could sink into the velour of an NF Fairlane?

Agree 10000% regarding wagons vs SUVs.