Blurred Lines

Estates or stationwagons can be the epitome of practicality. In this case they also bring oodles of luxury and go-anywhere ability, blurring traditional boundaries. Now thequestion is, who has done it better?

- Aatish Mishra

After driving a car for a couple of hundred kilometres, you can, for the most part, make sense of it. You can paint a picture in your head of why it exists, whether it does what it is supposed to and if someone would want to buy one. The longer you drive it, the more things make sense – the more vivid this image becomes. Well, I’ve spent three days with these cars, driven them for hundreds of kilometres and I’m staring at a canvas painted by a six-year-old that has smoked the good stuff. A zillion muddled thoughts (including one about grape juice) are running through my head, and I’m going to try and use the next few pages to make sense of them. Bear with me.

Wagons. Yep, they are definitely station-wagons. If there was one thing I was sure of about the Mercedes-Benz E-Class All-Terrain and the Volvo V90 Cross Country (try saying both names in one breath) before I got in to either of them, it was that they are wagons. Some mutated form of them anyway. Mutated, because these two cars have found the line separating traditional wagons from SUVs and done some muddy doughnuts all over it. Both these cars started out as regular estates and then were jacked up and injected with a dose of off-road cred. Explains the ‘All-Terrain’ and ‘Cross Country’ suffixes.

Let’s get something else out of the way first: I’m a sucker for a good estate. Forget the practicality, versatility and all that mumbo-jumbo – I think they’re just great looking cars. Better than their sedan alternatives on most days. Stuff a V8 in to one and I’ll have an embarrassing bulge in my pants. Don’t you dare tell me that either of these wagons looks too much like a minibus, I’ll throw you under one. I mean, just look at the shape of that Volvo, it’s so bloody good looking!