THINKING Inside the BOX

Deeply weird and weirdly practical, performance wagons are, well, different.

- JOHN PEARLEY HUFFMAN

A. (Previous pages) The long roof creates an impression of speed, accentuated by the Stagea's wing, like motion lines in cartoon drawings.

B. Audi has a long history with fast wagons that continues today. It started with the RS2 Avant.

C. Never sold in the United States, the RS2 Avant can be imported under NHTSA's 25-year exemption. Steve Morales found his '94 in Switzerland.

D. Mid-Nineties Audi interiors meant high-grade material and modest tech.

E. The 17-inch Cup wheels are directly borrowed from 964-generation Porsche Carreras.

F. Not the most powerful engine Audi has ever made, but it could be the most charismatic. It's a direct descendant of the inline-fives used by Audi in the World Rally Championship during the Eighties.

THE HEAVIEST LOAD station wagons carry is stigma. That karmic stink that comes with being a suburban utility bucket instead of a heroic driving machine. For generations, station wagons were the default choice of people who had given up on adventure and settled into the monotony of parenthood. Excitement was for sports cars, muscle cars, sport-utility vehicles, vans with murals on their sides, limousines with builtin liquor cabinets . . . basically anything but wagons.

While there were anomalies, such as a single 1967 Ford Country Squire ordered with the 428 cop motor and a four-speed, it did not occur to manufacturers that there might be a market for fast station wagons. “One of the harshest realities for any enthusiast with a family is that he can’t spend all his time driving around in Porsches and Ferraris . . . or even Fiat Spiders, MGs and Triumphs,”