When a massive star dies, it undergoes a series of cosmic chain reactions that culminate in a violent explosion so titanic it can be seen light-years away. To an untrained observer on a distant planet, a supernova may appear as a sudden bright spot in the night sky where there was previously just an empty void, especially if the star was too dim to shine through to Earth on its own.
For an event powerful enough to reorder the cosmos, it can be ethereally beautiful…and incredibly brief. And right at that nexus lies the station wagon, a form that dominated American roads for more than 50 years before all but disappearing in the face of the modern crossover-and-SUV boom. Suddenly, our sky is filled with constellations of all-purpose people carriers, and the boxy, boat-like wagons of our past have faded away into the darkness, crowded out by bigger and brighter stars.
Of course, all that brilliance shines a harsh spotlight on its flaws. Some are small in the grand scheme of things, like a laggy, unintuitive infotainment system and slightly dull steering; others speak to why buyers abandoned wagons and to a lesser degree, Volvo itself over the last 20 years.
After all, no matter how beautiful it is, a supernova is inherently a destructive event, the end of something significant. A week with the Volvo V90 is somehow plenty of time to behold it…and altogether not enough. The quiet tragedy of a supernova is that by the time the light reaches us, the star is already dead.
The slow demise of wagons in this country appears to have reversed itself for now—Buick will also be re-entering the segment for the first time in 20 years with the Regal TourX next year, and Jaguar is bringing their beautiful XF Sportbrake to our shores as well—but product decisions in the automotive industry are made years in advance.
