Nearly a decade on from the demise of locally-made Commodores and Falcons, sales of station wagons have continued to slump.
Sales of traditional station wagons in Australia have slumped to their lowest level on record, as buyers ditch the once-popular vehicle type in favour of SUVs – and there are fewer models for remaining customers to choose from.
Just 3368 new examples of the body type were sold in 2024, down 33 per cent on 2023 (5043 cars) – and 69 per cent on five years prior (10,783 in 2019).
In 2000, Australians bought close to 50,000 wagons, or 6 per cent of new vehicles sold – compared to just 0.2 per cent in 2024.
It is based on the classification of ‘wagons’ by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) – the record-keepers of Australian new-car sales – which supplied this data.
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As a result, it excludes the high-riding Subaru Outback, which is classified by the FCAI as an SUV, but recorded 10,227 deliveries last year; the same classification applies to the now-axed, but once-popular VW Golf Alltrack and Passat Alltrack.
Twenty-five years ago, the two top-selling wagons accounted for three in five deliveries – the Holden Commodore (16,126) and Ford Falcon (12,569) – followed by the Mitsubishi Magna V6 (3859) and Hyundai Lantra (3191).
Today, the top seller is a European car – the Skoda Octavia (662) – which has held the crown since 2020, after the demise of the Holden brand and the final, European-made Commodore.
Only once since the turn of the millennium has the Holden Commodore or Skoda Octavia not led the wagon sales charts – 2007, when 8063 Ford Falcon wagons were sold, against the Holden’s 7342.
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The final podium places in 2024 were made up of the Mazda 6 (477) and BMW 3 Series (429), ahead of the Subaru WRX (414), and a pair of Audis – the A4 (299) and A6 (184).
Those names are new to showrooms, but such is the decline of the wagon market that of the Top 10 sellers in 2014, only two – the Octavia and Mazda 6 – are still in local dealers.
The Octavia is the only one still in production, as the Mazda 6 has wrapped up – now offered while stocks last – with no new model in sight.
The remainder of 2014’s Top 10 – including the Ford Mondeo, VW Golf and Passat, Hyundai i30 and i40, and Holden Cruze – have either been axed globally, or are no longer imported locally due to low demand.
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There is, however, a bright spot in the wagon market: performance cars.
BMW 3 Series wagon sales have tripled in two years thanks to the addition of the M3 Touring, which accounted for 310 of the model line’s 429 long-roof deliveries last year.
About two-thirds per cent of Skoda Octavia wagons sold are RS editions, while in recent years the V8-powered RS6 Avant has been the top seller in the Audi A6 range, with the RS6 Avant being the only A6-based wagon available in Australia for over a decade.
Audi is one of the few brands committed to the wagon body style, launching the new A5 and S5 Avant in recent weeks, while a high-performance Touring version of the BMW M5 super sedan recently arrived in Australia.
Australia’s five best-selling wagons over the years
| # | 2000 | 2004 | 2009 | 2014 | 2019 | 2024 |
| 1 | Holden Commodore (16,126) | Holden Commodore (16,745) | Holden Commodore (14,635) | Holden Commodore (8794) | Holden Commodore (2259) | Skoda Octavia (662) |
| 2 | Ford Falcon (12,569) | Ford Falcon (11,215) | Ford Falcon (4610) | Volkswagen Golf (2113) | Volkswagen Golf (1471) | Mazda 6 (477) |
| 3 | Mitsubishi Magna V6 (3859) | Toyota Corolla (3989) | Hyundai i30 (3906) | Mazda 6 (2045) | Skoda Octavia (1370) | BMW 3 Series (429) |
| 4 | Hyundai Lantra (3191) | Mitsubishi Magna V6 (2816) | Mazda 6 (2008) | Ford Mondeo (1750) | Mazda 6 (883) | Subaru WRX (414) |
| 5 | Toyota Camry 4cyl (2661) | Subaru Liberty (2101) | Subaru Liberty (1796) | Hyundai i30 (1668) | Volkswagen Passat (598) | Audi A4 (299) |
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