Repost for Oppo: Forbidden Fruits

"Jon Resk" (jonresk)
06/10/2015 at 11:17 • Filed to: None

A couple of months ago, courtesy of our alcoholism, I was out with a good friend of mine for an evening à la petrolhead . As one does, we mostly talked about cars and women (or was it women in cars? Or cars on women? I can’t recall).

Regardless, 2 hours, 6 beers (Cheers, Willy!) and 42 business ideas later, we were reminiscing about how miserable life is in this Snowpocalypse Wasteland we like to call Canada. To support that claim, we talked about the lack of any new all-wheel-drive, manual, diesel wagons. Arguably, the North American and European markets differ quite significantly, which is why you should take the following list as a wishlist rather than actual demands from automakers.
It only took minutes, however, before we realized that our requirements were too stringent; there were no longer such cars in either market. So we had to broaden the search for the mighty D-pillared unicorns. Any manual diesel-powered beauty would be considered (fwd/rwd/awd), just as long as it had a brown option.

Full disclosure: This write-up was for entertainment and educational purposes only. Also, I’m not an alcoholic.

1. BMW 325d M Sport Touring

Luckily, we do have this car available here in North America as a wagon and a diesel, but with xDrive and the auto tranny being the default options, it’s hardly as appealing as the European equivalent.

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The C-Class has finally gotten its long overdue visual redesign it needed. What could be better than a refined and luxurious wagon to haul your family and/or dog(s) (or cats?) around? Europe: 2, NA: 0

3. Mazda Mazda6 2.2 tDi

I’ve previously had the chance to drive the turbo diesel Mazda6 for a couple of hours, and I came out pleasantly surprised. Combine the smooth and torquey engine with the slick looks of the new generation, and you get one hell of a daily driver.

4. Seat Leon ST FR 2.0 TDI

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Pictured: Ungrateful couple
The sporty Seat could spice up the market by offering some much needed diversity into the current bland offerings from VW, although it’s a totally different car pretty much identical to its German cousin, mechanically speaking.

5. Ford Focus ST-3 (2.0 TDCi)

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Gods be praised that Ford has agreed to send us the highly anticipated !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . One car that we do want Stateside, though, is the new and improved ST Estate. Sporty, fun to drive, and (somewhat) affordable, the 300lb ft delivered by the engine should make the diesel ST a great car to hoon around your kid’s kindergarten.

Bonus round! Subaru Levorg!

Sure, it’s not a diesel. But it makes up for it with its legendary AWD system, and simply by being the WRX wagon that we want but can never have. In a (successful) attempt to make things even worse for us, Subaru has recently unveiled the Levorg STi Concept. So... much... want.

Granted, it’s not all bad. With the new !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! coming to this side of the pond, a lot of Jalopnikers will finally have a decent AWD-diesel-manual wagon option. Wouldn’t be my first choice, but at least it’s a start... assuming it actually sells here. If it doesn’t, I’ll see you people in Europe.

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