{"id":23255,"date":"2019-01-03T11:23:43","date_gmt":"2019-01-03T15:23:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/henrypayne.com\/?p=23255"},"modified":"2019-01-03T11:23:43","modified_gmt":"2019-01-03T15:23:43","slug":"payne-battle-of-the-super-wagons-mercedes-vs-jaguar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/2019\/01\/payne-battle-of-the-super-wagons-mercedes-vs-jaguar","title":{"rendered":"Payne: Battle of the super wagons, Mercedes vs. Jaguar"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Wagons<\/p>\n

When I was a kid, my mom would drive me to the race track in an old Ford Fairlane station wagon to watch my dad race sports cars. Last year I drove a Mercedes station wagon to NCM Motorsports Park in Bowling Green, Kentucky … to track it.<\/p>\n

The Ford had a rear-facing, third-row trunk seat for spectating. The Mercedes has\u00a0a 4.0-liter, twin-turbo V-8 putting out 603 horsepower for gulping straightaways.<\/p>\n

How times have changed.<\/p>\n

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\"Compared<\/p>\n
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\u00a0As I\u2019ve been faithfully reporting in this space, the world has gone mad. In 2017, I took a Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk on Maine\u2019s formidable Club Motorsports race track. Then I hauled an Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio SUV around the Circuit of Americas Formula One track in Texas.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Now come the 2018 Mercedes AMG E63 S and Jaguar XF Sportbrake wagons. You know, family cars.<\/p>\n

Americans prefer SUVs over station wagons, so I admire European manufacturers’ persistence in trying to make them attractive as performance vehicles. Detroit automakers gave up long ago after the beefcake Dodge Magnum and Cadillac CTS-V failed to even get a wink from the public despite their V-8 ferocity.<\/p>\n

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