The Forester and other compact crossovers really are tall wagons with more ground clearance and better marketing. Even the outback is counted as a sport utility vehicle. Wagon’s are now more like a Kia Soul or Kia Niro by the EPA’s standards.
I just call my little Vibe/Matrix a mini wagon… lol
Vehicles have gotten crazy stupid with all this Mr. Potato Head designs…And the tires to go along with them.
Mr customer (cst), let me show you the best tire for your needs on your X vehicle, cst great, I will also take the same for my wife’s vehicle Y, well in that case Mr cst lets walk over here to this section, this would be the best for her, OK great, so lets get some for Jr’s vehicle, well now lets walk over here to this section, these would be the best for his vehicle z, Great now what about my baby girls 1st new set, any of these work for hers, nope lets walk over to this section… I mean damn, it was hard keeping all that crap straight and explaining why this tire works for X, but this one for Y, oh no you need this one for Z and so on and so on…
Oh yeah this is great tire for your vehicle, what, you the have 19" package not the 17" (car not there), well that tire is not made in that size, let me show you this one instead…
Sorry having flashbacks… 
Where is my horse and buggy?? (with an infotainment center, 19 speakers and dual climate control of course) 
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Nah, wagons have wood trim and V8 engines over 400 cubic inches with 4bbl carb.
One of my co-workers had an '70s-era Chrysler Town & Country wagon.
He used to say that it “could pass anything… except a gas station”.
When they changed the name from “nice price or crack pipe” I was disappointed, because I thought that was unnecessary
When David Tracy left, that was the last straw for me and I don’t read Jalopnik anymore
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Bottom line is that any 30 year old vehicle, even with zero mileage, wouldn’t come close to the safety, efficiency and quality of today’s cars.
Additionally, we’re looking at 30 tear old tires, rubber seals and God knows where you would find body and mechanical parts for this,.
My appraisal is that any buyer has a year or two of functional life on this thing until the cost of restoration exceeds any realistic anticipated value.
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Rock Auto seems to have most of the common items you’d need to keep it running and on the road, timing belt, starter motor, alternator, ball joints, etc. No dispute that body parts are probably difficult to source. I wouldn’t guess its potential would be a a classic car selling for big bucks. Small bucks, maybe. The buyer would probably be someone with a case of car-nostalgia who has had this or similar make/model/year before. Or buyer who wanted a car without all the complicated gadgets and gizmos that come on newer cars. making them difficult and expensive to repair.
any 30 year old vehicle, even with zero mileage, can be safe, efficient, and at least approach, the quality of today’s cars, depending on attention to repair, maintenance, and also, how it is driven.
See how a little positivity can turn things around? 
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Not near as Safe as modern vehicles plus they pollute the air we breath much more .
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That Ford is 3 years older than my Dodge Stratus, I don’t worry about rubber seals, finding lost parts or the cost of restoration. I can enjoy the vehicle “as-is”.
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If you were talking about a '73 Impala, vs a '96 Impala, you’d be correct.
@VOLVO-V70 is still correct comparing that 96 Impala to a 2024 equivalent.
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In thirty years there will be a thread about “hankering for one of the ‘wonderful’ cars of the 2020s.”
We’re still so primitive. Having to actually move through space to get from point A to point B. Ugh.
Beam me there Scotty.
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The tendency for body to flex, flop around. The 82-90 F body Camaro and Firebird were supposedly notorious for that.
These were not the poster children of floppy bodies. They were somewhat better than the Fox body Mustangs of the era and far better than the unit-body GM FWD large cars - the C and H bodies. from 84 onwards. (BTW the 3rd gen cars were '82 to '92, the 4th gen was '93 to '02)
The F body cars were worlds better than the body on frame RWD GM D and B body cars built up to 1996. Yeah, Caprices were wildly popular as cop cars but they were as stiff as a Gumby toy. Their ride was pretty soft, sure, but they had a hard time keeping their tires on the ground.
Having owned, raced and worked with F cars during my GM days, their biggest problems were not chassis stiffness. Their biggest fault was the strut front suspension mounting the spring between the lower control arm to the chassis and not on the strut. They fixed that with the 4th gen. GM built an independent rear suspension mule as well as a double A-arm mule to decide which to build. They could not afford to do both.
Sorry for being off a couple model years.
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Interesting insights.
Did GM intentionally build cars to flex so much, or did they lack the engineering prowess to build stiffer, more rigid bodies?
Cause they wanted the drag racing world to enjoy the G body shuffle for our entertainment pleasure… 
Their earlier “X” frames provided more structural rigidity, but they decided to go with the more flexible perimeter frame in the interest of better ride quality. Of course, to GM at that time, “better” ride quality meant a very “floaty” ride, with handling being a secondary consideration.
And, this wasn’t limited to GM. Beginning in the 1965 model year, Ford began using very flexible perimeter frames in order to soften their ride quality. Nowadays, more advanced engineering technology enables manufacturers to produce an extremely stiff chassis that has very good ride quality and enhanced handling.
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I drove a 1981 Buick Century(and yes it was still ‘A’ Body for that model year) during college in the early 1990s.
And one thing that stuck out about was the squeaking - of the door stripping against the vehicle frame. In those days the weather strip was affixed to the door and not to the vehicle door frame itself. Today there is stripping on both.
So I noticed something that each door grabbed ahold of to close - the strike posts. And I learned how to adjust them - PRE-internet mind you. Just intuition, a few bucks from my meager college grocery store job, and a Torx piece from the local NAPA.
So I moved all four door strikes in, rough 1/8th of an inch by eyeballing.
Then I resumed driving the Buick as usual.
Three things I noticed:
-
Quieter inside, less squeaking than before.
-
Car held heat better in winter, and cold A/C better in summer.
And a surprising one:
- Smoother ride and steering that felt firmer and more predictable. More like a German car, I supposed in my mind back then. The car also rolled/coasted longer between doses of throttle.
Sure, I had to slam the doors a little harder to shut them, but did adjusting them inward(tighter) really make that difference in that old ‘floppy’ GM mid-size?