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Photo: Auto Enthusiasts Newsblaster. You can make a strong argument that, of any automotive format, it’s the station wagon that encompasses the widest range of elements of the American automotive experience—from hauling big boards home from a lumber yard, to sliding surfboards in the back for a day of thrills at the beach, to packing the family in for a leisurely roadtrip with luggage neatly tied under a tarp on the roof rack, to three rows of seats packed with a youth soccer team, to screaming burnouts from funkily modded, tire-shredding station-wagon street rods. 

Ford EcoSport. Photo: Ford Media Center. If feeling over-targeted by marketers is a pain-point for Millennials, just wait and see what could be in store for the next generation in line: Generation Z, a cohort that includes many who have not yet even reached the tender age of 18. Now, as the Millennial-marketing juggernaut continues apace, Ford Motor Company showed a card or two in their demographic Texas Hold 'Em hand yesterday with a news release positioning Generation Z as the ideal consumer for the subcompact SUV segment, which the automaker exemplifies with their Ford EcoSport model.

Photo: Ford media website. Last month, Ford Motor Company announced the discontinuation of all passenger cars in the U.S. market except for the Mustang and Focus, with only the Focus Active—more of a crossover than a car—to remain. But in Europe, where passenger cars remain more popular than they are in the U.S., it's a different story. And one part of that story is that the Ford Fiesta, one of the models discontinued (for now, at least, since car models have a way of eventually making a comeback), lives on.

Photo: Mazda media website. Excuse me, but what exactly is the point of a “subcompact crossover?” Surely, the very existence of an unfathomable abomination like the Nissan Juke suggests that there is a market for this class of vehicle, but why? First, let’s take a look at what first led down this automotive rabbit trail.

Photo: GM media website. Unless you’re a hardcore demographics geek like me, you’ve probably never heard of Kenneth W. Gronbach. If you have heard of him, chances are you’re a regular listener to Coast to Coast AM, the popular nationally syndicated talk radio show, on which Gronbach has been interviewed a couple of times by host George Noory. But regardless of whether you’ve heard of him, Kenneth W. Gronbach, author of Upside: Profiting from the Profound Demographic Shifts Ahead ,  just might be the most important demographer alive. And his take on millennials, the generation that has overtaken baby boomers as the largest demographic group in the U.S., just might go a long way toward explaining the ongoing decline of the traditional passenger car or sedan—a phenomenon that we at Auto Enthusiasts Newsblaster like to call #DeathOfCar. If you’re like Kenneth Gronbach, you understand that one of the most dangerous errors of omission that any enterprise can make is to have an incomplete or ...

The crossover, or CUV, is not an automotive category that we're crazy about. We don't try to make that a secret around here. That said, it's also no secret that, at least relatively speaking, we are  crazy about what Mazda has been doing design-wise recently. And the updated 2019 Mazda CX-3, which, interestingly, Mazda positions as a movement toward  its next generation of vehicles, is a nice, if not earth-shattering, of what tasteful design can do for a category that, overall, is, well, shall we say somewhat lacking in the excitement department?

Our first reaction? To tell the truth, we were a little perplexed. Hmm... well, it looks a little like a Veloster from the back... doesn't it? Then, we took a closer look. And our verdict? This, dear readers, is definitely a twist on the crossover concept that we can applaud—as ambivalent as we have been, in general, about Porsche's moves beyond the traditional sports car category. And, to add another layer of interest, it's an electric. An electric that makes 600 horsepower. We'll forgive the floating roof. It's still a concept, and mistakes are correctable.