If your idea of a station wagon is Clark Griswold’s wood-paneled, metallic pea-green Wagon Queen Family Truckster from that National Lampoon’s Vacation movie, maybe think again.

The one you see before you packs a massive 604 horsepower and can slingshot from stop light to 60 mph in a blink-of-an-eye 3.8 seconds – no doubt while launching everyone’s Slurpee into the back window.

And here’s the party piece; it can run on silent, zero-emission battery power for 41 miles. Yes, it’s a hybrid. 

Behold the mighty Mercedes-AMG E 53 Hybrid Wagon, a quirky $94,700 family-hauling rocketship that, in these days of high-horsepower SUVs, might just be the answer to a question nobody really asked.  

Station wagons. Didn’t they go the way of land lines, 8-tracks and fax machines? 

But for a tiny core of enthusiastic buyers, who prefer sleek, very cool design over hulking, towering SUVs, these modern-day, high-performance station wagons are the Holy Grail. 

Today, Mercedes-Benz offers just two here in the U.S. – our AMG-tuned E 53, and its lesser-powered E 450 All-Terrain, priced from $81,350. 

Over at BMW, the pickings are even slimmer – there’s just the crazy 717 hp $127,675 M5 Touring, while Audi offers only the bonkers RS6 Avant Performance at $131,995.

Just look at this AMG-honed E 53 Hybrid Wagon. It’s nothing less than a piece of automotive art, and as much a head-turner as any Mercedes SL or AMG GT two-seater.  

The swoop of that never-ending roofline, the plunging line of the rear side window, the towering 21-inch, thin-spoked wheels. Just gorgeous. It’s a style no tall-riding SUV can match. Well, maybe that box-on-wheels G-class.

And to drive it is to love it. No, it’s not as hard-core as Mercedes’ previous, and utterly-addictive, AMG E63 S Wagon, with its twin-turbo 4.0-liter V8. 

Here, the V8 is replaced with an AMG-tuned turbo 3.0-liter inline-six packing 443 hp, that’s aided and abetted by a 161 hp electric motor and 21 kWh lithium-ion battery. 

I hear you. That’s one heckuva lot of technology, and weight. This thing tips the scales at a slightly ridiculous – for a performance wagon – 5,424 pounds. There are Hummers less weighty.

But the combo is, literally, electrifying. Stomp on the gas and battery power and that turbo-boosted six-cylinder combine to whoosh the E 53 to 60 mph in that 3.8 seconds. And it doesn’t quit till the speedo is showing the wagon’s top speed of 174 mph.  

No, a turbocharged in-line six will never sound as fruity as a V8. But in the E 53 it comes pretty close, especially if you dial-up Sport, or better still, Sport + mode. 

As you’d expect of any AMG Mercedes, it carves curves like it’s superglued to the blacktop and running on invisible rails. 

Having a big battery pack mounted beneath the cargo floor puts the wagon’s center of gravity somewhere down in Australia, allowing the AMG Ride Control suspension and AMG Performance 4Matic+ all-wheel-drive to work their magic. 

And with rear-wheel steering, and incredibly precise AMG-tuned electric-assist steering, the car goes exactly where you point it, and with such lovely precision and weighting. This is a fun ride.

Just don’t mention the ride. Even in Comfort mode, hitting a rut or pothole will loosen dentalwork. In the aforementioned Sport+ mode, eyeballs will jiggle, nerves will jangle. It’s pretty terrible. 

As for that EV mode, whirring out of your garage early in the morning in silence without waking the kids, is nice. As is crawling along in stop-start traffic. But I don’t see owners driving this AMG road-burner like a Prius.

Practicality-wise, the E 53 wagon is no SUV either. The roof is just too low for that. But there’s a plentiful 64 cubic feet of space with the 40/20/40-split rear seat folded – 33 cubic feet with the rear seat in place. And the tailgate opening is huge. 

Inside, it’s all Mercedes E-class space and luxury, with acres of leather, fab fit and finish, huge panoramic glass roof, and still way-too-complicated MBUX Superscreen display. 

For lovers of being different and standing out from the crowd, coupled  with near-supercar performance, this E 53 Hybrid Wagon is a true delight. And a glorious unicorn.

I’m betting Clark Griswold would have approved.