H&H Classics, the British collector car auction house, has announced its 2019 sales calendar, which includes a new format.

On February 2, the company will stage its first purely online live auction, and that sale will feature an unusual vehicle indeed — a 1985 Chrysler Le Baron Town & Country turbocharged woody station wagon formerly owned by American entertainer Frank Sinatra.

H&H announced the consignmenton December 12, which would have been Sinatra’s 103rd birthday.

According to H&H, the car is perhaps the last vehicle Sinatra owned, an “undistinguished (and unexpectedly domestic)” wagon that was used as Sinatra was driven around Las Vegas during the last 10 years of his life.

The wagon will be sold along with copies of the certificate of title bearing Sinatra’s signature. The Nathan Golden named on the registration was Sinatra’s chauffeur, H&H noted.

H&H notes that Sinatra-owned vehicles have sold well at auction, including a 1989 Jaguar SJX and a 1956 Ford Thunderbird.

In regard to the online only sale, Iain Burt of the H&H management team noted, “At present approximately 30.6 percent of all sales take place on-line, which provides us with a strong foundation to introduced this exciting ‘live’ auction online format.”

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While wagon variants allow automakers to rack up additional sales of a given nameplate, the wagon community remains a small one. Loyal and passionate, but small. And what room there is for growth depends on your level of optimism. As Bloomberg notes, 2018 was a great year for wagon sales, simply because consumers suddenly found themselves with choice.

Buick has the new Regal TourX, Jaguar has the new XF Sportbrake, Volvo has the tony V90 and V60, Mercedes-Benz has the dignified E 450 4Matic wagon and disgruntled AMG E63 S wagon, Audi has the A4 Allroad, and Volkswagen will still gladly sell you a modest Golf SportWagen. All of this choice resulted in a bigger niche than years past. Some 212,000 wagons left U.S. dealer lots in 2018, representing a 29 percent sales increase compared to five years earlier.

Still, wagons amounted to less than 2 percent of the new vehicle market last year. That’s plug-in car territory.

This group of buyers, described by Buick marketing director Sam Russell as “almost violently opposed to being mainstream,” doesn’t want to be seen driving an anonymous crossover. And let’s face it, it’s easier to sculpt a sexy wagon than a high-riding, bulbous crossover. Thing is, though, wagons sales are a slim wedge of the overall volume of a particular nameplate. As sedan sales falter, wagons, despite their snob appeal, won’t pick up enough of the slack. All a wagon can do is delay a model’s discontinuation, if we’re to assume today’s market shift continues uninterrupted.

If sedans disappear from our streets, so too will wagons, despite wagons being a happy middle ground between sedans and crossovers. A sad situation, if the worst-case scenario comes to pass. While Bloomberg reports Buick’s TourX sales “increased steadily” over the past 12 months, Volvo’s gorgeous V90 is now available by custom order only, and Jaguar’s XF Sportbrake, while sultry, has to contend with the fact that no one’s interested in buying Jaguar cars these days. Even the brand’s crossovers can’t keep sales in the black.

Despite the recent uptick in wagon interest and availability, it’s hard not to see this phenomenon as a tired light bulb valiantly burning its way towards destruction.

This group of buyers, described by Buick marketing director Sam Russell as “almost violently opposed to being mainstream,” doesn’t want to be seen driving an anonymous crossover.