While the Cougar wasn’t the worst family car, the birth of our son made it clear that something bigger was needed. We were already a family of three, our daughter was already of grammar school age, but the addition of a baby made quite a difference. The baby seat could only be installed in the back seat, not easy in a coupe.
The process of strapping the kid required my wife to squat partially inside the car as she placed the baby in the seat. She had her head buried in the rear compartment. It was inconvenient at best, and uncomfortable all the time. She also had some valid concerns about her safety and security while being so distracted.
I had initially thought about a Taurus wagon, I thought that they looked pretty aerodynamic and a bit futuristic. My wife was never a wagon fan, and after checking one out, I thought that it was too similar to the Cougar. Maybe it was best to try something different, There was no argument from her.
These were trim little vehicles. All photos from the Web.
She suggested that we look at a minivan, the Dodge dealer was just down the street from the Ford store. The reader might be surprised to learn that at this time the minivan was not considered the “lame” option. When Chrysler introduced these vans they were acclaimed by the automotive media and were extremely popular. They became a part of the “ideal” suburban middle class family persona, much like the SUV that would come to replace it.
The dealer had a Caravan in the showroom that had a TV/VCR unit mounted behind the driver’s seat. When we took our two year old son to the open door he climbed inside and plopped himself into the second row seat and promptly made himself at home! This left the entire third row for our daughter. Being able to separate the kids is always a good option. What sealed the deal was that my wife could let the kids in, then get in herself and close the door. Then she could attend to strapping our son in the car seat, She could then walk up between the seats to get behind the wheel. This was not only convenient, it was also much safer. Those early minivans were so usable and handy, later they would grow much bigger in size.
So much light. So much room!
This was a comfy place to rack up the miles.
We selected an SE model which came equipped with the 3.0 V6 Mitsubishi engine and three speed automatic transmission. It was dark gray (again!) with a light gray cloth interior. It was very light inside with all the windows. Visibility was excellent. I’m not sure if the longer wheelbase versions were available at this time. However, I didn’t want to spend more than I had to, for a vehicle that I wasn’t that enthusiastic about, so the shorter version would be fine. Either way both versions only came with a single sliding side door. By the time our third child appeared, there was still plenty of room to spread the kids out. We found that it was easy to access the younger kids in the back, oftentimes while still in motion.
My favorite instrument set up. Nice round legible gauges.
Several years later we bought a points based vacation timeshare program that allowed us to choose between any of their locations. There were easily accessible locations all over California and the West Coast. The timeshare provided the framework for our vacation plans. Those would include locations within easy driving distance like: Anaheim, Monterey, Lake Tahoe, Pismo Beach, Yosemite, and Clear Lake. Longer trips would be to Depoe Bay in Oregon, then the Washington coast and even up to Whistler British Columbia.
The Caravan was very comfortable for the whole family, it was capable of relaxed cruising at 75-80 mph. Fuel economy stayed around 20-22 mpg. The Mitsubishi V6 was a willing partner, gathering revs rapidly, and providing satisfactory performance. I always found the handling to be secure, even when driving on two lane mountain roads. Of course, with my family as passengers, I always maintained a safe speed and drove carefully.
The Caravan was great for passengers, but carrying large items was a bit of a problem. The seats had to be completely removed from the interior to provide enough room. Sometimes I’d fit the three-passenger third-row seat in the second-row position, giving more space for cargo in the rear. Or I’d remove the second-row seat, leaving the middle area open for large items. There was a lot of room when all the seats were out. I once transported the ailing Hydramatic transmission out of my ’56 Cadillac down to Pacoima’s Cadillac King, to exchange for a rebuilt unit. I let my young son skip school that day for a memorable round trip to Southern California. Another time I carried my engine hoist and a small block Chevy engine that I bought off of CraigsList. Both times I laid down several layers of cardboard covered by a couple of layers of plastic sheeting and rags. Never stained the carpets!
Carrying long items, like a couple of 8ft. 2x4s could be handled by sliding them under the seats all the way up to the dash. A big load of 2x4s would require the removal of both seats. The second row didn’t fold flat. It was tiring to remove the seats but I was still a youngster in my early Forties. You couldn’t easily accommodate an impulse purchase at a swap meet or Antique fair if the seats were installed. There was always the problem of where to put the seats that I had removed. Sometimes they went in the garage, other times I left them on the porch. Luckily they were always there when we returned!
Once I borrowed the third-row seat from my Brother’s Grand Caravan and installed it in the middle position. We were planning a trip to Disneyland. We carried our two young kids with our older daughter and her cousin. This still provided an empty spot between each passenger. There was barely enough room to squeeze past the second row to the back. They made it work by folding the back of the second seat. I had devised a setup with a platform between the front seats for a TV/VCR combo that the kids could watch during the trip. This was luxury motoring at its finest!
The face of a trusted automotive friend.
We kept this minivan for almost ten years, It didn’t give us much trouble except for a transmission rebuild at 130K. By this time the paint on the top blistered and cracked off, so I sanded it smooth and sprayed on a coat of gray rattle can primer. You couldn’t easily see the top anyway! A more serious problem was that the valve guides were getting worn by then, as they started to burn a bit of oil. This was most noticeable with a puff of smoke on initial acceleration.
As the mileage passed the 160k mark, I thought that it might be wise to get something new, or at least with lower mileage. I started to think of a replacement. There had been so many improvements made to minivans over that last decade. A longer wheelbase, second-row Capt’s Chairs, rear air, and two sliding doors. We had bought an inexpensive model and had been quite satisfied. This time I wanted a fancy model. I liked the new style Chrysler Town and Country vans, so I started looking for a replacement.
I was never bothered by the minivan stigma. We used the van to take a lot of family road trips and I found that very enjoyable. It’s true that it was the ultimate family guy machine. The Oak Ridge Boys released a funny video for their song, “It’s hard to be cool in a minivan!” Of course, making the driver look cool was never its mission.
I’m sure that one of the reasons that I was happy with the minivan was because of the Harley that I still had in the garage.
I sold my Caravan to my BIL, who loved it. However his wife hated it, Minivans weren’t the hot setup anymore.
The music video is incorrect, because a 1967 family definitely could fit into a GTO as nobody worried about babyseats and seatbelts in those days. In contrast, recent research finds that a major obstacle to having a 3rd child is the inability to fit 3 of today’s bulky babyseats (required by law for “babies” until they are shaving) into most modern vehicles.
Also in contrast to the music video, I’ve never met a minivan owning family where the husband wasn’t the the most enthusiastic about having a minivan. Perhaps nothing shows the irrationality of modern feminist women than their hatred of minivans – no wonder fertility rates are so low.
Please cite a research study, or even apocryphal evidence, that “feminists” hate minivans. If so, there must be lots more feminists then there were just a couple of years ago, as minivan sales were up sharply in 2023. And I will cite a credible source: https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g46285875/auto-sales-2023-winners-losers
You sure put me in my place with your snappy little comment and link. Woo Wee – Chrysler led the minivan market in 2023 with 120,000 sales, compared to over 500,000 in the mid-90s when women didn’t need to drive a 6,000 lbs. SUV to avoid the soccer-mom “stigma”.
https://www.allpar.com/threads/creating-the-plymouth-dodge-and-chrysler-minivan-the-caravan-voyager-development-story.228813/?post_id=1085222911&nested_view=1&sortby=oldest#post-1085222911
Be careful about making comparisons to Covid-era sales volumes – all the metrics are off-base. Minivan sales may have bumped up a bit last year, but have fallen to such a small share that minor shifts can look like larger swings percentage-wise.
This C&D article cites Kelley Blue Book research showing only 4-5% of consumers considered (not bought) a minivan in 2021-2022, a drop in the bucket compared to crossovers/SUVs. Other analyses online show similar patterns of declining share since the early 2000s. https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a40133555/minivans-sales-increase/
See the segment share chart using Ward’s data here – the market has spoken, crossovers are king. https://advocacy.consumerreports.org/research/the-rise-of-the-crossover-the-segment-thats-really-driving-the-auto-industrys-sales/
Perhaps nothing shows the irrationality of modern feminist women than their hatred of minivans – no wonder fertility rates are so low.
Perhaps nothing shows the ignorance of a male commenter more than making such a sweeping and stereotyping proclamation. No wonder fertility rates are so low; why would women want to have kids with guys like you?
Hint: women’s automotive preferences are not based on whether they are “modern feminists” or not.
Paul, I guess you have never worked in automotive sales or for a car manufacturer like I have, because if you did you would know that the politics of the buyer often makes a big difference in what sort of vehicle or brand they will consider. Feminists/Leftists are extremely intolerant of anything that does not conform to their values and viewpoints (see link), sort of like this forum where you and a few others get bent out of shape about any comment that doesn’t paint EVs as the greatest thing since sliced bread, but then again Leftists are the big buyers of subsidized EVs and most anxious to ban fossil fuels.
https://thehill.com/homenews/311047-poll-dems-more-likely-to-unfriend-people-due-to-political-posts/
You utterly failed to answer my response to your original point, which was that minivans are relatively less popular than CUVs with liberal/feminist women. I disagree; women on both sides of the political spectrum prefer CUVs to minivans.
In essence you are saying that only conservative/willing breeder women are gobbling up minivans. Good luck finding some stats to prove that.
FWIW, my anecdotal observations are rather the opposite; that more liberals are likely to buy minivans than conservatives.
As to the rest of your comment, it’s the kind of prattle I refuse to engage with.
I utterly failed to answer your response to your original point? You mean the personal insults you aimed at me for daring to have opinion and facts that differ from yours? Did I respond to your personal attacks on my character and family by saying anything negative about you or your family beside your lack of experience in automotive sales? You might consider that you have spent almost your entire adult life living in the most Leftist parts of the country, and hence your personal anecdotal experiences are shaped by the crazies you live around (and that the Eastern 2/3 of your state want to escape from).
Feminism has shifted from wanting equal rights (which they got 50+ years ago) to becoming a war against men and traditional families. Conservative women are much more likely that Leftist/radical feminist women to want to become wives and mothers, which makes them less likely to be worried about “soccer mom” stigma that feminists associate with minivans. Unfortunately, the Leftist takeover of K-PhD education has greater reduced the proportion of women who want to be wives and mothers versus the 1980s-90s when Minivans were a hot market segment, which is reflected in the continued decline in fertility rates (especially in Leftist parts of the country) and sales of minivans. As several commenters here attest, it is women who have rejected minivans much more than men, and my explanation fits the sales statistics – your comment is just a angry rant.
Lots of hot air, and much of it political that goes against our commenting policy. But…you have absolutely not given the slightest shred of evidence that the decline of minivan sales are actually the result of the decline of fertility rates as well as that minivan sales are higher in states with higher fertility rates. That was your original point, and that’s the point I’m holding you to to prove.
As I’ve said repeatedly, minivan sales dropped simply because most buyers preferred the look and image of SUVs/CUVs. And three row versions of these vehicles are perfectly capable of transporting the offspring of fertile families. And the smaller two row versions are even capable of transporting the 2.07 children that the most fertile state produces per family on average (South Dakota) although I rather suspect they’re most likely riding in a pickup or SUV in that state. Do you have sales stats on minivan sales in South Dakota that shows they are proportionally higher?
You started this whole silly debate with the (false) assertion that minivan sales have fallen due to reduced fertility. But you haven’t shown a shred of evidence to back it up. And obviously your sales experience has failed you, because it’s quite obvious that American consumer taste, which has invariably changed over the decades, has simply shifted to SUVs, CUVs and other trucks, all of which are quite capable to haul large and small families.
Guess what: it’s perfectly possible to have conversations about issues like this without making it political. The rest of us do it here all the time. But you can’t resist, and that’s a serious problem because it goes against our commenting policy. So if you continue to inject politics into your comments, I will have to revoke your commenting privileges. It’s simply not welcome here.
Dan Neil’s well known LA Times article offers a better and less charged take on the male/female minivan issue. His theory wast that for men a minivan was a sign they were good providers, like a lion with a large pride. The converse was that for women a car or SUV showed they were young and desirable while the minivan signaled “over the hill”. By the early 2000s there was a third possibility, adults whose parents had minivans in the 80s saw them as uncool.
It’s also worth noting that the XJ Cherokee hit the market around the same time as the Caravan and started the parallel trend of SUV as family car.
There’s still nothing like a short wheelbase Chrysler minivan for the ultimate in utility.
Love the video – thanks for including it – never seen it before!
I can attest to Ole’s comment about men being more minivan advocates than women – I’ve had two Odysseys since 2001 and could easily buy an SUV but the logic just doesn’t compute. Last week, I mentioned to my wife that Toyota’s Grand Highlander has similar dimensions as the Sienna, has less usable interior space, and costs more, but her reply was “it’s still a minivan.”
With less need for bulk space, I wish we could buy the smaller European and JDM minivans like my ’98 Odyssey, but the market wouldn’t buy the Mazda5/Kia Rondo.
The three friends I have who drive minivans are all guys. Only online and occasionally in print have I heard/read anything about a stigma about driving a minivan; everyone I know who has used one likes it and didn’t think it was uncool or stigmatized. I can’t say the same about three-row crossovers, which one (female) friend calls a “school bus”
The Grand Highlander intrigues me since it seems to fill a gap between minivans and SUVs. My wife and I have two minivans now, and we’re in the process of figuring out what we’d like for our next car. The Grand Highlander has better cargo capacity than most SUVs but is priced much more reasonably.
Last week I spec’d one on Toyota’s website. Not bad – though really it’s still $10,000 more than a comparably equipped minivan, and while the 4wd and decent ground clearance are nice, I’m not sure it’s $10,000 nice. It’s still on our short list, though.
Great choice! My parents, friends, and family, owned various K-Car-based Chryslers during the ’80s and ’90s. And the number of shared parts between the minivans and subcompacts like the Dodge Shadow, was impressive. Very resourceful automaker, during that era.
Though I’m a big vintage Billboard Top 40 music fan, the ’81 song ‘Elvira’, turn me off the ORBs on a indefinite basis. The equally awful ‘Bobbie Sue’, soured me for good. lol
I’ve got to disagree with you on the Oak Ridge Boys! I love the Oak Ridge Boys, and have one of their (many) Greatest Hits albums in my car, which is great road trip music. And yes, that album includes both Elvira and Bobbie Sue. We’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one…
I’ve followed popular music for decades. And as a young teen in the early 80s, the crossover by more commercialized country music to mainstream charts, never turned my crank then. I was much more into new wave, and the second British invasion of music. There was a void in US Top 40 radio music after disco from 1980 to 1982, that was filled with adult contemporary, crossover country, and ballads. Alabama, Kenny Rogers, and Eddie Rabbitt, were huge. At least until late 1982, when UK new wave artists started to dominant US charts again. I associated the ORBs with that dry period (dry for me), and never really gave them a second chance! My loss, I guess!
Ironically, I did like the Urban Cowboy soundtrack and artists like Mickey Gilley and Johnny Lee, which played a big role in pushing country music into the mainstream.
Although I am not familiar with the Oak Ridge Boys version, I always liked Rodney Crowell’s version of “Elvira”.
“Sometimes I’d fit the three-passenger third-row seat in the second-row position, giving more space for cargo in the rear.”
I did that in my ’96 Ford Aerostar; the 2nd AND 3rd-row bench seats were physically interchangeable, allowing you to have 5-passenger seating and a TON of cargo space in the back, especially if you had the longer-body/wheelbase models–mine was one of those. I even got ANOTHER 3rd-row seat from a wrecked ’95 at a salvage yard and that enabled 8-passenger legal seating in a factory 7-seater van, although like your Caravan I had to fold the middle bench to get to the back. I currently have an ’05 Chevy Astro and believe THAT van is a bit wider than the Caravan OR Aerostar as it came from the factory with 8-passenger seating (2-3-3) but still has room (BARELY) for 3rd-row access WITHOUT folding the 2nd-row seat (see picture below)–I’ve gotten back there myself several times! Unless you have 2nd-row captain’s chairs (or otherwise just 2 seats in the middle row), I don’t think any other passenger vehicle smaller than a full-size van has this ability.
If I never needed the ability to tow a fairly loaded trailer, I would be happy with a Transit Connect, but as of now Ford no longer sells that van here; all of the other “small” vans are gone too. The van segment–mini or otherwise–as a whole isn’t what it once was, but it’s far from dead: the Chrysler Pacifica has a plug-in hybrid variant, you can now get ALL Toyota Siennas as hybrids, and the VW ID Buzz (an all-electric reincarnation of the iconic Microbus) will be coming to the US later this year. It will be interesting to see how well the ID Buzz sells–I have high hopes for it. 🙂
An yes – all the seat removal manuevering was prior to later versions with the Stow ‘N Go folding seats – which was a great jump in convenience.
The Toyota Previa had a workable alternative – 3rd row seats that folded up against the left and right side trim, leaving a flat floor. It did steal a bit of width, but there was still plenty of room between them. You could also recline the 50/50 split seats to make a bed. This was over a decade before Stow & Go and even before Honda’s 3rd-row-only fold-into-the-floor seat.
The 2nd row didn’t fold down but could be removed if you had the bench seat. The optional captain’s chairs weren’t designed to be removable, but did swivel to face the third row.
The gen 1 Chrysler minivan was always a sharp looking vehicle. Especially with that wheel design. Even though by 86 or 87 the alloys had to be covers due to switching to 5 lugs, it wouldn’t have looked right.
As a child of the 80s, I loved them even back then. I wished we had one, but where we lived we needed a 4wd with ground clearance. And still got stuck sometimes. The 3 child seat thing probably explains why these things were literally everywhere, even in my small town. It seems anyone with 3 or more kids had one of these. I rode in these several times. Once on a Christmas shopping trip to the city, there was no third seat so my sister and I had to sit on the wheelwells. Another time I was in the third seat on a field trip with a teacher, and there was almost zero legroom even for this kid who was maybe 5 ft and 70 lbs. But the ride itself was great. Iacocca talked about the ride and handling in his book, how the engineers got it right.
I was gonna say thankfully you didn’t choose the ultra-crappy (oops I mean Ultra Drive) trans. But then I see you needed a rebuild anyway. It was Chrysler problems like this, in addition to the arrival of the futuristic looking GM Dustbuster vans with modular seating, which shifted the spotlight for this 13 year old car geek. I still don’t understand why these were so hated. Unlike Chrysler, they had a standard V6 from the start. Like Chrysler, they built a van out of (a-body) car parts. There was no change in seating position or loss of space. The windshield and dash extended over the engine. Nothing more. But I got my childhood wish and owned a couple for almost a decade. They were reliable but like anything up north, rust took over.
But I’ve never owned a gen 1 Chrysler minivan. If I saw a clean example, I’d be tempted. These days I’m sure the enthusiasts have fixes for the problems. From a young age to almost 50, I’ve always been a minivan fan.
“It seems anyone with 3 or more kids had one of these.”
Very true. I sometimes think we stopped after having two kids because my wife refused to drive a minivan!
In the mid-to-late Eighties, I was young, single and totally uninterested in family transportation. My epiphany with respect to the first-gen Chrysler minivans came late, in summer 1989 on a business trip to Detroit. After noting the overwhelming presence of domestic iron (and lack of imported vehicles), I was struck by just how popular the Chrysler minivans were, to the point where there seemed to be hardly any station wagons (or even large sedans) on the roads in deepest suburbia. While there were Astros and Aerostars about, the minivan was the one Chrysler product that seemed to really resonate with the locals and clearly dominated the family transportation market.
A few days later, I met my fiancé in the Twin Cities to visit my brother, his wife, and newborn son. I went out of my way to rent a Plymouth Voyager in order to have room for all of us in one vehicle. Impressed by its space efficiency, ease of entry and egress, and the ability to strap a sleeping infant into the back seat without unseemly contortions, I was a convert after that trip, though my wife never shared my enthusiasm for minivans.
As the former owner of a ’92 GC, this is all very familiar. The lwb Grand versions came out in 1987 already, and the additional luggage room in the back as well as the extra legroom in the rear seats was a welcome addition.
As a big fan of vans, I loved this installment. And you describe the problem of 2 door cars with child seats just the way I remember it.
I remember what a phenomenon the Chrysler minivan was in the 80’s. What amazed me was that it broke a big rule – up to then, the only people I knew who would consider a Chrysler product was a diehard Mopar guy. Suddenly people who would never have bought a Polara or a Fury were buying Dodge and Plymouth-branded vehicles. Soon these were everywhere, especially in upper-income neighborhoods.
I was late to an appreciation of these. I recall sitting in one in a showroom when my Colt was at the Chry-Ply dealer for a repair (probably around the time you bought yours), and remember how nicely executed the thing was. But I must confess that I felt just a bit smug when you related your efforts at seat-juggling to fit people and cargo because of how we bypassed the minivan for a big van. But then again, not everyone had a wife who would have gone there the way mine did. And you probably saved a lot of money by passing on buying things on a whim that you couldn’t fit in the back. 🙂
Our family had a similar experience. We had a 1986 swb Voyager with the 4 cylinder. They were hot items then and we had to order and pay full sticker which I HATED doing. However, the minivan was great for us and our two daughters, just exactly what we needed. Like you we took many trips using the seats in every combination known to man, The engine died in 1991 or 1992. I believe this was common the 4s. We would have been glad to get another but a friend offered a wonderful deal on his 1989 Suburban so we did that. (I was also wonderful for trips but horrible on gas.)
I’ve never heard that Oak Ridge Boys song, but that gave me a great laugh today!
There’s a lot here that I can relate to. My wife and I bought our first minivan shortly after our second daughter was born – it’s a 2010 Odyssey that we still have. Our second minivan came eight years later. Yes, it’s tragically unhip to have two minivans, but they’re so useful, and much cheaper than SUVs. I was ambivalent about the whole minivan thing before we bought one, but I quickly became a big fan.
Interesting that you mention the personal safety benefits of being able to get your kids situated completely in the car – rather than vulnerably struggling with young kids and their car seats while half hanging out of a regular car or SUV. We appreciated that too – particularly with vans like your Caravan or our Odyssey that have no center console, and therefore you can walk inside between rows. My wife, who’s especially cognizant of personal safety issues, absolutely loved that aspect of driving the minivan.
Right now, our “newer” minivan has 80,000 miles on it, so we’re debating what we’ll get when its time for a new vehicle. Minivans – being a whole lot more affordable than anything else with this amount of versatility – are the leading contenders.
My ’96 Aerostar had a center console between the front-row seats, but my ’05 Astro DOESN’T: all the storage compartments are integrated around the interior engine cover. You can access the whole interior without getting out of the van!
With the starting MSRP of a new Kia Carnival at
$33.6k, minivans are not as affordable as they once were. This is $3k over the base Sorento, and only about $3k under the big (and super-popular) Telluride. I know that inflation is a thing and that the new ones are a lot nicer, but we were out the door for under $20k on our 2012 base-model Sedona. These days manufacturers are making us pay dearly for anything with more than 4 cylinders. A base-level Odyssey is over $38K!!!
Technically the Carnival actually seems more affordable:
Base price of a 2012 Sedona LX was $25,700 according to Kelley Blue Book.
$25,700 in 2012 is apparently the equivalent of $34,336 today according to officialdata.org.
Base price of a 2024 Carnival LX is $33,600 as you noted. Assuming one’s income or asset values kept up with inflation it seems a better value today at least based on the sticker.
Honda probably still has the reputation (not necessarily the reality) to ask $5,000 more for their more or less equivalent van. For a happy Kia owner that’s probably unreasonable, for a non-Kia experiencer the extra 15% might be considered a good value when tossing $35k or more on the table…
Kia though is more popular these days than back in 2012 and probably less likely to deal as much to move their units. Or maybe not, as you said while the 2012 is quite nice, the newer one does have more content/features. In 2012 a buyer definitely still often got the side-eye when announcing their new Kia, these days not so much if at all, some of their vehicles are easily as or vastly more competitive than their competition.
All true, though the MSRP of 24.9k on cars.com is closer to what I remember. I also recall that the combination of discounts/dickering and a $2k rebate came to about $5k. The current Carnival’s only purchase incentive is $300 for military members, so the only discounts you can get come from dickering.
Running my $19,900 through inflationcalculator.com, the modern equivalent is about $26,400, so I would need to shave $7k off a new van. But as we agree, there is lots more content on the new ones, but that is the entire market. Also, Kia is a much more mainstream choice now. One reason I have held off on shopping is my prediction of a worse economy in the near future, which will put manufacturers and dealers in a much more flexible mood than they are in right now.
Destination was $850 which cars.com doesn’t include so we could both be correct as far as the sticker goes.
I guess you could sign up for 23 tours of duty, PFC Cavanaugh…Uncle Sam wants YOU!
Maybe, but if the economy goes south, then I’d figure Kia to have more business, not less. Carnival apparently has the second lowest days to sale on Kia’s lot as of late September, i.e. one of the most in demand of all Kias. I’m guessing they keep supply constrained although 2023 was apparently its best year since back in 2006 with over 43k sold.
https://caredge.com/guides/kia-inventory-stock-update-2023
There was a time near the end of the Grand Caravan’s lifespan when new ones were going for $18,990 or something like that. This is around 2018-2019 or so. Inflation adjusted, an all-time low, and quite a bargain.
I paid an eye-watering $22k for our ’92 GC, and it was only a mid level LE but with a number of options, most of which are standard today. That’s…$48.5k adjusted. Ouch. Those were the glory days for Chrysler, reaping massive profits on these things.
We really lucked out with our 2018 Sedona – we paid $22,000 for it in October ’18. If I recall, the MSRP was about $29,000. To put that in perspective, we paid more for our 2010 Odyssey (similarly equipped), and $22k is what Paul said he paid for his Grand Caravan in 1992!
We should have bought two of them.
I’m glad we bought a car before the price escalations of the past three years, but eventually we’ll need a replacement, and the prices will hit us hard. Given that, I suspect we won’t feel like splurging much, and even at $34,000 or so, the Carnival still offers good value for its versatility.
I’ve been a mini van enthusiast since Pops bought a new VW Kombi stripper in 1954 .
He bought a Plymouth Voyager in the mid 1980’s, maybe an’84 ? .
The local dealer in Hawaii jerk him off about the roof rack option so he had the local Hertz place add *one* more to their next order, he took that thing to New Jersey and Washington State, camped out of it, blah blah blah .what a wonderful vehicle, it stil looked great when he sold it on many years later .
I’d have one as it’d make a fantastic shop truck but I like smaller vehicles if I can manage that .
Nice to see all this love for a market busting well made underdog .
-Nate
> What sealed the deal was that my wife could let the kids in, then get in herself and close the door. Then she could attend to strapping our son in the car seat, She could then walk up between the seats to get behind the wheel. This was not only convenient, it was also much safer.
Yes! This pass-through between the first and second rows, as well as between the two front-row seats, has been inexplicably replaced by a big floor console that prevents both of those in recent Toyota or Kia minivans. That was a big part of the van’s appeal; without the walk-through capability (or a removable or fold-away 2nd row), these new minivans are little more than 3-row crossovers with sliding doors.
Nothing says “MARRIED WITH CHILDREN” like a mini-van.
I always liked the SWB version. It seems like a great mix of interior room and small exterior dimensions. I did remember that the seats did not reposition as effectively as on the LWB version, but still a very versatile vehicle.
Sister/brother in law had a “90”. Thinking it was the “Dodge version” though. Was called a “black cherry” color. Quite a good looking ride. I know the “84” , blue one traded for it was a “Voyager”.
The “Dodge” was a turbo. It did “go”.
It seems that minivans push a lot of people’s buttons. They are the ultimate badge of domesticity, but really, what is wrong with that? At a certain point, most men want to move on to a different phase in their life. Becoming a family man can be a very satisfying stage in a guy’s development. It was in mine, and I’m glad that I got to experience it.
I guess for most guys of my generation, being cool meant being attractive to women, or we thought that the things that we did, or bought, would make us attractive. It seemed that everything that was sold or advertised on the media, would help us out in that department.
Minivans are so useful and adaptable. I met a guy in his early 40’s, he had a Dodge Caravan, with a roof rack, and a platform bed and storage. He lived in Pacifica. He could carry his surfboard on the rack, then lock it up inside with his mountain bike, while he was at work. He told me that he’d get up early and hit the waves before going to work. After work some days, he’d head up into the Santa Cruz mountains and do some mountain biking. Afterwards he might camp out overnight in his van. He carried all his stuff with him and was ready to go all the time. It seemed like a good use of his minvan.
I have to admire the tenacity of surfers. When I had a 9-5 (really more like 9-9) office job I would change things up if it allowed an extra 15 minutes of sleep in the morning. Driving out to the beach, hitting the waves, driving back, washing off the salt and sand, drying, changing into work clothes? Not for me, and I love surfing. But 6 AM me would rather sleep in for another few hours…
I agree about the strong opinions about minivans, but I’ve softened my stance considerably in the last several years.
Thinking about your example of the guy who surfs with his minvan as his base, I bought my Chrysler Town & Country with the idea of possibly doing a little light camping in the thing. As numerous as the fifth-gen Mopar vans are, I’m somewhat surprised that there aren’t more kits available for overnighting. Or maybe I wasn’t looking in the right places, who knows? I may have to do this the hard way.
I’ve now had a couple of minivans in the “fleet” for ten years, and still cannot find a better general purpose vehicle for most regular folks. There’s not a lot of collectability for these things, so only the true believers will preserve these vehicles. I find it kind of ironic, that minivans seem to have suffered the same fate as the vehicle they ostensibly killed, the station wagon.
More than once I’ve considered getting a SWB minivan as a hobby car. What could be better than a car you can use for hardware store runs and then stuffing it full of friends to go to the microbrewery?
OTOH, who would know it was a hobby car?
We purchased nearly the same first generation minivan in San Jose, CA, only it was a Plymouth Voyager when we were expecting our first son. It was a 1984 model purchased used in 1986. A few years after our son was born, wife and I took a road trip to Utah and another driver totaled our van. Fortunately, we had left our son with grandparents, as we both had to be hospitalized. The replacement was a 1987 extended wheelbase but still with only one sliding door. Regarding hauling things, when the 1987 van was only one week old, I removed the seats, put down some plastic sheet and picked up all the sod we needed to complete our backyard landscaping. The dude at the grass farm thought I was crazy loading the sod into a brand new minivan and thus, I may have personally started the minivans are not cool thinking.
I was interested to learn how the children’s car seat was installed in this minivan after the difficulty with the previous vehicle.
What I did in mine was to wrap a wrapped steel cable around the second seat to which the car seat was attached via the harness. There was no floor mount in mine (1987).
The seat belt was also used to secure the seat.
I have vivid recollections of removing the rear seats to carry cargo. Mine just sat on the clamps on the bottom, so when removed, they had to be lugged into the garage. No wheels at the time.