As much as I consider myself a car guy, my personal fleet over the years hasn’t exactly been impressive. In hindsight, it’s kind of pathetic how singularly my high-school identity was tied to my first car — a beat-up, green 1994 Toyota Previa All-Trac with over 200K on the odometer, layers of electrical tape covering up the rust building on the edges of the hatch, and a jerry-rigged CD player torn from my mom’s Camry.
The Previa (or G-Bubble, as I liked to call her–a moniker that makes me shudder now), was the second in a series of 1994 green All-Trac models my family had put through the trials of cross-country trips to Winnipeg from the woods outside of Ottawa and the automotive perils of a family of six living in the middle of nowhere.
While the little 2TZ-FE under the seats would never skip a beat, the air conditioner seemed to be a point of fragility (the length of line extending to the rear A/C unit was part of the problem). A/C was noticeable by its absence during road trips involving four kids in a vehicle resembling an oblong greenhouse with next-to no ventilation in the back. In the original Previa, the viscous coupling at the front end gave up the ghost, leaving the front wheels in posi-trac mode and tearing up the asphalt on our freshly paved driveway — a story my father told to pretty much everyone who came to our house until we moved, years later.
That Previa also managed to tow a massive rental trailer carrying my dad’s pristine (unplated) 1986 Jeep CJ-7 Laredo across the city for an hour, at a leisurely 60 km/h, with the rear suspension completely bottomed out (a photo exists, but I have been unable to locate it).
The first one endured enough mileage (easily well over 300K), salt and abuse to prompt my dad to buy an identical but less thrashed example a few years after the first one had been pretty thoroughly worn out.
The Previa became more or less mine sometime after my 16th birthday. While the title remained with my parents in order to make my insurance premiums slightly less insane, that old van was my means to autonomy, as well as the vehicle that transported me to everything I could possibly get out of while going to high school in the suburbs. Granted, this was limited by how much fuel I was willing to put in her when gas first shot up north of $1.20 a liter post-Katrina.
Twenty bucks’ worth of mid-grade at a time, it became a place to sleep after the inebriated adventures in the wilds of the Ottawa Valley and suburbia to which my friends and I were prone. The only photographic evidence I could find that had not been lost in old cellphone cameras is the photo above, which shows me wielding an ax after destroying a broken couch at the furniture store where I worked part-time.
With swiveling captain’s chairs in the second row and a third row that folded into a flat, bed-like surface, we routinely slept several people in the van after house parties, field parties and assorted fairs and concerts. While the van didn’t have the optional fridge ( which I have seen in at least one junkyard example), the biggest cooler we could find would fit behind the third row bench without difficulty, making it the ultimate camping machine.
However many of the 133 factory horses there still were strained to handle a full load of teenagers, but were mostly adequate for the highway, even enough to reach what felt like an insane velocity when coaxed in the middle of the night (downhill) along Highway 17. I can distinctly remember absolutely standing on the gas in a parking lot and front end just shooting up as all four tires grabbed, a sensation that could be likened to an enthusiastic whale rising up.
Courtesy zenseeker.net
And for what it was, the Previa was at least slightly fun when unladen, tuned up and on the Toyo summer tires. Underpowered, yes, but the All-Trac was hilarious on gravel and snow — two plentiful commodities in rural Ontario. There’s one particular stretch of winding road that I mapped out perfectly with that van, and with the right combination of cornering and not lifting, I could pull off something that to my unseasoned 16-year-old self approximated fun (the same road would later almost write off my Subaru Legacy GT). There was also a regrettable drag race against a buddy’s similarly unfortunate grey and rust-colored Mercury Villager; the Previa did not fare exceptionally well.
Since I saw it as such an extension of myself, it’s not surprising I was highly protective of the Previa. I dealt a swift punch to the jaw of one character who dared to dent the driver’s door at a party. I also locked one co-conspirator out of the “cabin” one night in rural Quebec, when his level of intoxication may have led to soiling the brown houndstooth upholstery.
The Prev would take without complaint pretty much any abuse I was personally willing to dish out. After one loose-gravel “drifting” experiment not at all reminiscent of 2Fast 2Furious left the front end mounted over a concrete culvert along the side of the road, she backed right out, even though an alarmed passerby offered to call a tow truck. The rad never started leaking after that misadventure either–much to my confusion, given the massive dent to its bottom. I bent the whole front end in that incident and the hood never again closed quite straight. Thankfully, the oil pan and engine were tucked back under the front seats.
It routinely drove through fields, dodging rocks and gullies (I always feared setting off grass fires due to how alarmingly low to the ground it was for a truck-ish 4WD vehicle with a solid rear axle). The lack of ground clearance made it less ideal in deep snow, but her eagerness in winter led me to believe that driving straight into a three-foot pile at the end of my parents’ unplowed driveway would be no big deal. It took us only an hour or so to dig her out after getting hung up halfway through.
A local junkyard had a beige 1991-93 example that my brother, my dad and I completely gutted for spare parts one summer — if I recall correctly, the deal was $300 for anything we could tear off before closing time. To this day, there is a complete spare set of seats in the back of my parents’ garage (a bunch of the assorted trim bits, including a spare engine cover, can be seen in the photo below).
The fact that I did most of the maintenance myself, and generally babied it much more than an 11-year-old minivan with a brown interior should ever be babied, still makes me associate a lot of my high-school memories with that thing.
As the more affluent of my peers were given the keys to used German sedans, Lincoln Navigators and Volvos, I remained confident that if my van wasn’t the most impressive of rides in the parking lot, it was certainly bulletproof and *ahem* unique. Plus, it could carry an obscene amount of anything, even when it usually just carried me.
After I moved away for university, the Previa sat behind the garage, in need of a brake job and some exhaust and front-end work that never quite happened. It functioned as a shed for a year or so before a buyer was found. Apparently the new owner already had one or more of these weird Japanese vans already in his arsenal. I’m reasonably confident that even if the rusty body was stripped for parts, that little four-cylinder might still be humming somewhere.
First-car love is always irrational!
Thanks, another reminder that we aren’t what we drive; in the end they’re just cars.
Interesting story thanks for sharing.
I always considered the Previa something of a Deadly Sin for Toyota along with many of the other minivans makers in the 1980s and early 1990s.
When the Chrysler minivans came out so basic and simple in design the others rushed their versions out but instead of merely copying (Ford was closest but RWD) they all went in different directions. For a while, minivans could be had in wild combinations of hunched over cube vans (Toyota/Mitsubishi), smaller truck vans (Astro and Aerostar), dust busters (GM), and this version of the Previa which was something of a evolved hunched over van where Toyota felt like they were forced to make it more conventional but did not want to admit total defeat. While the build quality may have been more than adequate, many of the design characteristics were nightmares like the front driveline. Eventually Toyota came out with the Sienna, 3 different van names in 5 years, that was more the usual formula.
As for the story, always interested to hear misspent youth but always seems safer now at least the car parts. When I was that age the stories usually involved doors popping open and people falling out and sometimes whole cars disappearing. But of course that’s when a car was $50 sometimes…
The Toyota Van was introduced the same year as the Caravan/Voyager, so we should hardly blame Toyota for not imitating Chrysler at first. At least the Previa proved that Toyota was not always hasty to imitate the competition. And perhaps it prompted some Toyota customers to consider hauling their families in Camry Wagons instead — like us!
And that was just in America. The Toyota van (Town Ace) goes back to 1976 in Japan, and the slightly larger HiAce back to 1967..
Toyota people movers predate Chryslers efforts who was looking over whos shoulder.
Thanks; the Wikipedia article didn’t make that clear, though I suspected as much.
See now, I think this just shows how much Chrysler’s minivan shook up the industry, and how much the other automakers didn’t get what made Chrysler’s vans successful. Ford and GM couldn’t shake “van=covered truck,” at least at first. Toyota and Nissan rushed existing Japanese-market small vans to these shores to try to fill the gap while they developed their own vans, but their first outings were weird, too. It still amazes me how long it took everybody else to get it: Take a FWD car platform and put a conventional-enough tall van-line body on it.
Now there was the Citroën H “Pig Nose” van, complete with monocoque construction & a car-based power-train (Traction Avant), but obviously with a different customer in mind, & in a vehicle culture not likely to command much attention in Michigan. Its production ended shortly before the Caravan came out!
Remember seeing one of these “egg vans” in 2005 or so after it was hit by a speeding Metrolink train near San Diego. Was on all the news stations. The Previa held up well, and the occupants survived. If I am ever hit by a train, I want to be in one of these.
I thought Previas were considered unsafe. Must have been drinking too much Kool-Aid.
There’s a house nearby that occasionally has as many as five (FIVE!) Toyota Previas in the driveway, so at least we know there’s someone out there who likes them. It kind of makes me want to get one, just to see what all the fuss is about…
A steamer as these are nicknamed here these vans have many titles as most of ours are ex JDM if the cooling system is neglected especially on the diesels meltdowns occur, but very popular vans with our Pacific Islander community as either work busses or family vans and of course the backpacker rental campers all began life as a Previa,.Estima,Emina or similar.
These vans seem to form part of that rare type of vehicle subset that tends to hoarded, much like Paul pointed out in his article on Corvair collectors. If you see one being driven, chances are that they have a few other parts vans at home. It still managed to take some abuse at the hands of a teenage driver and survive more than a year, so there is obviously some quality built in.
Over here dead steamers abound but with melted engines so parts cars no not really
Great story! There was something about these that I found attractive. Maybe it was just Toyota marching to a different drummer in its minivans. I knew someone who fell in love with the first gen Toyota minivan, and these seemed like an update on the concept.
A few years ago, I was looking for a cheap, older minivan. A nice one of these showed up on CL. I called my mechanic for a little background on what to look for. I have never forgotten his reply – “they are really good vans, but selfishly speaking, I hope you don’t buy it. They are really nasty to work on, and we are finally down to just one or two that we have to deal with.” No sense antagonizing a good mechanic. 🙂
That seems to be the story – some cars may break more on average but are easier to fix/maintain, other may break less on average but are more difficult to fix/maintain. Some cars just break and you can’t fix them.
Of all the cars that I have personally worked on, by far the easiest for me to have kept going was by Century wagon. The worst were the 1990s Mitsubishi 3000GT VR-4 twin-turbo. I am not talking about general reliability, I am talking about serviceability and ease of routine chores. I have always been one to accept challenges as they came, but cars like that when they come in make me have to sit down and plan everything out on paper before I even begin. There is a practical limit to engineering.
I had a real childhood lust for the Stealth R/T until I got under the hood of one. It’s no wonder they’ve disappeared from the streets and had such minimal following compared to it’s rivals. Disposable cars aren’t always econoboxes as it turns out.
The techs at my Chrysler store dreaded a Sealth R/T coming in. Any job on it was a money loser and they were very hard to diagnose. There were never many of them to begin with as the price tag was in Corvette territory and any kind service was a nightmare.
That said, I had a couple of good burns in Stealth R/T’s I was trying to diagnose. People who spend this kind of money on a car expect perfection, and rightly so. These cars were so complicated that any one of a dozen things could cause an intermittent vibration that would be nearly impossible to find. This would lead to entire modules being replaced to make a customer happy, thus incurring the wrath of the warranty claims administrators at Chrysler Canada. Still, Chrysler actually spent a lot of money trying to keep owners happy.
After the warranty expired, electrical problems were the norm and again devilishly hard to diagnose as in those days the DRB didn’t really give much info about anything other that emissions. The upshot is the cars got traded off very soon and for peanuts, too. It would be way better to dump it and move to another brand. Most of our clients bought Lexus S400’s when they dumped their Stealths.
As I mentioned in a recent Outtake, this generation Previa is the vehicle of choice for Eugene’s largest taxi operator. I rode in one recently, and the driver tells me they all have between 280-500k miles on the odometer, and are still going strong.
I like this van.a lot.
Even if you don’t like these, and I didn’t particularly, at least the minivan market was a whole lot more interesting back then. Between these, the dustbusters, Astro, Aerostar, and Chryslers, there was a wide variety of options. Today minivans are all essentially clones of each other with few distinguishing features.
I agree. In the end, ironically, succumbing to the Chrysler minivan formula did no favors for Ford or GM either.
Okay, the CC effect is alive and well. I was sitting here reading this article on my laptop, when I look up and noticed that one of my neighbors had parked a Toyota Previa out front! Great story, by the way. And regarding cars that get hoarded, another example would be the Geo Metro/Suzuki Swift. I drove by a farm not too long ago that had four spares out by the barn. It raises the obvious question, “How many parts cars does one driver-quality car really need?” It also makes me wonder if some cars have a kind of herd instinct, that causes them to seek out others like them.
We have to understand that these things are getting on two decades old and most have astronomical mileage on them. These were really a beautiful piece of engineering and the only problem was that even the most basic maintenance gets ignored since these things will run way past 200,000 km with nary a problem. By this time you are probably going to have to spend a couple of grand to fix it up but that would be money well spent.
On the other hand, the mega-milers that are out there now are truly an enthusiast kind of thing since they really are a cool piece of engineering. Fun to drive and with an excellent turning radius since it was a Japanese home market car, converted to LHD but otherwise identical. That made it just a little too weird for America and it was also not cheap.
I would never own one but I admire people who keep them running. Old cars need lots of love.
This reminds me of the GM Astro Van that my high school friends family had that always got used for cruising, dances and general haulin’ a whole lotta folks.
In 1992, after our third was born, we needed a minivan to replace the Cherokee as the family truckster. I wanted a Previa, drawn to its unusual configuration and Toyota quality and reliability. Stephanie insisted on a Grand Caravan.
The Grand Caravan was of course larger, especially the luggage area behind the third seat. It was more powerful, with its 3.3 V6. But the Caravan had no less than four transmissions (three under warranty, the fourth 50%), and about an equal number of ABS pumps (lifetime warranty). And in the end (2005), the Caravan’s cash value was negligible, so I donated it to a charity. But in 2005, used Previas were still selling for some $5-7. That’s when I learned that even with a higher up-front price, a Toyota can still be cheaper in the long run. I’d probably still be driving it today, for better or for worse. Or have sold it to Eugene’s taxi company.
IF you maintain the cooling system the Toyota vans just keep going because they are a nightmare for access maintenance is often neglected and even Toyotas will stop due to it.
I know of one guy in Wisconsin that has three on the go and one “parts” van. All three had head gasket issues, and a number of various electrical woes. He is an engineer and a tinkerer, and I think that he relieves some stress by keeping the fleet going, one for himself, the other for the missus, and the third for his college bound kid. He did talk about aquiring another one as a “parts” supply, but the wife threatened divorce court if another van turned up. When they finally bought another vehicle, I think that it was a non-Toyota minivan, so the fasination didn’t extend to the latest Sienna’s.
When this vehicle came out, including the UK, there were several UK automotive publications that I received in the marketing department. One of the publications, every year would do a one line description (size, price, gas milage, etc) of every vehicle available in the UK for that year that would go across a two page spread. The last piece of information was always a biased comment from the editors. This one had a comment that I always remembered….. “not as clever as it looks”.
Was the publication Evo?
I cannot remember…. I think at the time there were some 8 to 12 UK auto related publications coming in every month, including all the UK classic car publications.
I think I was reading the back pages of Evo many years ago and they had those few word descriptions and I loved what they said about the BMW 8-Series: Rich Man’s Ford Probe.
LOL… good one.
It must have been CAR magazine – they specialize in snarky reviews.
Yep and no doubt they praised the Renault version which is a reliability nightmare despite how well it drives
The relatives in the UK had a Galaxy, and have now replaced it with a Citroen. They had major failures with both, including turbo replacements, and I think that the Citroen blew an engine. From what I ‘ve observed is that any UK “people carriers” are almost always a turbo diesel in order to get decent mileage. They also managed to blow an engine in their Rover estate a few years ago despite mostly highway driving and regular servicing. Mind you, “regular servicing” in the UK means yearly oil changes and an engine flush put in beforehand. I’ve often suspected that more regular synthetic oil changes would avoid some of these problems on high-stressed turbo diesels. Their current Citroen has a 1.6L turbo diesel with decent performance and economy around 40Imp on highway.
I can’t resist comparisons: 40Imp is 33 US, which is only 5 mpg better than the US-market Honda Odyssey’s [probably realistic] EPA highway rating, despite having a petrol engine of over twice the Cit’s displacement.
That minivans are now exceeding 25 mpg[US] is quite an achievement compared to old Country Squires getting maybe 15 at best. And power ratings aren’t too shabby, either.
On my return from Seatac this week, I filled my tank as soon as I entered the USA and filled it when I came back because gas is like a buck cheaper in the USA than Canada. In what was virtually 100% highway driving my car returned 7.5 L/100 km, which is like 31 mpg. I was not going slowly at all going down but coming back I took it easy as I was a little tired. This in a 3.2 litre car. I have always thought a bigger engine pulling taller gears is the way to go if you drive on the highway a lot. My Acrua is revving 1750 rpm at 110 km/h, making for a smooth and economical ride. You aren’t going to get that with a small motor, no way.
Conversely, said V-6 gobbles premium in copious amounts in city driving, at least by my standards. In our awful traffic it gets about 21 mpg, not that bad and I could do better if I could resist gunning it regularly, which is kind of the fun part about having such a car.
In my old age I don’t like small cars and I will pay for the pleasure of a big car with a big engine as long as I darned well car!
I agree that inches³ are not necessarily the enemy of efficiency. Look at the highway figures for the 6.2L Corvette! I now realize that tiny Euro engines historically have not been solely an attempt to save fuel or the planet, but were a response to tax-horsepower laws which punished owners of cars with large or wide-bored engines. A high fuel tax alone might’ve encouraged use of larger, more torquey engines. This is why I think France, despite being very inventive, has never been known for hot cars.
My 2010 1.8L Civic got 36-37 mpg[US], a bit above its EPA rating, while driving with 4 occupants to CA on I-10, which is not much better than you’re doing. As you said, it’s only in city driving that small engines really pay off.
Easiest vehicle in the world for changing ball joints. Changing plugs requires removing the front passenger seat and then the access hump underneath it.
Good write-up. I love the first car stories. Sometimes, the best first cars, or at least the most memorable are the ones least likely to be a good kid’s car. Your story certainly fits that criteria. Much like my dad’s 6000 wagon, it is a blast having a vehicle that can bring you and 5 or 6 of your fiends with you when you are that age.
One of the neat effects of this site is learning things that I never knew. Such as, before the previous article on these, I never knew these things were a mid engine affair. I never worked on one, and I guess that I was never interested in minivans enough to learn anything about these.
Great story! I also had an irrational love for my CC’s in High School. My friends never understood it, but then again, they never paid for their cars either.
I still see these things all the time in Southern CA. An ex neighbor had one with close to 400K on it.
Easily my favorite minivan of all time. The cut-away chassis image halfway through the article is the closest thing to minivan porn I’ve ever seen. The engine being laid nearly flat on it’s side seems like it would present some kind of issue, but I guess it doesn’t. The word I’ve always heard on these is “great vehicle, as long as you never have to work on it”. At different points you could order a Previa with a manual transmission, all-wheel-drive and a supercharger – but unfortunately you could never order all three together. I would love to have one, even with all the bloody knuckles and nightmares it would give me.
A very cool product indeed that went astronomical kms on only the most basic maintenance. Really good cars but hey, they are old now. I do see a few JDM models with right hand drive around Vancouver. I am sure low milers are available in Japan if you can stand RHD!
Only vehicle I ever owned that could fit 4 bicycles and 4 riders inside! My wife hated it but I miss it to this day.
I was selling these things back in the 90’s, I mostly remember the dozens of people who came by to look at one and upon seeing the price, immediately walked away. IIRC, the AWD versions were topping $30K ($50K in 2013 dollars)! These, along with Cressidas and Land Cruisers got you awarded a special spiff (bonus) payment because they were such a hard sell.
The other major issue that sticks out in my mind are the rear most seats being attached to the sides of the van. (Honda repeated the same pattern with the Element) How anyone thought that was a good idea, is completely beyond me. I’d often thought one good hit from the rear would send those things flying up front to crush the bodies of the poor folks up front…
I also remember the mechanics would try to avoid these things like crazy. Of course, they were paid per job, so the easier the car was to service, the more jobs they could log into and make more money. These things weren’t and usually the “new” guy got stuck working on these…
I was glad I wasn’t working on the line back then…
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned the coolest feature on these vans: The huge rear sliding sunroof! Great for camping – you can bed down in the back and look up at the stars.
A few years ago I was bit by the Previa bug and have owned two of these vans, one N/A and one supercharged. Beauty is subjective of course, but I find the styling of these to be very attractive – it’s a clean design that still holds up today. There has never been a better looking van (mini or otherwise).
My last van – a 1997 – was a bit of a headache. It had a low idle that nobody could fix and the Aux (Front) driveshaft coupling was troublesome. I replaced it with a Suburban (for hauling/camping duty) and am now over my Previa infatuation – but I do miss that rear sunroof!
The beloved Bean.
Bought a used 1991 Previa.
Used the wrecking yard computer and peeked at the inventory and past sales for Bean parts.
Engine and tranny (auto) were nigh-on indestructible with no demand for them to replaced broken ones.
One weak link… wiper transmission due to large swept area and lazy people expecting wiper to clear off even built-up snow. They learned quickly.
SADS shaft a semi-weak link but repair kits available.
A/C was problematic at times but I got by without it.
Flat ground, no wind, 70 mph got around 30 mpg.
Still see the Beans prancing around southern Missouri.
Yahoo Group site with a LOT of handy Previa info, repair tips, etc.
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/previa/
The whale Caprices bear a striking resemblance to these vans. I can’t help but think of one when I see “the other”.
Seeing the underpinnings of a Previa flipped on its side at the scrapyard was most interesting. I can’t help but like them just due to the weird-factor itself.
Btw, I enjoyed your write-up Mike.
When these Previas came out my parents were driving the closest thing to an MPV that could be bought in New Zealand at the time: a JDM used import Toyota Townace Super Extra. My sisters and I were getting taller, and we all needed more space. My folks would have probably preferred an MPV bur the Renault Espace was pretty much the only one available until the Previa, and very expensive. There was nothing like the Chrysler Voyager here yet (they were called Chrysler Voyagers when they finally arrived here mid-90s), so the Previa was quite ground-breaking for NZ (and Australia too I think). They were expensive, so our Townace was never replaced by one.
I remember crawling all over the first Previa I saw, and loving the design inside and out – still do in fact, it has character. Previas are still common here – but few are the Previa-badged wide-bodied model; most are used JDM narrow-body Estima-badged versions (same side panels, but much narrower floorpan/roof). The narrow-bodied ones must have been even more challenging for packaging…
I have a 1994 Previa… I love it but I’m having trouble finding a mechanic that knows anything about them. I’m in southeast Massachusetts if anyone knows of a qualified mechanic. Parts are so hard to find that I had to order windshield wipers from the factory
Call me old-school, but I much prefer this, the Toyota Previa, over the Toyota Sienna.
I realize i’m a year late here but I just ran across this and I really enjoyed it. In 1996 I decided I wanted a van and I started researching vans. I had owned a 1970 VW van for 14 years and loved its handling and usability (not its reliability or noise level). I was wanting a van for camping and traveling all over the west and Baja. I interviewed Toyota mechanics at 2 local dealers and both of them said that at that time they had never had to open a Previa engine. So I bought a used 1991 with both sunroofs and 75K miles. I still have it with 268K the engine and transmission/driveline have never been worked on. I change the oil every 3000 miles or so. It still runs great, I have had door hardware problems a bit and the windows in the back are loose, the A/C had to be replaced and the heater can’t be completely turned off but other than that, no problem. I still love it but I probably would not spend a great deal of time or money repairing it if anything major happens. I just did a 3000 mile trip to So. Cal and northern Baja and returned with a half ton of tile, it could use new shocks, but it did great. I turn the A/C off when climbing a long hill and take it out of OD and down to 65 then cruise from 70 to around 75 in OD. I did get in some 80-85 traffic on I-5 and it does fine. Mileage seems to be in the low twenties.
Thanks for sharing your Previa story. These are nigh-near indestructible. The taxi company here in Eugene bought a bunch of used ones over ten years ago, and some are still in service, with 500-600k miles on them.
I can see where a Previa would be a good taxi, lots of room, not too big and reliable but the gas mileage would be a handicap I would think. We got a Prius a couple of years ago and I talked to a taxi owner somewhere, he was telling me that they make the best taxi’s because of the mileage and the brakes last so long because of the regenerative braking. He said lots of them are hitting 500 to 600K with very few problems. Just goes to show what good engineering is capable of.
OMG, we have a “POD” that we have been going on tours with for years. Its almost at 300K and running like a champ. We feel the same as you did. We have put stuff in their that wouldn’t fit anything else, and then added more. We road trip and make a great bed back there. We take out all the back seats to do it. Then we add music gear…several large Nords, a vintage vibe, and tons of ampage…We have taken her on snow and ice and could not make her slide, keeping us super safe in blizzards after playing Sun Valley Idaho, etc. We can’t get rid of her. We can afford a grew car, but nothing compares.
Awesome article! I remember when I first saw the Toyota Previa. At the time, I didn’t find it very attractive, at least not compared to its predecessor, the boxy Toyota Van. When the Toyota Sienna showed up, I found the Previa more attractive than the Sienna. How crazy is that?
i’m gonna necro this page. I called the cab company I normally use to get a ride from from work and about ten minutes later I saw a Previa rolling up. I chuckled a bit at having such a relic sent to me. I actually hadn’t been in one since they were new and I was 5 so roughly 25 years ago. Thing was comfy and seemed really well maintained. I love the interior; it kinda reminds me of the inside of Star Trek Voyager. The cabbie and I spent most of the time talking about the thing. He seemed really fond of it. On a side note, when I was 5, my dad had one as a rental and, just to screw with me, anytime I pointed at the lock he hit the button to toggle it and had me convinced this van had such a feature as a lock that toggled when I pointed at it.
I remember when the Toyota Previa first hit the USA market. I found it more attractive than Chrysler’s “minivans” that were sold at the time. I particularly found its round appearance more attractive than the box-like Toyota Van that came before it. My only disappointment with the Previa was its lack of a 2.2 litre diesel engine, or even a 2.4 turbo diesel engine.
Can I get some advice on how to fix my headlights mine ia a Toyota steamer.