Dodge just unveiled the Caravan R-T at the 2011-chicago show. pretty uninspiring, at least until we find out whether the "suspension changes" add up to anything worth noting.



My wife and I are talking about replacing her car with a minivan.

Afaik, There hasn't been anything other than the transverse fwd-box minivan since the previa and the astro left the game.

I've driven the mercedes R-class (meh, and no, it wasn't an r63), and I've driven a mazda 5 (meh, no, it wasn't a manual)... and it looks like, if we do end up getting a minivan, it's going to suck.

Is the minivan a permanently sucky thing? Or is this yet another category of vehicle that we just have to wait 20 years for porsche to invent an ugly one that doesn't suck to drive?

Also, there have been so many concepts with tandem seating, an arrangement that provides real consideration for the ergonomic accomodation of a 2nd-position passenger while saving length... how come there's never been a people-carrier that discards the idea that something shaped for 6 passengers has to also be able to easily become an empty cave with a flat floor? What... the dilly-yo?

your thoughts.

btw... anyone else think that a 996/7 911-based vw microbus revival would absolutely kick ass?

2/10/2011 12:38:07 PM

No.
The minivan will never be cool. That doesn't mean it has to go unappreciated. You have to appreciate it for what it is, not what you want it to be.
If you want to make it more manly in the rugged sense you end up with an SUV or a 4x4 van.
If you want to give it manly performance you end up with an X5/Cayenne (still technically an SUV, but a far cry from most.)
The grocery getters that Dodge, Honda, Toyota, etc. pump out will never be cool.

[Edited on February 10, 2011 at 12:49 PM. Reason : s]

2/10/2011 12:48:22 PM

yes... it would

2/10/2011 12:48:42 PM

Out of curiousity why do you think you need a minivan? My parents raised a family of 3 children just fine with a station wagon.

2/10/2011 12:50:35 PM

Quote :

"how come there's never been a people-carrier that discards the idea that something shaped for 6 passengers has to also be able to easily become an empty cave with a flat floor? What... the dilly-yo?"

they have those, they are called suv's (and even some wagons) and they are simply not as useful as minivans. the open space and flat floor makes it both versatile and easy for people and children to get in and out. i've rented a couple that don't suck to drive; they aren't exciting, but the steering was at least responsive enough to inspire confidence and it rode well on the interstate, did well in town, and were easy to park.

i'm not quite sure what you are concerned about, who buys a minivan and expects a sporty or exciting ride? a minivan is all about utility and comfort, and some of them do a really great job at that. the astro was a terrible ride, and the previa was neat but was also not a particularly nice thing to drive. some of the boring fwd vans absolutely blow those out of the water.

2/10/2011 12:51:16 PM

only if it's a bangbus

2/10/2011 1:03:50 PM

Quote :

"Out of curiousity why do you think you need a minivan? My parents raised a family of 3 children just fine with a station wagon."

same here


[Edited on February 10, 2011 at 1:09 PM. Reason : ]

2/10/2011 1:06:38 PM

To me it would be worth the slight inconvenience to have a wagon over a minivan. Also it seems like parents these days carry around too much useless crap for their kids anyway

2/10/2011 1:10:52 PM

unless your wife's vagina is a clowncar, no one needs a minivan.

2/10/2011 1:16:13 PM

gg ray

2/10/2011 1:20:55 PM

go with wagon.

just get a cts-v wagon and get it over with (or if you are feeling ballsy/loaded enough, an AMG/M/RS wagon!!!)

if you want a good looking minivan, and also smaller in size than the traditional jap/american offerings, look at french.

renault, puegeot, and citroen make some hot looking mini-minivans... will have to do special import. also the full size renault espace.

ibt renault F1 espace with an 800 hp F1 engine

2/10/2011 1:57:45 PM

TKE: I don't think we need a minivan at the moment. But I'm definitely willing to swap her car for something else if there's something else that better suits our uses.

My wife originally aired the idea when our daughter was born and it got revived recently when we found that the rear-facing child seat barely fit in her CX-7. The only place a childseat fits without moving the front seat forward is in the center of the backseat, so if we have another kid before the current one faces forward, then we'll have a problem when we need to put all four of us in the car at the same time. The issue doesn't so much concern the need for a third row.

I do think that there are longer and lower options among wagons and even some large sedans that would really be interesting as they tend to have longer wheelbases than the typical crossover, making fitting childseats without having to move the front seats forward possible but I'm sure we won't get anything lower than her current car because she has a joint/knee issue (it's a less-severe case of a disease called ehlers-danlos) that has made the ability to slide directly sideways into the car from standing outside the car her #1 priority.

the reason why I care about it being a fun ride is that whatever we get, it'll be what we go in everywhere. My wife doesn't even ride in my Lincoln, let alone the miata anymore, because she hates dropping down into it and standing up out of it. The "legs-out" seating posture of those two cars also aren't great for her. She doesn't have any difficulty doing it as is necessary in the moment, but it causes her a lot of pain later in the day. So... really.. what we may get to replace her car, if we do, will be one that sits upright at about the current height but also has a long distance from the h-point of the 2nd row to the headrest of the 1st row seats.

I test drove a 2002 LS430, thinking that maybe a soft-enough riding car with upright posture and soft seats might make driving at a lower position more palatable, and there's definitely a longer diagonal distance for a rear-facing childseat to fit, but I haven't shared my experiences of that with my wife yet, since she's said that she wants a 3-row vehicle, even though that doesn't follow necessarily from my above-recited explanation of why we'd look at replacing her cx-7... I think she just assumed we'd need the third row for some reason ... even though it'll be years before we have 3 kids....

Come to think of it... there are a couple of crossovers that I've driven that had unusually far-back 2nd row seating... like the nissan murano... but then that thing is pretty useless for storage behind the 2nd row...

However, even without my personal reasons for shopping for a van, I am intrigued by the minivan, because, like a 2-seat mid-engined coupe or a work-spec pickup, it is a vehicle where accomodation for passengers is never a half-assed attempt. With a sedan or a 2+2 or a wagon, sometimes vehicles are capable of being reviewed without catching that the shape makes the headroom or ingress/egress from the vehicle a PITA, which begs the question of whether such accomodation should have been offered at all! I like vehicles that, if they CAN do something, they do that list of things WELL and don't try to do anything else with low scrutiny. I mean, doesn't it offend your senses that +2 seats were even offered in the vanquish or the evora? Why bother? and if not bother, then why have the room to even have half-assed it? How much weight and footprint could have been saved there?

Btw, one of the amusing things that occurred to me when we were at carmax this past weekend looking at vans and crossovers and wagons is that... if we needed the third row for any reason, only a vehicle with an aisle to get back there is going to work because nobody is going to bother to both remove the rear-facing childseat AND remove the LATCH-mounted seat base in a vehicle that needs to collapse/fold the 2nd row seat to gain access to the third row.

The original minivans had this figured out... there was a wide bench in the back and an offset bench in the middle, so you could have two childseats in the second row but the entire back row would be accessible without having to get around the 2nd row occupants. Even better, it meant a fairly long legroom for at least one seat in the third row. But this arrangement seems to have dissolved since the mid-90s when every minivan added a driver's side sliding door.

There was probably a lot of weight that could have been saved if the driver's side sliding door had never become a necessary feature...

One of my favorite wacky kit cars was a thing call the Brubaker box, which was a sort of micro-van -thing based on a vw beetle, and it had ... ONE door (and the hatch on the back). The door was on the passenger side, where a sliding door would fit on a minivan, and every passenger could get in through that door. brilliant. Nobody remembers that the last minivan to get a driver's side sliding door, the Ford Freestar, was the highest performing in crash tests.

2/10/2011 1:59:31 PM

Ford Flex "minivawagosuv"





+ 385hp ecoboost v6

<-- Winner!

2/10/2011 3:18:45 PM

Volvo V70R, CTS-V wagon /thread.

2/10/2011 4:19:30 PM

holy fucking words post

2/10/2011 4:34:16 PM

Minivans do almost everything better than trucks and SUVs: hauling capacity, passenger capacity, comfort, mileage, features, safety, handling, maintenance costs, homeless accomodation...

The only thing trucks to better is tow 1000+ lbs and go-offroading. Truck/SUV owners who don't do that regularly are pretty much tools.

The state of "manliness" is pretty fucking sad these days.

[Edited on February 10, 2011 at 5:12 PM. Reason : .]

2/10/2011 5:08:22 PM

^^ exactly, if you need one car to fill all your needs.

Otherwise, get a cheap, mundane minivan, and then keep a fun car.

I'm telling you people, having multiple cars for multiple purposes is often a good way to do it.

2/10/2011 5:09:12 PM

^ Not everyone wants to devote their funds to cars.

2/10/2011 5:48:56 PM

Ford fuckin' Transit. Not the Connect, but a real Transit. Or Dodge Sprinter.
If you are going to go the van route, dont be a pussy driving a minivan. Get a real van. One you can walk into with your head rased high and proud, not crawl in like cockroach in a crawlspace. You dont need to slide or remove any seats to move get into the third row seat (or forth or fifth). You can in fact get your gandma back in there without having her get out of her wheelchair. Vans dont get much manlier than this.
.


and if you have not left your homemade supercar aspirations behind, you could always sake it look faster.


As a bonus point, you will get mad respect from all the vatos in your local barrio

2/10/2011 5:49:26 PM

Yeah, vans like the Transit/Sprinter are cool. Real vans...just not real big.

Quote :

"Not everyone wants to devote their funds to cars. "

That's what I'm saying...it can be cost effective to just have multiple vehicles.

2/10/2011 5:58:29 PM

imo vans are pretty damn cool

2/10/2011 6:19:46 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQbc4yrI46E

2/10/2011 6:41:40 PM

With all the random under floor storage space, and versatility they offer, I think I could eventually drive a van. I would have to have some other car as well though.
Thankfully, my wife refused to ever own a van, and so I won't either.

I will have a wagon some day though. Magnum, A3, A4 avant, etc.

2/10/2011 6:52:53 PM

Are Dodge Sprinters still re-badged MB?

Also, I think the Ford Flex is ugly. Co-worker has one and I'm all

[Edited on February 10, 2011 at 7:00 PM. Reason : .]

2/10/2011 6:59:41 PM

Quote :

"Yeah, vans like the Transit/Sprinter are cool. Real vans...just not real big."

How exactly is a 5000+ lb vehicle powered by an undersized turbodiesel cool? A Honda Odyssey can run circles around one of those.

2/11/2011 11:01:45 AM

50+ MPG Done.

2/11/2011 11:18:37 AM

i still can't beleive no one agrees that the flex is the ultimate combo of everything required for a big family...

and it looks good (like a giant mini) and it can be had with AWD and serious power...

(people are chipping the ecoboost ones and running 13 second 1/4 miles)

2/11/2011 11:33:20 AM

The Flex is almost the perfect everything, but it is just a tall station wagon.

2/11/2011 1:25:33 PM

^^^

too bad it's not available in the US.


Fuck you, California.

2/11/2011 2:27:53 PM

the flex is huge, its not as maneuverable as most minivans. lots of women like things to be maneuverable and easy to park.

2/11/2011 2:37:37 PM

Drove an Audi Allroad (quattro w/adjustable suspension and LOTS of ground clearance when needed,
low to the ground when not) v6 twin turbo (same engine as the S4). It's a hoot, I really enjoyed
driving it. I'm now torn b/w that and the Audi A3 for mom. A3's probably a better choice as she likes
small/fast/nimble cars, but the Allroad is just bad ass!


[Edited on February 11, 2011 at 2:49 PM. Reason : some people can't post proper sized pictures. ]

2/11/2011 2:48:09 PM

^ airbags and pumps die a lot,

keep an eye out for that ( and many people put coils on instead when they die cause the repair is expensive and/or it happens frequently )

2/11/2011 3:01:07 PM

I also think it's a sweet vehicle, but from what i've read reliability is absolute shit on the allroad.

2/11/2011 3:10:57 PM

^^^ Yeah, wagons are the way to go. Im currently driving an 06 a6 avant (got a sweet deal) and while its not the most fun thing to drive, it dominates the snow (i live up north), is extremely comfortable, looks good IMO, and is way better to drive than a minivan/suv/van.

The a3 is fun to drive, it's a nice car, but not really a SUV/van alternative given its size. The allroad would fit the desired vehicle choice better.

2/11/2011 3:14:31 PM

buddy of mine sold one of those audi airbag wagons for STUPID cheap not long ago. car ended up being shipped to alaska .

2/11/2011 7:08:18 PM

big proponent of the mini

they haul mad shit and are good on gas...can be picked up for super cheap too. you'll always have a place to sleep

2/11/2011 8:34:41 PM

A "Mini"? No sir.

A shop owner I'm buddies with (I let him look at the M3 if he's nice) tells me that the airbags need
to be cleaned occasionally or sand/rocks that get in the folds of them will eventually cause tears.

According to him the occasional cleaning procedure is just to raise the car and spray under the car
(like go through a car wash). Also he says the airbags are easy to replace when they do go bad and
otherwise the car's rather reliable.

I don't care, I drove it, it's sweet as hell. It handles very nicely and has a LOT of ground clearance
when desired, has great brakes and unreal traction w/locking diffs +a crapload of power.

2/11/2011 9:53:08 PM

^^ A mini, as in a Mini Cooper? OP asked about minivans, not a minicar.

Quote :

"I'm now torn b/w that and the Audi A3 for mom. A3's probably a better choice as she likes small/fast/nimble cars"

Get her the newly released RS3 in that case. Small/faaaaast/nimble

2/12/2011 3:05:12 AM

Quote :

"How exactly is a 5000+ lb vehicle powered by an undersized turbodiesel cool? A Honda Odyssey can run circles around one of those."

Because they're utilitarian as hell, but not as cumbersome as a full-size van.

Who gives a shit what will run circles around it? It's a van, dude. That's irrelevant.

2/12/2011 3:10:37 AM

I second the idea of the Flex (or its upscale sibling the Lincoln MKT). Big and utilitarian, but not boring like a minivan. The look is polarizing, but I like the "station wagon on steroids" attitude. Plus I tend to dig boxy vehicles (I like the Honda Element and the original Scion xB, for example).

And, as has been stated, 355 HP Ecoboost available. That solves your lack of fun problem, right there.

2/12/2011 3:44:43 AM

Here is a manvan

http://www.turbo-mopar.com/forums/showthread.php?56941-FOR-SALE-World-s-Fastest-Turbo-Dodge-Caravan-)

Here is a video of it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haPCQKOyMTo

Quote :

"FOR SALE - World's Fastest Turbo Dodge Caravan It's been a FUN ride but I think it's time for me to get serious with my REAL race car Thought I'd post it here first 1989 White Turbo Caravan - The Fastest One! Fresh Engine Fresh Transmission New Turbo Details available to serious buyer! Guaranteed to run 11's with lots-o-head room left $6500 "

3/7/2011 7:03:54 AM