Once upon a time, the minivan was the ruling family car of America. The likes of the Grand Caravan got people out of wagons and into trendy boxy rides. The crossover has since stolen the crown from the minivan, but the van still holds onto a niche. Today, we learn of one way vans can be even better.
Thomas wrote a review on the luxurious Toyota Sienna Platinum. Today’s minivans are practically private jets that stay grounded to the ground, but some of our readers want the luxury to stay where it really matters. Hangover Grenade kicks us off with this amusing remark:
Why yes, I would love to spend $60,000 to drive my kids around like little CEOs with their opulent heated reclining seats and leg rests. Surprised there isn’t a privacy screen like a limousine.
Cheap Bastard brings additional humor:
Gone are the days when you could toss your surplus children into the seatbeltless, cup holder less cargo area of a full sized station wagon and put them to sleep with a combination of unconditioned air, cigarette smoke, dehydration, AM talk radio, leaded exhaust fumes and the drone of the differential humming away.
But V10omous makes a really good point:
I will once again repeat my call for a van with S-class grade chairs in front and hose-it-out vinyl in the back.
My wife and I want to be comfortable, but I have no desire to clean, repair, or pay for niceties for the sub 8 year old crowd.
You know, I never thought of it like that. Kids under 8 years old aren’t going to care about high luxury, so why bother? Now, teenagers are a different story. I remember being 13 and thinking that my mom’s Oldsmobile Silhouette was the coolest thing on the planet.
It was gold! It had leather captain’s chairs! I was able to listen to KissFM through the aux jack in the ceiling. The doors closed on their own! To me as a teen that was practically magic.
This morning, Jason wrote about a patently bonkers video promoting the Tatra 603 by showing a guy loading up a car and driving like a maniac. ExAutoJourno said it best:
An early demonstration of Czechs and balances.
Have a great evening, everyone!
For a few years I lived above a deli on East end avenue at 82nd street in Manhattan, and the weird after school behavior of 10 year old private school boys was on display most afternoons. They would run around and packs with neck ties tied around their heads Rambo style on account of some rule saying that they had to continue to wear their school neckties until they got home. There would be fleets of circling stretch limousines on York, Second and Third Avenues. Every so often.The of the limousines would stop, the rear door would open, and a circle of 10-year-old boys who were all sitting on the floor with yelled to some other 10 year-old boy on the sidewalk who would join them in the back of the limo, on the floor. The weirdest thing. I am pretty sure sure those kids are running the world now.
When my folks went to parties, they would park at the party, set down the plywood over the rear seat of the ‘5? Plymouth, toss us there, and go into the party.
what was the plywood for?
Span the gap between the rear seat and the front seats. Cover over the footwell.
I swear it used to be possible to mix material in vans back in the day. Or maybe someone’s special project, but they had a van with the nice velour captain’s chairs up front and vinyl in rows 2 and 3.
We were a little late to the minivan game. My sister and I spent many of our youngest years in the back of a mid 80’s Subaru wagon, with no AC of course. Trips across the high desert center of our state during the summer were not very fun. My mom got a base model Odyssey in 2000, and I remember it was like the goddamn future in automotive form.
Getting AC when you didn’t before will do that do yah.
Our 2018 Kia Sedona is kinda like this. Has a household-style 110v plug-in so my son can charge his iPad and another USB port for my daughter’s tablet. Heated second row seats (that they can’t even use yet thanks to their child seats). It’s an SX model rather than an SX-L, though, so the La-Z-Boy style recliners aren’t there.
Homer Simpson really had cars right. Independent domes for the parents and the kids. And at least 3 horns that all play la cucaracha.
The rack and peanut steering, too.
Now I’m thinking about that camp trailer with the little garage. Drive your kids around in this luxury van, then shove one into the penalty box sleeping area and they’ll REALLY know that’s a punishment.
When people say the stow n’ go seats in the Pacifica aren’t comfortable enough, I guess I just don’t see why they would need to be any better. For the most part they’re for kids (and occasionally adults) and mine are currently in a car seat/booster seat. Once they’re old enough to be out of those, they’ll be sitting in separate captains chairs with basically unlimited personal space. With their own HVAC controls and tinted/shaded windows and all of that. If I hear any complaints about those seats, I’ll buy a Dodge Stratus, adopt another kid, cram ’em back there 3 wide and load up the footwells with canned goods for a road trip to Cape Cod.
Basically what I’m saying is, they’ve got it good enough.
Not that you know that Stratus experience firsthand or anything? haha…
But yeah depends on your use case. However when it gets to the point they’re learning to drive, if you find yourself riding in them for road trips, you might get a lot more seat time in back yourself. Once I got my permit I did most of the driving on trips and my dad rode in back.
Entirely possible, though I guess I’m looking at things through the young parents lens right now. Eventually they’ll get older and the priorities will change for sure.
But even then I find those seats while not exceptionally comfortable by any means, decent enough. I’ve been in them a couple of times for decent stretches. But yes, if I were to spend more time back there, the needle would probably tilt more towards Odyssey.
I do find the non-removable recliner-style seats in some of these vans to be pretty silly though.
I haven’t been in a Pacifica for enough length of time like a trip, just the prior Grand Caravan, but brief time in a Pacifica did feel like it was an appreciable improvement. I figure someone at Chrysler agrees with some of the grumbles if they kept tweaking them with each gen even if they don’t necessarily need to.
Agree on the recliner seats. Maybe they’re better in the current vans, but my impression from reviews of the previous gen of vans with them was they were kinda finicky to use and not that special for comfort for their mission – like “‘can we get lounge seats?’ ‘we have lounge seats at home!'” Especially for the loss of practicality.
I know I mentioned it in the original thread, but the fancier Pacificas don’t seem like they’re geared towards purely kid duty.
Those second row seats slide 20″ inches, the largest in the business (and helps explain the lack of removability, including built-in airbags)
On top of that, the first few years are in a carseat anyway. I distinctly remember the first time my wife and I (and even my kids) sat in an unencumbered second row seat and said “Wow these are really nice!
2015 Odyssey. Second row is like a comfy house chair, much better than the front. When we roadtrip now, one of the adults rotates into the back seat to relax. The kids have NO idea how good they’ve had it.
The second row of the Odyssey is hard to beat for comfort. I tested an EX-L not long ago and was pretty shocked by how comfortable the second row was.
When my dad got us on weekends we got to ride in the back of his truck the 40 miles back to his house. He fixed it up real nice though, bed cap, brown outdoor carpeting inside, I think on some premium plywood, a little radio hooked up to the 12v, sliding window if we needed to ask him something, man that was livin’.
My family also had that bodystyle of Olds Silhouette. That final era seems to be forgotten compared to the dustbuster ones, but it served our family well. Lasted a good 13 years through 4 kids and a dog. Watched the same movies over and over on the ceiling-mounted video player. Made many road trips and many stains.
My best friend’s mom had a similar year Montana. These Olds Silhouettes and Chevy Ventures (and Pontiac Montanas) will forever be remembered as one of the IIHS’ worst performing models in a crash test. It was crazy!
Leave it to GM to make a family vehicle and forget about safety.
https://www.consumerreports.org/video/view/cars/car-safety/710704050001/chevrolet-venture-crash-test-1997-2005/
Yeah, not great.
There are a couple surprisingly clean Dustbuster Era Oldsmobile Silhouettes for sale on Facebook Marketplace that I linger on a little too long from time to time. If I didn’t already have a Chrysler Pacifica to haul the mob around in…
I just sat here and watched that Tatra ad without moving a muscle. Brilliant! Some really clever staging in there, too – the mirror in city streets, coming through the cloud of steam in the snow. The passengers apparently down to gymkhana in three piece suits and high heels.
My favorite aunt has always said her dream when my three cousins and I were kids was to buy a used limo, through us in the back, and close the privacy screen so she could have some peace and quiet.
Personally, as a kid I was grateful to be getting a ride anywhere in the first place. My parents were NOT in the business of playing kid taxi. 99% of the time, if I wanted to go somewhere it was the big yellow school bus, pedals, or shank’s mare. This is part of why we Gen-X’s are both hardy and generally a bit pissed off at the world.
On road trips my parents carted us around in a ’76 K5 Blazer with a lift kit and a stickshift with no back seat… or seatbelts. The antithesis of a smooth comfortable ride. We just stretched out on the floor with a blanket and some pillows. At least there was AC and a seemingly endless supply of 8-track tapes of Elvis, Seals & Crofts, and Bonnie Tyler.
Spent much time in the “way back” of sundry plywood pleasure palace station wagons as a kid. A/C? We were from MAINE – roasting alive and sticking to vinyl seats build character. That was my grandparents, who I lived with off and on and then on through college. My Mom’s 911 didn’t have A/C either, and at 6’2 by the sixth grade the back seat of an early 70s Porsche was a delight (shared with my little brother no less). And my stepfather’s Grand Prix was only marginally better four up – but it did have A/C (though given they all smoked like fiends back then, careful what you wished for).
At least in their cars the music was pretty great – 70s hits and lots and lots of Motown (stepfather being a black dude from the Indianapolis ‘hood). Since it was the 70s and early 80s. In the grandparent’s cars, not-so-much, the Old Man being a lover of ancient whiney country music. Blech.
I was puttered around in the front seat (gasp) of a 1991 Chevrolet Corsica – once I was out of my lackadaisical for the time infant car seat. So many fond memories of cruising with my mom in that car and a Brooks & Dunn cassette in the Delco stereo.