Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey Eddie here, before we get started, I wanted
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Speaker 1: or at Pushkin dot Fm. So all I have right
Speaker 1: now is a twenty fourteen BMW X one. And now
Speaker 1: most people would say that's perfectly sufficient. But I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say that. You would, no, you would not say that.
Speaker 1: I have tried it on a airport run for a
Speaker 1: holiday with my you know, with my new plus one,
Speaker 1: so three of us, and it was, you know, the
Speaker 1: amount of I had totally underestimated the amount of stuff
Speaker 1: that now, I mean, this is not in the last
Speaker 1: ten years. The amount of stuff must have doubled that
Speaker 1: you're required to carry with you. And the seats, car
Speaker 1: seats are just ginormous. They're huge, Yeah, they're they're fortress
Speaker 1: like we're just like so yeah, So I clearly what
Speaker 1: I have right now is insufficient. That's me and Malcolm Gladwell,
Speaker 1: a couple of months ago, talking shop, just like we
Speaker 1: always seemed to do. Talking shop is actually how we met.
Speaker 1: I still remember when I got that first call from
Speaker 1: him a few years ago. I was sitting at my
Speaker 1: desk in ann Arbor as editor in chief of Current Driver.
Speaker 1: When my phone rang. I heard the dulcet tones. Malcolm
Speaker 1: introduced himself as a reader, which I could hardly believe
Speaker 1: because I was at that very moment breaking apart in
Speaker 1: Oreo with my teeth. There was no way this mental,
Speaker 1: giant red car magazine's. I was also prejudiced to believe
Speaker 1: that all intellectuals hated driving and thought all cars were
Speaker 1: yellow with a light on top. But this Canadian kid
Speaker 1: impressed me. He was talking torqu curs and limited slip deferentials.
Speaker 1: He said he was doing a show on unintended acceleration
Speaker 1: for the first season of his podcast, Revisionist History. Did
Speaker 1: we at carn Driver want to be featured on it?
Speaker 1: We sure did. Altaman hits the brakes firmly, smoothly, easily,
Speaker 1: we come to a halt. But now it was my
Speaker 1: chance to return the favor. Malcolm needed my guidance. He
Speaker 1: needed to know how do I effectively move around a
Speaker 1: young family and all the stuff that comes with it.
Speaker 1: Malcolm had just become a father and couldn't decide what
Speaker 1: kind of car to get for his family. His small
Speaker 1: first generation BMW X one SUV may have been perfect
Speaker 1: ideal even for a bachelor. But if you're hauling kids
Speaker 1: in their tackle, a glorified hot hatchback like the X
Speaker 1: one isn't going to cut it. So I had to
Speaker 1: parachute in there. And by parachute, I mean pack my
Speaker 1: stuff into a minivan in Detroit and drive six hundred
Speaker 1: miles east to meet Malcolm and Hudson, New York, home
Speaker 1: to the Pushkin offices, and together we would go on
Speaker 1: a quest to find Malcolm a car for the pastoral
Speaker 1: life with a child, maybe even two. Eventually there's a
Speaker 1: great pg arooric mine. He says. Having one kid is
Speaker 1: like having a dog. Having two kids is like having
Speaker 1: a zoo. That, yeah, everything's exponentially greater. You have to
Speaker 1: have way more stuff. And yeah, if you're flying and
Speaker 1: getting the whole family packed up to go on an airplane,
Speaker 1: you need your car seat for the plan and for
Speaker 1: the cab and all that, and you need your stroller
Speaker 1: and there's just so much stuff. It's like packing a
Speaker 1: small army. Here's my worry. My worries are as well.
Speaker 1: I'm totally spoiled by I love this car to death,
Speaker 1: my X one. Yeah, it has that beautiful creamy in
Speaker 1: line six, and it has the hydraulic steering. It's got
Speaker 1: like right old school. The steering on this car is
Speaker 1: so beautiful. Every time I give into any other car,
Speaker 1: regardless of the price, I don't think it steers as
Speaker 1: well as my as my X one. So I'm resigned
Speaker 1: to the fact I'm surrendering. So that's a hard thing
Speaker 1: to give up for sure. But you know, designing which
Speaker 1: way to go for a people mover, for a family car,
Speaker 1: for you know, something that has a lot of space,
Speaker 1: it's really sort of a deep psychological question. It is.
Speaker 1: I'm now I'm a child of as well as I'm
Speaker 1: sure all every member of my generation is. I'm a
Speaker 1: child of the station wagon. Yeah, as I'm sure you were.
Speaker 1: I was what was what we your family wagons, h
Speaker 1: Ultomobile custom Cruiser. That was the biggie with the slide
Speaker 1: out tailgate and the you know, the rear facing third
Speaker 1: row where you could put the window down and inhale
Speaker 1: the exhaust and you could, you know, make faces at
Speaker 1: the serial killers behind you. It's so unsafe. And U
Speaker 1: and my mom never got a minivan. Our car growing up,
Speaker 1: our family wagon was up in the beginning was a
Speaker 1: Pugo four O four. So yeah, I mean our moms
Speaker 1: drove wagons, our parents drove wagons. But then the minivan
Speaker 1: revolution came and sort of reordered the family car universe. Now,
Speaker 1: in one fell swoop, the Chrysler minivan destroyed the station
Speaker 1: wagon market, but then the station mark then the minivan
Speaker 1: market itself got destroyed by the suv. And so that's
Speaker 1: what we're going to look at today. We're going to
Speaker 1: look at these three formats, like the evolution of the
Speaker 1: family car from the station wagon to the minivan to
Speaker 1: the suv. Which one is best for you? For me?
Speaker 1: So we have what we have a representative of each class.
Speaker 1: Yes we have a No, I'm not committing to these
Speaker 1: particular cars. We're just trying to choose the class. That's right.
Speaker 1: We're just towing into the frigid waters of automotive responsibility here.
Speaker 1: It's a tough adjustment for a guy who has an
Speaker 1: addiction to performance cars and the speeding tickets to prove it.
Speaker 1: So I used a categorical approach, positioning his options not
Speaker 1: as specific cars that might be too depressing, but in
Speaker 1: the abstract the question is cautiously broad. Where on the
Speaker 1: family car evolutionary ladder will our test subject, Malcolm Land
Speaker 1: will he go retro and choose a wagon like his
Speaker 1: parents did, or will he partake of the other options
Speaker 1: in the marketplace, the minivan or the suv. We have
Speaker 1: three vehicles for you to check out. Okay, okay. The
Speaker 1: first is the Kia Carnival. Oh do you know what
Speaker 1: that is? Yes, I do, I have. I have been
Speaker 1: looking at them online really furtively or furtively. Well, I
Speaker 1: like the idea that it doesn't it's a minivan that
Speaker 1: doesn't look like a minivan, which is you know, but
Speaker 1: it's all minivan. I mean, you're gonna see. I can't
Speaker 1: wait for your experience with it or in your reaction.
Speaker 1: The second is the wagon, the thing that a minivan killed.
Speaker 1: The wagon that we have is a Volvo V ninety
Speaker 1: cross Country. Ah, so this is the jacked up one. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're all sort of jacked up. They all want to
Speaker 1: be SUVs. Now they all have kind of exaggerated fenders,
Speaker 1: higher ride heights. You know, it's interesting because the way
Speaker 1: that the cargo area is packaged in wagons is usually
Speaker 1: pretty good for getting kids stuff in there, because it's
Speaker 1: it's longer, it's generally wider, and it's it's more horizontal
Speaker 1: than vertical. And then we come to the suv. The
Speaker 1: vehicle once used for rock crawling and mud bogging has
Speaker 1: been brought to heal. The modern day suv is the
Speaker 1: de facto family car for many, but the one we're
Speaker 1: going to drive today blurs the line between family car
Speaker 1: and granite bowl eyed. It's the Mercedes MG GL fifty three,
Speaker 1: and it is very red, very fast, and very very expensive.
Speaker 1: I'll give you my pre ranking of what I believe
Speaker 1: a priori what I believe my preferences will be. The
Speaker 1: one of the most dubious of is the overpowered suv.
Speaker 1: It's mostly for kind of like symbolic sociological reasons. Perfect
Speaker 1: I don't want to be the jackass in the AMG
Speaker 1: the glamg. Right. I briefly had a Boxter, which was
Speaker 1: the most beautiful drive I've ever had, and I got
Speaker 1: rid of it because I was the jackass in the boxter.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to go the jackass in the boxter.
Speaker 1: I understand that, so I worry that jackass factor high. Also,
Speaker 1: I've run a foul of the police so many times
Speaker 1: up here, and the temptation to speed in this thing
Speaker 1: is going to be, I'm guessing overwhelming. Second, I think
Speaker 1: I'm quite drawn to Station Megan's. They have great symbolic
Speaker 1: meaningful for me. I think they're immensely practical. I'm a
Speaker 1: little dubious of these new fangled Volvos. I wouldn't mind
Speaker 1: something that was just a proper psix orve eight in it.
Speaker 1: And then I think I'm probably most enthusiastic about the
Speaker 1: project of a minivan. Interesting because the sort of underlying
Speaker 1: thing here is that we're going from the emotional to
Speaker 1: the rational. We're going from it, you know, this crazy
Speaker 1: steroidal Mercedes, it's all jacked up and it's got like,
Speaker 1: you know, nightclub lighting and everything, and it's read through
Speaker 1: the more rational station wagon, where the cargo package is
Speaker 1: a little bit more sane and makes a little bit
Speaker 1: more sense. It's lower to the ground, but it's still
Speaker 1: fun to drive to the completely rational, which is the
Speaker 1: one box minivan, not fun. I have no kind of
Speaker 1: status anxiety about driving a minivan. Well, here's a really
Speaker 1: interesting point, and Dan Neil from The Wall Street Journal
Speaker 1: makes it all the time. He says, minivans are symbols
Speaker 1: of virility. Sports cars are not minivans. Mean you've had kids,
Speaker 1: you've reproduced? Yes, yes they do. So that's our baseline.
Speaker 1: That's those are your your pre existing biases. And you
Speaker 1: think you're a minivan man, to come by be a
Speaker 1: minivan man. Yeah. I'm Eddie Alterman, and this is Car Show,
Speaker 1: my podcast about why we drive what we drive. On
Speaker 1: today's season finale, we asked a question. When it's time
Speaker 1: to trade in the fast car for a family car,
Speaker 1: which do you choose? SUV, minivan or station wagon? Papa Bear,
Speaker 1: Mama Bear or baby Bear. After the break, Malcolm and
Speaker 1: I hit the road with a ship ton of baby
Speaker 1: stuff in the backseat. So here we are Me and Malcolm,
Speaker 1: two performance card guys evaluating family cars. Wintertime in Hudson,
Speaker 1: New York is perhaps the perfect gran environment to prepare
Speaker 1: for the coming fatherly depressions ahead. The dead trees and
Speaker 1: the slick roads set in appropriately somber tone. Still, some
Speaker 1: fun must be forgiven. Oh there it is, there, it is.
Speaker 1: They are kind of rad looking. We give you the keys, Malcolm.
Speaker 1: First up is the Mercedes mg GL fifty three list
Speaker 1: price seventy seven thousand dollars, which sounds outlandish when you
Speaker 1: say it out loud, But this thing is loaded to
Speaker 1: the gunnals with leather, chrome and technology. Forget heated or
Speaker 1: even cooled seats, the chairs, and this bends administer massages.
Speaker 1: That's right, massages. Sounds over the top, and it is,
Speaker 1: but it is also fairly representative of the new species
Speaker 1: of European suv. I'll take a look. Probably enough room
Speaker 1: for the stroller and all the baby well. The Mercedes
Speaker 1: trunk is lavishly trimmed in something that feels like wombat fur.
Speaker 1: There's a little chrome pull to access the spare tire
Speaker 1: well and little chrome tie downs for the rear netting.
Speaker 1: If you were to put a closet like this in
Speaker 1: your house, it would easily cost seventy seven grand, given
Speaker 1: the richness of the materials. But it's no walk in
Speaker 1: closet in here. The cargo volume is compromised by the
Speaker 1: forward raking rear window. The whole car is rakish. It
Speaker 1: looks mean, it sits squat on huge twenty one inch wheels,
Speaker 1: and every surface seems to glint like a gee. They're
Speaker 1: definitely sacrificing practicality for that, you know, a certain eagerness,
Speaker 1: esthetic eagerness forward rake, I don't, I don't, I don't.
Speaker 1: I think they're thinking more about the horse powers than
Speaker 1: they are about the number of children in the backseat.
Speaker 1: I think. So yeah, there's no Eddie. There's nothing about this.
Speaker 1: I couldn't even if I arrived at home with this
Speaker 1: and I said to my partner, here's the here's our
Speaker 1: family car. What is it? What's family about this car?
Speaker 1: I don't know it. Actually, now that I'm looking at
Speaker 1: with this red paint job and the black interior, it's
Speaker 1: very kind of Marquis decide, you know it is not.
Speaker 1: It's dark. I would worry about the values if any
Speaker 1: child raised in this car, right, they're going to grow
Speaker 1: up to be psychopaths. No, these are I think this
Speaker 1: is what I was saying before. I object to these
Speaker 1: overpowered They're just they're just jackass cars. You say that
Speaker 1: now I haven't driven it. We shoved producer Sam and
Speaker 1: Jacob in the back. They are not Baylor Linemen. It
Speaker 1: was surprisingly tight back there. Well that's interesting. We don't
Speaker 1: even have space for our we're maxed out at four yeah,
Speaker 1: for in some microphones and that's it. It's pretty tightly coupled.
Speaker 1: As I said, there's nothing family about this car. That's nice.
Speaker 1: How do you like that from your one steering wheel,
Speaker 1: you feel like it's hideous. You feel like Lewis Hamilton,
Speaker 1: I feel I think it looks like it looks like
Speaker 1: a video game control box. Yeah, I think we should
Speaker 1: go full drive. Yeah, it so even this steering from
Speaker 1: my like for my liking, it's too light, right, I
Speaker 1: just don't. I'm just thinking to my little battered you know,
Speaker 1: eight year old X one, and it's just so much
Speaker 1: more of a pleasure to drive. Well, there's a connection there,
Speaker 1: I mean to the road surface. You get some feel
Speaker 1: coming through the steering wheel into your hands. It's really
Speaker 1: really important. And I point out that we are that's
Speaker 1: the prison. Oh that's where they're going to send me
Speaker 1: one day when I get my next speeding tickets. So good,
Speaker 1: It comes alive a little bit, right, comes alive. It
Speaker 1: just wants to be a sports car, right, It doesn't
Speaker 1: want to be a family car. And if I would
Speaker 1: to drive this way with my daughter in the back,
Speaker 1: I would, I would. It would be like a criminal act.
Speaker 1: You know. I just think this card's a certain so
Speaker 1: with fully optioned and creeping towards one hundred grand for
Speaker 1: a car that it cannot be driven the way it
Speaker 1: wants to be driven right for for I mean that's
Speaker 1: the rational argument. I mean, isn't there something we're celebrating here?
Speaker 1: I think it's only usable if you have a pre
Speaker 1: adolescent son, and then that's the kind of person for
Speaker 1: whom this car is ideal. Yeah, listen there, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's crazy. And that's the six cylinder. Let's find
Speaker 1: the massaging seats here? Does like to go fast? Yes,
Speaker 1: it does. I do like the seats, Eddy, They're exceptional.
Speaker 1: They are good, aren't they? These are some of the
Speaker 1: best seats i've i've i've Saturday. Let's do the activated massage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: give me a hold the sage, Kay, Paul sating we
Speaker 1: have any last night. We don't want to go too
Speaker 1: far deep into this man, You'll never know what you'll
Speaker 1: find in the massage section. I will say this about
Speaker 1: the tear finishes is actually this is beautiful right, you
Speaker 1: have this cool carbon fiber we've here going across the
Speaker 1: whole instrument panel. You have this kind of Super Bowl
Speaker 1: style screen that goes from the digital gauges to the
Speaker 1: control kind of message center. Yeah, you know it's it's
Speaker 1: totally over the top. But you know, if you're paying
Speaker 1: this much money, it is very bank faulty. I will
Speaker 1: say doubt about it. It's crazy how well made it is.
Speaker 1: I think that that's really where Mercedes beats everyone. But
Speaker 1: there is much to be said about the Mercedes handling too.
Speaker 1: For a big, heavy car, it sure likes to boogie.
Speaker 1: You can do some serious donuts to end all donuts failing,
Speaker 1: did you rans they probably get You're probably have four
Speaker 1: kinds of doughnuts you could do in this car. You
Speaker 1: could do a Crueler. You could do a Boston cream cream. Well, no,
Speaker 1: wouldn't be a boss of You'd be like a Heidelberg. Right,
Speaker 1: it's some kind of Bavarian nice right exactly. So what
Speaker 1: we have here in the Mercedes AMG is something that's
Speaker 1: excessive for kid duty. It's too nice. You don't want
Speaker 1: apple sauce getting smeared on the leather. You don't want
Speaker 1: goldfish dust ground into the carpets. As much as this
Speaker 1: bends is a thing to covet, it is not the
Speaker 1: rational choice. And I'm trying to appeal to Malcolm's higher
Speaker 1: instincts here. My initial impression that it is a jackass
Speaker 1: mobile is confirmed. It is. It has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with children. You wouldn't put a child in it. The
Speaker 1: child would would would the minute it got dirty. You'd
Speaker 1: be horrified because it's so gorgeous. You're you would drive
Speaker 1: away too fast. You're partner would be screaming at every
Speaker 1: time you took a corner, like at an appropriate speed.
Speaker 1: Just everything about it is like it's just wrong. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean but I'm not even sure that compromise back
Speaker 1: rear areas also bothering, not just not convinced. I and
Speaker 1: fifth so much stuff in it. Well yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: really about the driver first rather than the kid in
Speaker 1: the bank, right, yeah, not for the kind of parent
Speaker 1: you want to be, Not for the kind of parent
Speaker 1: I want to be. The Mercedes AMG G L E
Speaker 1: fifty three failed to seduce Malcolm. He saw right through it.
Speaker 1: Parenthood one high buck euro SUV zero. Next up is
Speaker 1: our minivan and the newest entry to the segment, the
Speaker 1: Kia Carnival. There are only five minivan models on sale
Speaker 1: in the US right now, so this Kia Carnival is
Speaker 1: a great representative of the current state of the minivan
Speaker 1: circa twenty twenty two. All right, let's take a look. Okay,
Speaker 1: is gorgeous. Now we're in Kya country, and it is gorgeous,
Speaker 1: not only for a minivan, but by any measure. It's
Speaker 1: just a very well resolved piece of industrial design. The
Speaker 1: front grill is seductively concave. You want to reach out
Speaker 1: and touch it. The overall boxingess is diminished by some
Speaker 1: very careful surfacing. There's a huge L shaped spear of
Speaker 1: textured metal flanking the rear glass. It has the effect
Speaker 1: of making the Kia look long and low, more suv
Speaker 1: than minivan. And that's just the outside. The inside is
Speaker 1: where the real action is, because minivans are about the passengering,
Speaker 1: not the driving. We started Malcolm off in the second row.
Speaker 1: Oh we've got the captain's chairs. Okay, make yourself comfortable. Now.
Speaker 1: It has been yours since I sat at a minivan,
Speaker 1: and I must say that I the first delightful thing
Speaker 1: is just how kind of airy and bright and the
Speaker 1: greenhouse as you as you guys like to say, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: I feel like in c I feel I have I
Speaker 1: can surveil my kids in the backseat. Yes, And there's
Speaker 1: an intercom system in this vehicle, so you can yell
Speaker 1: at them and they can yell at you. Wait, there's
Speaker 1: an there's an intercom system. So during the third row
Speaker 1: I can keep them in line. Yeah, they can bark orders.
Speaker 1: What kind of So the third row is really a
Speaker 1: kid a kid row. It's a kid row and it's
Speaker 1: not well, these are the kind of deluxe business class chairs. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I handed Malcolm E laminated placard. It described how to
Speaker 1: operate the business class style recliners in the Kia's second row,
Speaker 1: this particular model, which is the top of the line Carnival.
Speaker 1: It's really about the second row seat. And a funny
Speaker 1: thing about the second row seat. It's kind of a
Speaker 1: Korean cultural thing. That one next to you, that captain's chair.
Speaker 1: That's where the chairman sits and he can stretch out.
Speaker 1: And this is where the interpreter sits or the secretary sits,
Speaker 1: so he or she has to sit all the way up.
Speaker 1: But the front passenger seat sacrifices their foot room for
Speaker 1: the chairman in that Yeah, exactly, Oh it's nice. Yeah
Speaker 1: you can. I think recline this one too. The chairman's
Speaker 1: chair has got a foot rest. I think both of
Speaker 1: them do. And are you gonna take Are you gonna
Speaker 1: take me for a driving? Let's do it? Yeah, but
Speaker 1: you have to be reclined. Do you have to be
Speaker 1: in the I would like to be called chairman Malcolm
Speaker 1: for the duration of this draw because I'm in the
Speaker 1: chairman seat. I put my daughter in the third room
Speaker 1: and the car seat back there, sure, or the second
Speaker 1: round next to you, she can monitor. I don't understand
Speaker 1: the as a new parent, the obsession with monitoring the
Speaker 1: child at all times. I mean if once they're strapped
Speaker 1: in or in a crib. I understand if they're free ranging,
Speaker 1: but like, why do I need to have round the
Speaker 1: clock surveillance of this kid if they're already in what
Speaker 1: is essentially a prison cell, which is what a crib is,
Speaker 1: right as prisoners. Yeah, and we really have to keep
Speaker 1: our eyes on our kids for some reason. I know
Speaker 1: this massive nanny state. Okay, hold on, um, do I
Speaker 1: want my daughter to be in a car that has
Speaker 1: a chairman's chair, Like, what message am I sending her?
Speaker 1: I think you're preparing her for the real world. That's
Speaker 1: the reality of her life where she what is gonna be?
Speaker 1: She always be at the bottom of the hierarchy, and
Speaker 1: like there's always going to be a chairman lording over there.
Speaker 1: I think she could be the chairman. She could be
Speaker 1: the chairman. I'm telling my daughter you could. You two
Speaker 1: can grow up to be a chairman. Can get used
Speaker 1: to what it feels like. Yeah, I'm gonna make a
Speaker 1: series of ill advised corporate decisions. Okay, we'll roll it up.
Speaker 1: Tell you I want your professional perspective on. Remember how
Speaker 1: I drove some six hundred miles from Detroit to Hudson
Speaker 1: to meet Malcolm. I did it in this minivan. Ten
Speaker 1: and a half hours in this thing. Plenty of time
Speaker 1: for me to mentally catalog it's pros and cons. The
Speaker 1: pros the comfort, the space, the calm, and the straightforward
Speaker 1: nature of the infotainment system. The cons well, not many.
Speaker 1: The one thing that I did notice on the highway
Speaker 1: was getting blown around quite a bit. It was a
Speaker 1: little a little bit like a spinnaker on the highway.
Speaker 1: But that's because it just has a very broad broadside. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it acts sort of like a sock because you're
Speaker 1: also cutting across the winds who have planes. That's right.
Speaker 1: Little here in the Northeast, we don't have an issue.
Speaker 1: That's true, those big open prairies. So I was but
Speaker 1: you know, I felt very kind of in control the
Speaker 1: whole time. There was a there were a couple of
Speaker 1: moments where I felt like the steering was a little laggy,
Speaker 1: that the body control, you know, wasn't that great. But
Speaker 1: it's encouraging you to drive at a stately pace exactly.
Speaker 1: You know, it was very happy at eighty miles an hour.
Speaker 1: It's not the quietest thing, but it's pretty darn nice.
Speaker 1: And look, Malcolm, it's got the super Bowl screen. It's
Speaker 1: got the same thing as the Mercedes already does add
Speaker 1: that big vast I do like them. How great the
Speaker 1: U pits abilities? Yeah, it's good. And you know, the
Speaker 1: engine's a little course, it's no Mercedes six cylinder, but
Speaker 1: you know it's fine for what it is, and it
Speaker 1: got out of its own way pretty quickly. You know,
Speaker 1: when you're driving, you'll see it's it's it drives pretty
Speaker 1: small it doesn't feel like a big honking minivan. There's
Speaker 1: your friend. He's always sitting there. Although I would think
Speaker 1: you're pretty uh, aren't you pretty caught proof in this car?
Speaker 1: Such a great point, Such a great point. They do
Speaker 1: not pull over minivans, yeah, you know, especially ones that
Speaker 1: are sort of road colored and just blend into the background.
Speaker 1: It's not an arrest me kind of car. It's like,
Speaker 1: unlike every other car that I well, that's maybe the issue.
Speaker 1: Maybe we have to get you into something that's a
Speaker 1: little bit more low key, understated and cop invisible. The
Speaker 1: thing is, you know, it's like, this isn't a fun
Speaker 1: car to drive. This is a boring car. This is
Speaker 1: a you know, it's comfortable, but it's boring. It's like
Speaker 1: a government job, and it's a vehicle that a public
Speaker 1: servant might be able to afford. Unlike the Mercedes, this Kia,
Speaker 1: all optioned up, is about forty six thousand dollars. It's
Speaker 1: a little more than half what the Mercedes costs. But
Speaker 1: we're not comparing apples to oranges here. We're trying to
Speaker 1: find a lifestyle. I'm actually kind of loving it, though
Speaker 1: I'm reveling in the vastness of the interior. The seeing
Speaker 1: is larger than the living room I had in my
Speaker 1: first department in Army r Right. Look, I can look
Speaker 1: back at you. I've got the passenger view. Most minivans
Speaker 1: have video screens and the back of the front seat
Speaker 1: headrest to keep the kids occupied with movies or shows,
Speaker 1: you know, Talletubbies, Baby Shark, Reservoir Dogs. The Kia goes
Speaker 1: one screen further the central screen and the keys dashboard
Speaker 1: converts to a kiddie monitor and displays the goings on
Speaker 1: in the rear. See that, that's kind of freaky. That
Speaker 1: is great kids surveillance right there. Look at that. You
Speaker 1: got that like the fish eye view of your kid.
Speaker 1: You can see into their lab. Is a surveillance state
Speaker 1: comes to the minivan. Chairman Malcolm emerged from the private
Speaker 1: plane comfort of the rear seating area and took the wheel.
Speaker 1: I don't know you were saying, it's I like the
Speaker 1: I love the seating posits, the driving position. It's kind
Speaker 1: of the lord of the matter. Yeah, it's I think
Speaker 1: you if you drive drive it in a leisurely manner,
Speaker 1: you'll never hear the engine to sort of the engine
Speaker 1: harshness and right, you just keep it under under wraps.
Speaker 1: That's the funny thing that the Glee goes you into
Speaker 1: using all of its performance, whereas this sort of says,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe maybe don't just says take your time
Speaker 1: Anny the morning I drive the I like it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what is it about it? If you think I m
Speaker 1: because all the Greenhouse is spectacular, you can see everything.
Speaker 1: I like this sort of captain's chair driving position. I
Speaker 1: like how it encourages me to drive in a modest,
Speaker 1: unassuming manner. I don't know, I like it's kind of
Speaker 1: insane practicality it is. It's like, that's the insanity of it.
Speaker 1: It's it's weird in its own Like it's super committed
Speaker 1: to just being a place where people are comfortable. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a living room on wheels. That's all it wants
Speaker 1: to be. And I have no problem with that. It
Speaker 1: knows what it wants to be. It's honest about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's fully committed to like being boring and kind of static.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if it's it's boring. I felt like,
Speaker 1: I you know, it encourages me to think of myself
Speaker 1: as a kind of the male protector, you know, it's
Speaker 1: so um, it's very grown up and at the advanced
Speaker 1: age of fifteen, maybe it's time I got a grown
Speaker 1: up automobile. I've never had one before. Yeah, it forces
Speaker 1: you to think about yourself more differently. I mean, do
Speaker 1: you fear more or v rile in it? I feel
Speaker 1: like I could have seven or eight children this automobile.
Speaker 1: In our running family car tally, the minivan scores a
Speaker 1: needed point. So where now at parenthood? One minivan, one dead?
Speaker 1: Even so, how does the station wagon fair? We'll find
Speaker 1: out after the break. I'm Eddie Alterman, and this is
Speaker 1: Car Show. The last car on our journey is the
Speaker 1: station Wagon. I'm thinking maybe it'll be the sweet spot
Speaker 1: we're looking for. Like our minivans segment, the station wagon
Speaker 1: lineup is small. By my reckoning. There are only nine
Speaker 1: wagons on sale in the US, and I'm counting the
Speaker 1: Porsche's sport Arrismo models with their little hatches grafted onto
Speaker 1: the backs of the taykon Ev and Panamyra sedans. So
Speaker 1: the Vovo really does stand in for the market as
Speaker 1: a whole. But I chose the Vovo because it is sensible, beautiful,
Speaker 1: and not ostentatious. It is not a sports car replacement
Speaker 1: like the Porsche's, but it sure isn't the refrigerator box
Speaker 1: on wheels the Fovo wagons used to be. It comes
Speaker 1: across as both seductive and responsible, the thinking person's utility vehicle,
Speaker 1: but it does try to draft in the SUV's wake
Speaker 1: a little bit like the vast majority of today's station wagons.
Speaker 1: The Volvo V ninety cross Country has been ruggedized, a
Speaker 1: little jacked up like an SUV with plastic fender cladding
Speaker 1: and all wheel drive. Still, its sleekness and subtle curvaciousness
Speaker 1: cannot be denied. It has glossy brown paint and big
Speaker 1: silvery wheels. Everything flows from one contour to another, both
Speaker 1: outside and inside. It's more calming than crunchy, more design
Speaker 1: within reach than our EI, and it is our last
Speaker 1: vehicle under consideration. I feel like this vehicle matches your
Speaker 1: esthetic sensibility well. The interior is lovely. It would be
Speaker 1: destroyed by a child in you one week. The seats
Speaker 1: are swaddled in soft brown leather with white stitching. A
Speaker 1: band of open poor walnut wraps around the dash and
Speaker 1: down the center console. A thin spear of brushed aluminum
Speaker 1: follows it high Scandinavian sophistication. The ride on this car
Speaker 1: is quite nice. It's like soaking off the bumps, long wheelbase,
Speaker 1: you know, pretty stable ride, it feels planted. I've always
Speaker 1: felt these things drove a little big. They felt like
Speaker 1: they're a little bit bigger than they are. I don't
Speaker 1: sure your take is on that. It doesn't quite have
Speaker 1: the grandeur of the of the Kia Carnival. My initial
Speaker 1: thought is, if I'm gonna go family haller, I should
Speaker 1: go all in. This seems to be a tweeter. I mean,
Speaker 1: the lack of the third seed. So I can't have
Speaker 1: two children have this car? No, no, so right away,
Speaker 1: I mean, like, so, why don't I just get an
Speaker 1: Why don't I just get a nice sit in? Pretty
Speaker 1: much does this offer me? I mean, I have my
Speaker 1: Catalax T five f right man, he loves that thing. Anyway.
Speaker 1: We stop briefly to examine the cargo hold in the
Speaker 1: Volvo and found it surprisingly small. Yeah, I don't, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't have a problem with this car,
Speaker 1: but I don't understand. I don't see how it It
Speaker 1: does not solve the question I'm trying to answer right,
Speaker 1: doesn't answer my question. My question is how do I
Speaker 1: effectively move around a young family and all the stuff
Speaker 1: that comes with it. This is a beautiful automobile. That
Speaker 1: doesn't resolve that it for me, this is a style statement. Yeah,
Speaker 1: think about the Volvos that you know, you grew up wherever,
Speaker 1: and compare them to this. How would you characterize that? Well,
Speaker 1: the ones I grew up with had that pleasing obvious liddy.
Speaker 1: They were tanks in the best sense of the word. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, if we drove them today we would think
Speaker 1: they were ludicrously underpower, but they didn't seem that way
Speaker 1: at the time. They were very They were self consciously utilitarian.
Speaker 1: They were about Swedish socialism. This is a capitalist card, right,
Speaker 1: It's like this is about the transformation of Sweden as
Speaker 1: much as anything, though this V ninety wagon seems impossibly
Speaker 1: Swedish inside and out. Volvo is now a Chinese own
Speaker 1: brand Geelie out of Hanzo bought Volvo from Ford back
Speaker 1: in twenty ten. This is a Chinese But I mean
Speaker 1: it would only even been you know, this is Sweden
Speaker 1: of the seventies, is the most kind of ostentatiously egalitarian
Speaker 1: society on Earth, So there was not an ounce of
Speaker 1: frippery in any of those old follows. This thing is like,
Speaker 1: I feel like they've been like one of those exquisite
Speaker 1: modernist hotels. Yeah, this is sort of the son of
Speaker 1: that bla the st edsel Ford to the Henry Ford.
Speaker 1: This is the you know, this is the kid who
Speaker 1: grew up rich and has really exquisite taste. And it's
Speaker 1: a little more loose. No, there's no question. It's the
Speaker 1: handsomest of the three interiors that we've seen, right, Like,
Speaker 1: who would buy this? This is for a couple with
Speaker 1: no kids, who loves the ski, who you know, has
Speaker 1: you know, really exquisite taste. He's a retired eant specialist
Speaker 1: from Boston who now lives in Great Barrington and Western Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: She is a curator in an art gallery and they
Speaker 1: have one grown daughter who works for Goldman. They don't
Speaker 1: really talk to her. And I think they take this
Speaker 1: car from their home in Beacon Hill, Act to Great
Speaker 1: Barrington every weekend. The Berkshires. Yeah, and they go to
Speaker 1: not the Canyon Ranch, that's too sort of No, they
Speaker 1: go to like that, you know, the Lennox what's it
Speaker 1: called the does a classical music festival. Right, they go
Speaker 1: to UM. I think that's what this car's for, and
Speaker 1: they try to do some antiquing, but are frustrated with
Speaker 1: the size and shape of the cargo area. No, Eddie,
Speaker 1: they're not they're going. They're not taking the piece home.
Speaker 1: Someone's delivering it. You don't. They don't even know that
Speaker 1: it was possible to take to pick it up yourself.
Speaker 1: How basic of me? Yeah, yeah, they're so. I don't
Speaker 1: think I think the I think the cargo area here
Speaker 1: is uh is symbolic. I mean it's good, but it's
Speaker 1: you don't actually you're not hauling firewood in the back
Speaker 1: of this car. It's vestigial, right, It's like one of
Speaker 1: those prehensible tails. It's just there to signify something. Favorite
Speaker 1: quote ever S J. Popel, father of Ron Popel, who
Speaker 1: is the man who invented the pocket fisherman. Someone once
Speaker 1: explained to him that the pocket fisherman, which is a
Speaker 1: fishing rod that you could put in your pocket, didn't
Speaker 1: actually work, and he said, it's not for using, it's forgiving.
Speaker 1: I feel like that describes a lot about this car.
Speaker 1: It's a pocket fisherman on wheels. It's a pocket Fisherman.
Speaker 1: So we've driven all three. One's too overpowered, one's too
Speaker 1: mock functional, but one's just right. Looks like we have
Speaker 1: our verdict. As someone who's obsessed with cars, I think
Speaker 1: you know that your choice of a car is a
Speaker 1: You're making a statement about yourself, the way that the
Speaker 1: music you listen to in the seventies and eighties was
Speaker 1: a statement about who you were. It isn't anymore, weirdly,
Speaker 1: but it was back then. So I'm very self conscious
Speaker 1: about my car choices. It's why I've gotten rid of
Speaker 1: cars that I loved, because I didn't like what they
Speaker 1: said about me. I don't. I'm not a Devolvo is
Speaker 1: first is for someone whose kids have grown and gone
Speaker 1: yeah and who's retired. Neither those are true of me.
Speaker 1: And the Mercedes is I am not a hedge, fun
Speaker 1: guy with the weekend house. That's what that is. That's
Speaker 1: what the car is, right right. It's a jackass car.
Speaker 1: It's it's just just it makes a statement. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a beautiful automobile, but it's just not the Glee.
Speaker 1: And I think this is true of all performance SUVs.
Speaker 1: There's something inherently dishonest about it. You don't make a
Speaker 1: performance car ride that high or have that much weight.
Speaker 1: You know, a performance car should be something else. And likewise,
Speaker 1: wagon that doesn't have a really useful cargo hold, what's
Speaker 1: the point? Get us an out? Like you were saying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm reminded driving the Murk in my out of favorite magazine,
Speaker 1: car magazine. I well, car magazine. They used to have
Speaker 1: those little capsule reviews of each car sold and written
Speaker 1: in the back. I've always remembered the one they had
Speaker 1: for them, the really big Rolls Royce, which was out
Speaker 1: of my way, a little man, and the Murk is
Speaker 1: very out of my way, little man. It's like it's
Speaker 1: really you know it. I feel like it's out of
Speaker 1: step with the with the particuar or maybe or maybe
Speaker 1: perfectly in step with the moment we're in right now
Speaker 1: as a society, and as it's all I want to
Speaker 1: run as far as as fast as I can from it.
Speaker 1: It's sort of what Jay Gatsby would drive now, So
Speaker 1: I can't. I can't do that one. I really, I
Speaker 1: don't know if I've ever driven a minivan before, really,
Speaker 1: no one will looking my first ever minivan drive, and
Speaker 1: I'm this is a great moment. This was an important,
Speaker 1: important moment for me. What I didn't understand is although
Speaker 1: they're big, they drive small. Yeah. So yeah, it was
Speaker 1: that was the revelation, is there these things are I
Speaker 1: feel I can park it? I mean maybe it's just
Speaker 1: again a perception, but I feel I can park it anywhere.
Speaker 1: But the minivan is that's that's who I am right now.
Speaker 1: And I love that you're honest about it. The minivan
Speaker 1: is honest. It's not trying to be something it's not.
Speaker 1: It's trying to be a great family holler. It's trying
Speaker 1: to be a box on wheels, a utilitarian solution instead
Speaker 1: of cosplay. It made me want to drive all the
Speaker 1: other mini van's out there, and I'm gonna try my luck. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think now we feel like we're pointed in the
Speaker 1: right direction and we can find the right minivan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the right kind of vehicle at the right time
Speaker 1: in this new father's life. Not to mention the right place.
Speaker 1: We're in upstate New York. We are not in Bavaria.
Speaker 1: We do not have ananto bon, we do not have
Speaker 1: compliant police officers, and we're not stowing all of our
Speaker 1: kids stuff at the chalet. Right right, We're taking it
Speaker 1: with us. We're in America, We're driving minivans. Car Show
Speaker 1: is written and hosted by me Eddie Alterman. It's produced
Speaker 1: by Sam Dingman, Jacob Smith, and Amy Gaines. Our editor
Speaker 1: is Jan Guera. Original music and mastering by Benaliday. Our
Speaker 1: executive producer is Mia Lobell. Our show art was designed
Speaker 1: by Sean Karney and airbrushed by Greg la Fever. Our
Speaker 1: patron saints are Lee, Tom Malad and Justine Lange. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to Heather Faine, John Schnars, Carrie Brody, Carl Migliori,
Speaker 1: Christina Sullivan, Jason Gambrel, Eric Sandler, Maggie Taylor, Morgan Rattner,
Speaker 1: Nicole Morano, Mary Beth Smith, Jordan McMillan, Isabella Narvaez, Maya Kanik,
Speaker 1: Daniella Lakhan, Jake Flanagan, and extra special thanks to Malcolm
Speaker 1: Gladwell and el Hefe Jacob Weisberg. Car Show is a
Speaker 1: production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show in
Speaker 1: others from Pushkin Industries, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin
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