Speaker 1: Pushkin. It's the fall of nineteen eighty three in suburban Detroit.
Speaker 1: I'm eleven years old, and I'm on the school bus.
Speaker 1: We're wending through neighborhoods of mid century ranches and tri levels,
Speaker 1: the very sort of handsome middle class homes that car
Speaker 1: industry prosperity has made possible in this town. The bus
Speaker 1: is heading to my friend Josh's house. Josh's dad works
Speaker 1: at Chrysler. Lots of my friend's dads work at the
Speaker 1: big three car companies, Chrysler, Ford and General Motors. And
Speaker 1: even if they don't work for them, they still kind
Speaker 1: of do. In Detroit, it doesn't matter if you're a
Speaker 1: barber or a surgeon. You still serve the people of
Speaker 1: the Big three. It's a company town. The bus hisses
Speaker 1: to a stop as Josh makes his way up the
Speaker 1: steps and down the rubberized aisle. I see that his
Speaker 1: mighty mack jacket has a white pin on it. It
Speaker 1: says magic wagon, Magic wagon. What is that about? I ask?
Speaker 1: Josh tells me it's like a van. Well, that sounds incredible.
Speaker 1: The van is already the coolest vehicle there is. I mean,
Speaker 1: mister T drives one on the A team, Good afternoon.
Speaker 1: Are you crazy? Who might drive my van? But me
Speaker 1: get out of you? The Magic Wagon must be even
Speaker 1: cooler than that. It has magic right in the name.
Speaker 1: It probably has huge stripes down the front and wizards
Speaker 1: on the side and flames shooting out the back. And
Speaker 1: then a few days later I see the ad for
Speaker 1: it on TV introducing Plymouth Voyager. You've got some tragi. Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Doug Henny. You know, as your family grows bigger
Speaker 1: and bigger, cars have been getting smaller and smaller. So
Speaker 1: what you need is a magic wagon? Who boy? It
Speaker 1: was clear that the magic Wagon was not a van.
Speaker 1: Far from it. It was a minivan, emphasis on mini,
Speaker 1: like a miniature Schnauzer or a kiddie pool. It was
Speaker 1: not some slammed hot rod van with the flames and
Speaker 1: the wizards and the stripes on the outside. There was
Speaker 1: no shag carpeting inside, and mister T would definitely pity
Speaker 1: the fool who drove one. It was an automotive bowl
Speaker 1: cut a wood paneled wedgie. It was even lamer than
Speaker 1: my parents Oldsmobile custom Cruiser station wagon. It just seems
Speaker 1: sad and boringing of drudgery and adulthood. I hated it,
Speaker 1: but hey, I was eleven. I had no idea what
Speaker 1: I was talking about. I'm Eddie Alterman, and this is
Speaker 1: Car Show. This week we begin a two part exploration
Speaker 1: of the minivan's quiet genius. The minivan has been beligned
Speaker 1: more than anything this side of a Ford Pinto. It's
Speaker 1: the butt of nearly every car joke, a sort of
Speaker 1: shorthand for automotive anemia, the thing you drive when you've
Speaker 1: given up. But show me another vehicle that was so
Speaker 1: right for its audience, so perfectly usable, and so utterly
Speaker 1: devastating to its competition as the humble minivan. Consider this
Speaker 1: with one basic vehicle, the Chrysler Corporation set fire to
Speaker 1: an entire category of cars. The nineteen eighty four Chrysler minivans,
Speaker 1: the Plymouth Voyager and Dodge Caravan laid waste to the
Speaker 1: family we car of the era. The station Wagon just
Speaker 1: made it look ridiculous. The minivan was and still is
Speaker 1: the best way to move people and their stuff. In
Speaker 1: this episode, we will learn about how we went almost
Speaker 1: overnight from kids roaming around unbelted in the third row
Speaker 1: of the station Wagon, took bolt upright and strapped into
Speaker 1: the minivan. In the minivan, and from here on out,
Speaker 1: kids would be tamped down, headsetted, and accounted for. This
Speaker 1: wasn't just a product shift, it was a cultural shift.
Speaker 1: Though there were small vans before it. Modern minivan history
Speaker 1: began in earnest when the great Italian designer Georgetto Jujaro
Speaker 1: revealed a new kind of people mover at the nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy eight Turin Auto Show. We met Jujaro back in
Speaker 1: the VWGTI episode. First he designs the ultimate German family car,
Speaker 1: the VW Golf, and then he creates the inspiration for
Speaker 1: the ultimate American one. I must say this people mover
Speaker 1: fixation doesn't exactly square with his personal style. Jujarro is
Speaker 1: a man of extreme elegance, a perfectly quaffed head of
Speaker 1: hair and beautifully tailored sport coats. The guy is right
Speaker 1: out of a Rosalini film. But he is also a pragmatist,
Speaker 1: and what he did for American families was eminently pragmatic.
Speaker 1: He did more than just redesign the traditional wagon. He
Speaker 1: rethought the whole thing from the inside out. He sort
Speaker 1: of fused that VW Golf he designed with a box
Speaker 1: because what's more space efficient than a box It had
Speaker 1: a high seating position and a cavernous interior. It was
Speaker 1: way cooler than a station wagon. This concept car, the
Speaker 1: turin show the Lancha Megagamma, is considered the rootstock of
Speaker 1: the minivan crop. Lancha had never produced the Megagamma, but
Speaker 1: the show car caught the attention of lots of designers
Speaker 1: and engineers. For a time, it was the biggest idea
Speaker 1: in the car business. Over at Ford, they had been
Speaker 1: cooking up their own small, boxy four passenger front wheel
Speaker 1: dry van around the same time. It was called the
Speaker 1: Minimax and it was the brainchild of Ford product guru
Speaker 1: Hell Spurlick. Even though Ford's then president Lee Iacocca championed it,
Speaker 1: it didn't go anywhere, but when Iacocca and Spurlick left
Speaker 1: Ford for Chrysler, they took the idea with them. Those
Speaker 1: two ultimately made the magic Wagon of reality. Iacocca and
Speaker 1: Spurlick were pretty unstoppable as a team. They also created
Speaker 1: the original Mustang during their time at Ford. Sperlick, the
Speaker 1: Michigan engineering grad, and Ia Coca, the son of Italian
Speaker 1: immigrants from Allentown, Pennsylvania. As different as they were, both
Speaker 1: made a habit of getting fired for speaking their minds
Speaker 1: in conservative Detroit boardrooms. Iacocca and Sperlick, through many iterations,
Speaker 1: made the minivan the three row mainstream people mover. It
Speaker 1: became they wanted a front wheel drive van that could
Speaker 1: fit in a garage and had a huge interior. Sperlick
Speaker 1: was responsible for pulling the vehicle together and ia Coca
Speaker 1: took it to market. He could sell a ketchup popsicle
Speaker 1: to a debutante in white gloves. A lot of people
Speaker 1: think America can't cut the mustard anymore. That quality counts
Speaker 1: for nothing, and hard work for even less, and commitment
Speaker 1: that went out with a hula hoope. Well, when you've
Speaker 1: been kicked in the head like we have, you'll learn
Speaker 1: pretty quick to put first things first, and in the car,
Speaker 1: product comes first, and product is what brought us back
Speaker 1: to prosperity. Ayacca was undoubtedly a great pitchman, but it
Speaker 1: was the physical layout of the minivan that had people
Speaker 1: trading in their wagons. For voyagers, the station wagon was
Speaker 1: the de facto family cruiser, only because it had an
Speaker 1: extra row of seats in the back. A seat where
Speaker 1: kids face rearward in the most precarious position in the car.
Speaker 1: Though the station wagon may have slept millions of kids around,
Speaker 1: it was not originally designed for them. As the name implies.
Speaker 1: It was meant to take people in their stuff to
Speaker 1: and from the train station. The station wagon was a
Speaker 1: luggage car. Only later did it evolve into the family holler.
Speaker 1: We remember so fondly from National Lampoon's vacation. Now. I
Speaker 1: went to myself to tell you, mister Griswold, but if
Speaker 1: you're thinking to take in the tribe fresh country, this
Speaker 1: is the automobile should be using. The wagon point family truster.
Speaker 1: You think you hated now, but where are you driving?
Speaker 1: A few years after the minivan came out, no one
Speaker 1: would want a station wagon. But to really understand how
Speaker 1: the Chrysler Magic Wagon killed that whole category of cars,
Speaker 1: we need to go inside the two and compare. Imagine
Speaker 1: we are back in nineteen eighty three at the wheel
Speaker 1: of my parents Oldsmobile wagon. You sit low in it
Speaker 1: on a vast expanse of the lure. Before you is
Speaker 1: a thin rimmed steering wheel with spokes placed lazily at
Speaker 1: the four and eight o'clock positions, as if you'd never
Speaker 1: need more than a pinky to steer. The thing behind
Speaker 1: the wheel is a broad and deep wood grain dash,
Speaker 1: and beyond that is a long rectangular hood that reaches
Speaker 1: clear to the horizon. In its engine bay rests a
Speaker 1: wheezy five liter V eight, making a pathetic hundred and
Speaker 1: forty horsepower. It couldn't pulled guano out of a goose.
Speaker 1: Climb into the second row and you'll see a hump
Speaker 1: in the floor. This bulge runs lengthwise down the center
Speaker 1: of the car and houses the drive shaft. To sit
Speaker 1: in the middle with legs splayed on either side of
Speaker 1: the hump is to sit in humiliation the so called
Speaker 1: bitch seat. Go around to the back of the wagon,
Speaker 1: Swing out the heavy, creaky tailgate, and there is the
Speaker 1: rear facing bench, swimming in a sea of light blue carpet.
Speaker 1: It's tiny, with two seat belts, and it's hemmed in
Speaker 1: by the high floor in some plastic cabinetry meant to
Speaker 1: carry stuff like jumper cables, road flares, and twelve packs
Speaker 1: of past The entire orientation of the olds is horizontal.
Speaker 1: It's long, low, and wide. Very detroit postwar. Know you
Speaker 1: get in this nineteen eighty four Magic Wagon and it's
Speaker 1: a big step up. Literally, you sit up high in
Speaker 1: these captain's chairs. There's room, you know, It's like the
Speaker 1: hip point is really high. The door still feels kind
Speaker 1: of low. Everything feels really airy, super easy to see
Speaker 1: out of. If there were kids in the back, you
Speaker 1: could see their faces. It's wild. And look at this
Speaker 1: awesome Valeur interior. That's me and my editor Jenquia geeking
Speaker 1: out because we are face to face with an original
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four Magic Wagon. But not just any Magic wagon.
Speaker 1: This is number one. This is the first ever Magic Wagon,
Speaker 1: the first one to roll off the line, the one
Speaker 1: that Leaia Coca drove. Your smile is just so vague
Speaker 1: right now. I've never been this excited about a minivan
Speaker 1: of my life. I'm feeling a little bit like Leaya Coca,
Speaker 1: like I should wear like a double windsor tie and
Speaker 1: a brown It's so open, so like in the olds,
Speaker 1: you're sitting super low. This one, you're you feel way higher.
Speaker 1: You're sitting like a good foot higher, and yet the
Speaker 1: floor seems lower. You know, everything is opened up. There's
Speaker 1: no center consoles, just as big pass through you can
Speaker 1: like reach back and whack the kids. It's great. Whereas
Speaker 1: my parents oldsmobile had a wide bench seat up front,
Speaker 1: the Magic Wagon has captain's chairs with armrests. These high chairs,
Speaker 1: they really help you see out of the thing. The
Speaker 1: hood is really short and it sort of falls away
Speaker 1: from you. You have a great view of the road.
Speaker 1: It's just open an area and the visibility is fantastic. Okay,
Speaker 1: you go around to the side of the vehicle and
Speaker 1: you've got a sliding door like a big boy van.
Speaker 1: The access to the second and third rows is so easy.
Speaker 1: You can just walk right in, like if you're a kid,
Speaker 1: you could just step under that little ledge there and
Speaker 1: see yourself to the back seat where you'd sit in
Speaker 1: strapped in, you know, upright, not crawling around on the
Speaker 1: back like an animal and so and facing forward and
Speaker 1: facing forward. Okay, this is really important. That's right. It's
Speaker 1: a front facing third row. This is key. In the
Speaker 1: station wagon, kids sit facing backward inhaling exhaust fumes through
Speaker 1: the rear window. What child hating monster thought the rear
Speaker 1: facing third row was a good idea? It seems crazy now,
Speaker 1: after all we know about crash safety to put the
Speaker 1: smallest kids in the most vulnerable position in the car,
Speaker 1: right in the rear crumple zone, with their feet inches
Speaker 1: from the bumper. I'm going to try to shrink myself down,
Speaker 1: but it's pretty easy to get back in here. You know.
Speaker 1: Here in the minivan, they sit in the back row,
Speaker 1: high off the floor, facing forward, almost like real human beings.
Speaker 1: In the minivan. The kid is king. Yeah. So when
Speaker 1: you say kid is king, what do you mean by that?
Speaker 1: So the kid is in like the kind of command
Speaker 1: position in the vehicle. He can see out, he can
Speaker 1: see everything. He's sort of driving the bus. He's you know,
Speaker 1: he's sitting in the back of the chariot and whipping
Speaker 1: the horse in the driver's seat. Yeah. I mean, you
Speaker 1: are pretty high up here in the back right, there's
Speaker 1: like this perched element. You can see everything. You know,
Speaker 1: You're you're sitting so much higher in the third row
Speaker 1: than you would be in the second row. You're really
Speaker 1: the king of the castle. King in the castle. King
Speaker 1: in the castle. Have a chair. I have a chair.
Speaker 1: Oh go do this, King in the castle. The real
Speaker 1: key innovation is not just the third row. It's the
Speaker 1: height of the third row. And kids can see out.
Speaker 1: You know, they can see what's happening. They have a
Speaker 1: sense of control roll too, and they're also part of
Speaker 1: the conversation now where if they were facing backwards, they're
Speaker 1: totally separate. Yeah, they're not sequestered and cordoned off in
Speaker 1: the back part of the car. They are part of
Speaker 1: the family. Now. I hadn't thought about that until I
Speaker 1: sat in the back here, and now you're with mom
Speaker 1: and dad, and your sisters are your brothers, and everybody
Speaker 1: is one family unit, as opposed to having the kids
Speaker 1: being kind of, you know, not seen and not heard
Speaker 1: from here, kids like have a voice. You're part of
Speaker 1: the family, You're part of the team. This is why
Speaker 1: Jujaro and Spurlick and Ia Coca wanted that front wheel
Speaker 1: drive layout, with the entire powertrain up front between the wheels.
Speaker 1: There is no drive shaft running the length of the vehicle,
Speaker 1: no transmission tunnel taking up room upfront. Everything is pushed down.
Speaker 1: That's how you get a big airy box on wheels.
Speaker 1: It's practically a mobile living room. The station wagon was horizontal,
Speaker 1: whereas the orientation of a minivan is vertical. It is
Speaker 1: short and upright. It's easy to wheel around you can
Speaker 1: see your kids, you can see the road. By some
Speaker 1: miracle of corporate negligence, Jen and I are given the
Speaker 1: rare opportunity to take Magic Wagon number one for a spin. Okay,
Speaker 1: now we're rolling. Oh she feels showroom new. This is awesome,
Speaker 1: really driving a piece of history. Rides great, it's easy
Speaker 1: to drive. You feel like you could get in and
Speaker 1: drive it across the country now still thirty eight years later.
Speaker 1: It's relaxing, it's terrific, and not about the engine. It's
Speaker 1: about the interior. It's not about handling. It's about family
Speaker 1: cargo space. Not cargo space, but just living room, the
Speaker 1: most precious cargo, the most precious cargo of the family.
Speaker 1: Exactly as different as the minivan and the station wagon were,
Speaker 1: though both were products of Detroit's so called Malaise era,
Speaker 1: so they do have some things in common. Both were
Speaker 1: screwed together with utter apathy, both shook and rattled, and
Speaker 1: both were comically underpowered. Your only minivan engine choices were
Speaker 1: the piece of shit Corporate for cylinder or the slightly
Speaker 1: less dreadful Mitsubishi for a cylinder. Each pumped out about
Speaker 1: one hundred glue factory certified horsepower. The minivan and the
Speaker 1: wagon were similar, and that the engines almost didn't matter,
Speaker 1: but the differences were stark and could be traced back
Speaker 1: to this. The station wagon is essentially a sedan with
Speaker 1: its roof extended over where the trunk would be. It's
Speaker 1: an adaptation of another form, but the minivan was something
Speaker 1: entirely new, designed and engineered with a modern family in mind,
Speaker 1: conceived from the inside out. In nineteen eighty four, the
Speaker 1: first year of the Chrysler Vans osmobile, sold about thirty
Speaker 1: four thousand custom Cruiser wagons. By nineteen ninety it sold
Speaker 1: fewer than four thousand. Video killed the Radio Star, but
Speaker 1: this didn't happen solely because the minivan had a sliding
Speaker 1: door and tons of space. The search continues for Little
Speaker 1: Debbie Vincent, missing since yesterday morning. So far, there are
Speaker 1: no clues to her disappearance. The lease speculate that she
Speaker 1: loved to have forgotten. We'll look at some of the
Speaker 1: other deeper seated reasons why the minivan canceled the station wagon,
Speaker 1: and a lot of it had to do with that
Speaker 1: third row of seats. I'm Eddie Alterman, and this is
Speaker 1: car Show. Will be right back The Magic Wagon was
Speaker 1: as much born out of the world as into it.
Speaker 1: It came at a time when somewhat unthinkably, America started
Speaker 1: screwing up Detroit as a monia statistical leader and robbery
Speaker 1: assault and rate them back from As kids in the
Speaker 1: late seventies, we were trained to spot kidnappers and were
Speaker 1: well versed in stranger danger. I remember seeing the wanted
Speaker 1: poster in my local post office for the Oakland County
Speaker 1: child killer. The wanted poster said he drove a Gremlin.
Speaker 1: I could hardly imagine anything scarier. Oh, except this. The
Speaker 1: Soviets not only continue to build up their offense if
Speaker 1: nuclear forces at an unprecedented rate, they're also spending almost
Speaker 1: as much on strategu defense. Our country seemed incapable of
Speaker 1: addressing not only the real issues, but also the symbolic ones.
Speaker 1: The Space Shuttle Challenger in nineteen eighty six revealed to
Speaker 1: every classroom in America that our institutions were far more
Speaker 1: fragile than we ever imagined. Already more than four miles down,
Speaker 1: whims were throttling up three hundred and four percent of
Speaker 1: Challenger go and throttle up the Shuttle mission will launch.
Speaker 1: My God, fifty is going to explode one twenty nine
Speaker 1: percent altitude nine nauticle miles down range. When people saw
Speaker 1: the curtain whisked back on all of America's frailties, the
Speaker 1: response was to hunker down, especially parents of small children.
Speaker 1: This was a time of real paranoia, a downsizing of
Speaker 1: our ambitions, and it seemed into everything. Not only were
Speaker 1: cars getting smaller as a consequence of the fuel crisis
Speaker 1: of the early seventies, the psychological space in which they
Speaker 1: operated was too. In their engineering, cars were turning from
Speaker 1: wild stallions to petting zoo ponies. The car's social function
Speaker 1: was changing as well, from entertainment, freedom and expression to
Speaker 1: personal and family protection. Car seats, seat belts, and airbags
Speaker 1: were becoming more commonplace. It all reflected the wider shift
Speaker 1: in parenting itself. I think the minivan in some ways
Speaker 1: also projected that you know, I am committed. You know
Speaker 1: I'm a committed parent. That's Miriam Errand. She's the former
Speaker 1: editor in chief of Child Magazine and the former director
Speaker 1: of the Good Housekeeping Institute. Even into the seventies, parenting
Speaker 1: was something you achieved in between bowling frames and cigarette breaks.
Speaker 1: But Miriam says by the eighties, kids were becoming the
Speaker 1: focus and when by people was got into parenting just
Speaker 1: like they've done every phase of their life, they got
Speaker 1: into it with this amazing gusto. So they were all
Speaker 1: in the rise of the working mom gave rise to
Speaker 1: meticulously organized suburban carpool systems, So suddenly, you know, you
Speaker 1: had to you had to get on board with the
Speaker 1: other people, other parents in the neighborhood to total a
Speaker 1: lot of kids. And also team sports became a very
Speaker 1: big thing for kids at younger ages, so you've got,
Speaker 1: you know, the soccer mom toting the soccer team and
Speaker 1: all the gear. I think that in some ways, the minivan,
Speaker 1: you know, bigger, better, you know, it's a real statement.
Speaker 1: I think reflects almost the image that many parents were
Speaker 1: trying to project that this was life became very child centered.
Speaker 1: The minivan was parentings suit of armor, and it only
Speaker 1: got thicker from there. The key ideas were the addition
Speaker 1: of a second sliding door, the rollout seats, cup holders,
Speaker 1: juice cup holders, integrated safety chail seats, grocery bag holders,
Speaker 1: and the seatbacks. This is well traveled car executive Chris Theodore.
Speaker 1: He worked on the first minivan and led the second
Speaker 1: generation's development. I wanted to understand the thinking behind the
Speaker 1: second generation of a minivan. One invention I wanted to
Speaker 1: do I never got into production, but somebody finally did
Speaker 1: was a little video cam that would be up in
Speaker 1: the mirror so I could watch what the kids were doing,
Speaker 1: but would flop over to a backup camera. And so
Speaker 1: we were working in all all kinds of stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Chris was on the right track. As we'll see in
Speaker 1: part two of our Family Car series, minivans have become
Speaker 1: mobile surveillance states. But just as important as keeping an
Speaker 1: eye on the kids is making sure they stay optimally hydrated.
Speaker 1: Were these the first cup holders or they were not
Speaker 1: the first cup holders? They were the first in the
Speaker 1: front where the first variable cup holders. It was like
Speaker 1: a claw and whatever size cup you could put in
Speaker 1: you could ratchet down so it would rip the cup.
Speaker 1: And the first juice box holder, it was the first
Speaker 1: juice box holders. So we had I can't remember the numbers,
Speaker 1: like thirteen or something like that cup holders throughout the vehicle.
Speaker 1: That means that in the high occupancy seven passenger version
Speaker 1: with a full complement of five kids in the back,
Speaker 1: each one could double fist their juice boxes. No wonder
Speaker 1: parents love them. They weren't just cars, they were child
Speaker 1: pacifying anxiety alleviation devices. But parents love them for another reason,
Speaker 1: and it's a foundational truth of the car business. No
Speaker 1: one wants to drive the same car their parents did.
Speaker 1: And here's where the cycle repeats itself. No matter how
Speaker 1: great the minivan was for baby boomers, Jenac, there's like
Speaker 1: me and my wife wanted something new. We found it
Speaker 1: in the suv or sport utility vehicle. I asked my
Speaker 1: wife Carrie about it so care. When the kids were
Speaker 1: a little we had wagons and three row SUVs, not minivans,
Speaker 1: when a minivan would have been much more practical. Why
Speaker 1: didn't you want a minivan? While I loved the idea
Speaker 1: of driving the living room, I also felt like it
Speaker 1: put the entire identity of parenthood before the identity of self.
Speaker 1: And as somebody who worked, I felt like when I'd
Speaker 1: pick people up from the airport or drive them to
Speaker 1: different events when they'd come into town, I often felt
Speaker 1: like I'd much rather have a professional looking car than
Speaker 1: a mom car. When SUV started infiltrating the car market
Speaker 1: back in the nineties. It wasn't because they were carefully
Speaker 1: planned and packaged people movers. It was because they said
Speaker 1: something powerful about their drive. That these rugged frontiers people
Speaker 1: were ready at a moment's notice to drop all their
Speaker 1: workaday responsibilities, strap a sea kayak to the roof, and
Speaker 1: set out for Cape Horn. These folk may have warned
Speaker 1: khakis by day, but underneath all that synthetic fleece lurked
Speaker 1: the soul of an adventurer. The vehicles even had names
Speaker 1: like that Pathfinder, Trailblazer, Explorer. These were the anti minivans,
Speaker 1: macho road crushers with big wheels, knobby tires and pedestrian
Speaker 1: clavering brush bars. And then what do you know, Slowly
Speaker 1: but surely, as the suv expanded in popularity, style, and size,
Speaker 1: it began to morph into a minivan replacement. Three rows
Speaker 1: of seats, tons of entertainment options inside, cupholders galore, but
Speaker 1: no sliding door stigma. The suv grew up, and in
Speaker 1: doing so, became a minivan in disguise. I guess every
Speaker 1: generation needs their own king of the carpool lane. If
Speaker 1: you think about it, we always say that there's nothing
Speaker 1: better at moving people and stuff. Than a minivan. That's
Speaker 1: Dodge CEO Tim Coniscus. He used to be the head
Speaker 1: of passenger cars for Chrysler's parent company, Stilantis. Tim is
Speaker 1: one of the hardest hardcore car enthusiasts in the business
Speaker 1: and one of the people who gave the world the
Speaker 1: original seven hundred and seven horsepower Dodge Hellcat. None of
Speaker 1: this diminishes his love for the minivan. The three row suv,
Speaker 1: Tim says, is basically a people mover on stilts, which
Speaker 1: means that deep down, minivans are still what people want,
Speaker 1: even if they don't realize it. So do you think
Speaker 1: that this is where minivans are going? Do you think
Speaker 1: that they are going to be sort of Norm Coore
Speaker 1: style statements in a way? Well, I think about when
Speaker 1: are we going to get to autonomy? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't have a crystal ball, but I
Speaker 1: mean look at some of the vehicles that we're shown
Speaker 1: at cs CES is the annual Consumer Electronics Show in
Speaker 1: Las Vegas where a lot of new concept cars are shown.
Speaker 1: You know, these are not metivans. These are quote autonomous
Speaker 1: pods or whatever. What did they have? They had sliding doors,
Speaker 1: they had power to sliding doors, because how else are
Speaker 1: you going to do a door in an autonomous vehicle? Right? Yeah,
Speaker 1: who's going to open it? Wait a sec? Are we
Speaker 1: witnessing a new dawn of the minivan? Will the sliding
Speaker 1: door long the velpro shoe of automotive attributes become a
Speaker 1: real and defining asset. Will autonomous family pods of the future,
Speaker 1: provided they ever get here, look more like minivans and
Speaker 1: less like three row SUVs. For an answer, look no
Speaker 1: further than the autonomous vehicles that weymo Google self driving
Speaker 1: sibling is testing. Because they're computer driven, these cars need
Speaker 1: to reassure people that they're safe because they are shared
Speaker 1: much like an uber, they need to accommodate everyone. What
Speaker 1: kind of vehicle fits the bill? Those white waymou vans
Speaker 1: with all the sensors and cameras on them are of
Speaker 1: course Chrysler Pacificas the future of the people mover is
Speaker 1: still the minivan. All of this technology exists out there
Speaker 1: for all this high tech safety, and we said, you know,
Speaker 1: if there's ever going to be a vehicle or we
Speaker 1: should make all that standard, it should be the steak
Speaker 1: in the ground should be the minivan. I think it
Speaker 1: does send a message to people, Oh, Miniman, safe vehicle. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I'm driving the Pacifica. Now you can hear how
Speaker 1: quiet it is inside. All that talk about autonomous pods
Speaker 1: is largely conceptual. I wanted to drive a new minivan
Speaker 1: to see how far the species had evolved. Now this
Speaker 1: is the twenty twenty one Chrysler Pacifica. Pinnacle costs around
Speaker 1: fifty four thousand dollars, and it's got everything on it.
Speaker 1: It's got a Swede headliner. When Chrysler's Magic Wagon was new,
Speaker 1: it costs, when we adjust for inflation, around twenty five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. This new version is more than twice as much.
Speaker 1: But that original minivan didn't have any of this, bifunction
Speaker 1: led projector headlamps and led tail lamps. It's got a
Speaker 1: hands free power whiftgate, hands free sliding doors, platinum chrome's
Speaker 1: stone place roof rack, platinum chrome will grills around irony alert.
Speaker 1: The new Pacifica is safer than minivans have ever been.
Speaker 1: It's more luxurious than they've ever been. It's more professional.
Speaker 1: Comparing the driving experience of this new one to that
Speaker 1: of the old one is like comparing a Bentley mossan
Speaker 1: to a rickety old shopping cart. Even the sound of
Speaker 1: the Doris says luxury. And yet due to the rise
Speaker 1: of the three row suv, their numbers have shrunk dramatically.
Speaker 1: Carmakers sell only about three hundred thousand minivans a year,
Speaker 1: which is bug kiss when you compare it with the
Speaker 1: number of three row SUVs they sell. But like the
Speaker 1: Tarte grade, that near microscopic, eight legged creature that can
Speaker 1: withstand radiation, boiling liquids, and the vacuum of space, the
Speaker 1: minivan survives in even the most hostile environments. It keeps evolving,
Speaker 1: getting safer and more comfortable. It deserves a measure of admiration.
Speaker 1: It's so uncool that it's actually low key dad cool.
Speaker 1: As I sat staring out of my window at the
Speaker 1: velvet red pearl coat Pacifica parked in my driveway, my
Speaker 1: eye was lingering on the long spear of chrome down
Speaker 1: the van side. I was admiring the way the rear
Speaker 1: roof pillar jetted backward aggressively like a hockey stick. I
Speaker 1: was digging the twenty inch five spoke wheels and the
Speaker 1: blacked out windows. I looked down and thought, who could
Speaker 1: hate on that the minivan may be cooler now than
Speaker 1: at any time in its history, but that competition from
Speaker 1: the suv segment is indeed formidable. Next week, we're going
Speaker 1: to see how it stacks up, and we're going to
Speaker 1: have a little help from a new dad who's in
Speaker 1: the market for a family mover. Just imagine, Eddie didn't
Speaker 1: if you were you are my partner, and Jacob and
Speaker 1: debacc is my daughter. I can't. No one's gonna let
Speaker 1: me drive like this. People will be squealing with like
Speaker 1: horror and outrage. Car Show is written and hosted by
Speaker 1: me Eddie Alterman. It's produced by Sam Dingman, Jacob Smith,
Speaker 1: and Amy Gaines. Our editor is Jan Guera. Original music
Speaker 1: and mastering by Ben Tolliday. Our executive producer is Mia Lobell.
Speaker 1: Our show art was designed by Sean Karney and airbrushed
Speaker 1: by Greg Lafever. Our patron saints are Lee, Tom Mallad
Speaker 1: and Justine Lang. Special thanks to Emily Rostek and to
Speaker 1: David Elshoff, Darren Jacobs and Rick deno Astatlantis for showing
Speaker 1: us around the er Minivan. Karshow is a production of
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from
Speaker 1: Pushkin industries consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is
Speaker 1: a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and uninterrupted listening
Speaker 1: for just four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin
Speaker 1: Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions to find more Pushkin podcasts.
Speaker 1: Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to podcasts.