The Uplander was released in 2005 as a replacement for Chevy’s Astro (rear-wheel-drive Van platform) and Venture (front-wheel-drive platform) — which were simultaneously being canceled. It was typical GM stuff, which meant some nasty plastic interior, a selection of big displacement V6 engines, 4-speed slushbox, and parts bin reject parts distributed evenly throughout. I’m not […]
This next car comes as a tip from Art C who writes: I totally forgot Mazda put a stick in a minivan!! Could be a fun DD for someone to haul around drums or kids or all sorts of bulky items. Yup, only Mazda would put a 5-speed in a car that seats 6 people (7 with the JDM center seat setup known as the Karakuri seating system, which apparently didn’t meet USA crash standards but was good enough for Japanese and ROW). Find this 2009 Mazda 5 Touring offered for $4,400 in East Windsor, CT via craigslist.
I don’t mean any disrespect to minivan collectors, but I cannot believe that someone kept a 90s Nissan minivan in this good of shape. I love minivans, I own one as the wife’s daily driver, and these things live a horrible life of soccer ball dents, door dings, baby vomit, dog hair, hot sun, and the weekly Costco parking lot shopping cart derby — because a minivan are the sweat pants of the automotive world. You can find Elvis’s sequin covered suit at the Hard Rock Café in Las Vegas, but you couldn’t give his sweatpants away to your local Goodwill. I just can’t understand how this car survived the years of abuse that EVERY minivan gets, and therefore I conclude the only logical answer; time travel. Occam’s razor, meet Elvis’s sweatpants. Find this time traveling 1998 Nissan Quest offered for $3000 in Hercules, CA via craigslist.
The daddy of the modern minivan was built on a modified version of Chrysler’s K-Car platform with which it shared engines and much running gear, but the backbone was something that Lee Iacocca and Hal Sperlich called the T-115 platform…which was just a beefy version of the K-car. The Chrysler minivan was billed as an […]
It’s Loony Labor Day! Sometimes a car has a strange suffix tacked onto the end its name that I haven’t heard about before…some kinda special edition or unique designation. But today we’ve got something really special. We’ve got a car that has is named in a bizarre cornucopia of gobbledygook…words seemingly smashed together when some […]
One of the key ingredients to a good “sleeper” is the element of surprise. Discreet looks go a long way to successfully pulling off the concept. Very few people would suspect a minivan to have any sort of sporting intentions (much less an engine swap). The original General Motors DustBuster minivans created a stir with their […]
The Left-Handed Spanner, by Kaibeezy: Remember the “Swagger Wagon”? Way back in 2012, Toyota dropped this slammin’ vid featuring painfully hip folk swaggerin’ about their wagon. I cringed a bit more than the rest of you, as we had bought one of these Sienna SE minivans just a few months before. Now, when *I* bought […]
Television creatives in the 21st century have lost their mojo, and the current trend is to create remakes or reboots of classic, successful shows — perhaps with a twist. Change ethnicity or gender of the lead characters (compared to the original whitewashed 50s/60s versions…) and you’ve got instant gold. Imagine if you rebooted the original […]
By Al — When Chrysler dropped the Minivan bomb on the American car buying public , other car makers were caught with their pants down. Other car makers had to resort to all sorts of stop gap, not ready for prime time vehicles to fill the void in their lineup. Some of the more interesting […]
What we knew here in the States as the Volkswagen EuroVan was technically the 4th generation of the Transporter / Type 2 / Bus / Kombi / etc, but was the first of the classic bread loaf VWs to have its engine and drive wheels up front, finally ditching the rear/rear setup of old. In […]