Other Thoughts From the Minivan Thread
Here are more thoughts from the comments thread on the minivan post, some of it directly from the comments, some of it brand new.
On Punk Rock
In the post, I said:
"Popular culture is so anti-minivan today that driving one is so counter-culture, so in the face of popular biases, so keeping-it-real, that it's almost punk rock. In a utilitarian way, anyway."
This line garnered a lot of attention. I didn't mean that minivans are typically driven by punk rockers (though they might be helpful for lugging the gear), or that people who are into punk rock should drive minivans to impress people because minivans are so very cool.
The point is that when punk rock burst on the scene, it was a stripped-down, raw, anti-establishment response to the overwrought glam rock of the time. Toss the pretention; add in a healthy disregard, possibly even disdain, for popular opinion; and get back to basics--that's punk rock. That's driving a minivan in the modern age of minivan derision.
Anyway, it's hyperbole used to make a point, people. Though if anybody wants to airbush a mural featuring Joey Ramone on the side of their minivan, I promise to post the picture.
On Station Wagons
I said:
"As a group, SUVs' sole advantages over minivans are style and sheer off-road capability--and it's not as if today's popular car-based SUVs (effectively minivans in drag) are fantastic at low-range bouldering."
There was a fair amount of SUV-bashing in the comments, which wasn't really what I was going for. I believe everything I said above, and that when it comes to hauling people and stuff, even large SUVs can't touch minivans or full-size vans. I don't think most people need large SUVs; and I don't think small SUVs really confer the typical SUV benefits. I also believe quite a few SUVs are minivans or sedans in drag.
But tough off-road-capable SUVs are way cool. When it comes to doing all kinds of entertaining activities--serious bouldering, hardcore backpacking, towing snowmobiles or boats--trucks and SUVs do the job quite nicely.
And really, it doesn't always matter what people need. I probably only need a bus pass and a Flexcar membership, but that's not going to keep me from lusting after a garage full of exotic sports cars. And, fo course, by "exotic sports cars" I mean mid-1980s European sports coupes and large 1970s American sedans.
On Toyota Vans
Mochi Mochi brought up the Toyota Van, which definitely deserves some recognition as a pretty unique van--some friends of our family had one, and it was truly bizarre. It looked like a Transformer, which was cool, and it had a quasi-mid engine, which was pretty neat.
Though we may need to redefine the word "unique" here--after all, one of the most remarkable things about the Toyota Van was just how similar the Nissan and Mitsubishi vans of the time were. Incidentally, more on the Nissan van here--I didn't know the entire line had been recalled.
--Chris H.
vodkaho:
Whoa, there. Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. The station wagon is an extremely happy compromise between a van and a passenger car.
I'm enough of a wagon loony to prefer the wagon in almost every iteration to its sedan counterpart. That open air above the trunk and behind the C-pillar on a sedan is just a sad, sad waste of what could be a wagon roofline. I often annoy my wife by approaching our sedan, sticking my hand in that dead zone above the trunk, and proclaiming to her that all of that is just wasted space.
She's trying to get me on some medication.
On SUVs