11/19/08 Roundup
Minivans Uber Alles
We spend most of our time here at Car Lust discussing and lusting after old cars, but when the topic turns to new cars there are two recurring themes:
1. As much as we love older cars, they can't compete with the technology of modern cars. Modern cars are good at everything and, compared with older cars, are almost without compromise.
2. Minivans are awesome--and don't even bother pretending they aren't.
Well, as part of a conversation a few of us were having on retro styling (more on this later), Car Lust contributor David Colborne dug up a five-year-old article from Grassroots Motorsports that combines the two points above in very eloquent fashion.. You see, GRM set up a hugely compelling shoot-out consisting of a Jaguar E-type, a Porsche 356, and ... a Honda Odyssey. As an Odyssey lover, I was not surprised to find that the Odyssey decimated both of the classic sports cars on the autocross.
GRM summarizes this nicely:
"The Odyssey is a modern marvel. It’s as reliable as your wristwatch, versatile and has tons of storage space while maintaining enough people room for the average family to travel in comfort from Point A to Point B quickly and efficiently and with a minimum of fuss. You could also watch a movie during the trip if you wanted.
"But the Porsche 356 and Jag XKE are cars that people make movies about. "
But, really, I prefer David's slightly rawer take:
"Of course, this illustrates what we've been saying all along--modern cars are absolutely brilliantly engineered and can kick the living crap out of anything, and we mean anything, made automotive-wise pretty much ever. Magnum P.I. would probably get smoked by a Camry or, apparently, a Grand Voyager. A Grand Cherokee could almost certainly out-slalom any passenger car made before 1980, and probably quite a few after then (X-bodies, anyone?).
"Of course, they're all so damned competent. With the exception of the rare rental-grade domestic, today's cars will last over 200,000 with less than 20 oil changes and two tune-ups. Our best and brightest have successfully turned the modern-day automobile into an appliance. When people talk about "unreliability" these days, they're frequently discussing how long the interior is holding up ("The buttons on the radio are fading after five years!"); everyone just assumes (and rightly so) that the powertrain is going to be near-flawless. It's great from a practicality standpoint. It's also completely, utterly, soul-suckingly dull to those who actually like to think of cars with a little more passion and emotion than their DVD player."
I don't necessarily crave unreliability, but otherwise I'm on board. I like interesting cars; and many of today's cars haven't reached that stage yet. Perhaps in a decade or two when they're starting to fall apart. Thankfully, minivans are counter-cultural enough that they already have their own interesting sheen.
Bailout Roundup
In Edmunds' Carnival of Cars, Mark Tapscott aggregates a lot of links to opinions and information regarding the proposed bailout of the Big Three automakers--including a link to our discussion on this topic from Monday.
LA Auto Show
I'm not at the LA Auto Show, but if you're interested in the goings-on there, check out coverage from Popular Mechanics, Jalopnik, and Autoblog.
Welcome to Our New Siblings
Car Lust has another sibling in the Amazon.com blog family--Toy Whimsy. As long as they feature lots of posts on slot cars, Matchbox cars, die-cast models, cool Lego kits, and the like, I'll be a frequent reader. How about a feature on the new wave in 1/43 scale slot cars, Toy Whimsy?
--Chris H.
Cookie the Dog's Owner on November 19, 2008 at 01:34 PM
The 2010 Nissan Cube has been unveiled--and it's got the asymmetrical windows!
http://jalopnik.com/5092651/2010-nissan-cube-unveiled-early
Nice job, Nissan.
...m... on November 19, 2008 at 06:57 PM
...i adore minivans!..
...even through a few remarkably nice models are available today, i really feel the market peaked in the mid-nineties: boomtime for the segment was in full swing, they hadn't yet fully aquired the ramient of station-wagon-scorn amongst the general public, and innovation had been proceeding at such a breakneck pace for a solid decade that the future for the vehicle never seemed brighter...
...sadly, the SUV craze completely decimated the minivan market through the late nineties such that by this decade the only survivors are compromise designs compared to the pure purpose-designed suburban runabouts of their glory days...i hope we'll see a resurgence of the form factor in the next decade; the optimistic futurist in me suspects i might discover my dream minivan once again by 2025...
...m... on November 19, 2008 at 07:01 PM
...because honestly, have you ever beheld a spaceship so glorious as a toyota previa?..
Mochi Mochi on November 19, 2008 at 10:53 PM
i think there are tidal shifts in auto design. there's a point where the cars of the past just stop being competitive with new cars - at least in stock form. not stock, that's another matter. you can always advance an older design to one degree or another.
it was a complete eye opener for me when i was driving a late 70's BMW and i got behind the wheel of a late 80's honda civic. the honda was SO much better in every way. the humble DX could smoke that 320 without a thought.
i've been driving a lot of cars lately. some very new. some old - 1970. the expectation of what a modern car is like has become engrained and now going back and driving one of these old cars, i find i love them for what they are but i don't necessarily want to live with them full time. i want the lighter weight and simple interiors of old cars. i still love the old engines and the simplicity of non-computerized engine control. but i don't want to go back to the old days of suspension, brakes, or reliability&durability.
all that said, just making a car faster or more capable does not make it more fun to drive. there's a lot to be said for a great little car that handles well, brakes well, and accelerates nicely but just does not have that much maximum speed, acceleration, or ultimate grip. being able to predictably slide a car through a turn without running at breakneck speeds is quite a joy.
my vote for best looking van would be the 80s mid engine toyota van... love that generic name and those crazy lines. think what the Odyssey would be like to drive if it had about 2 vertical feet of side height cut off and everything dropped down. you'd have one of the most baddass station wagons ever made.
...m... on November 20, 2008 at 05:48 AM
...my mother drives an 08 odyssey, and it's absolutely an outstanding car; certainly nothing from the previous decade can compete by any objective criteria...[i]subjectively[/i] though, those mid-engined toyota minivans, be it the 'van' itself or its descendant first-generation previa, carry no significant car nor SUV baggage in their form...their [i]styling/i] - well, minivans in general, of course, score major points for leaving me feeling like an futuristic adventurer with my own personal twenty-first-century runabout on hand - seems to hit every button my psyche keeps vulnerable to the late-twentieth-century world-of-tomorrow dream...
...utility ideally suited to the contemporary suburban landscape, supercharged all-trac performance with cockpit engine access, vast expanses of glass all the way around and overhead, clean contemporary contours everywhere you look, all rolled into a single purposeful form - ZOWSA i want a spacepod now!..
"Big science, hallelujah. Golden cities. Golden towns."
Mochi Mochi on November 20, 2008 at 11:05 AM
great point ...m... the toyota "Van" and its descendants really do significantly differentiate themselves from cars and suvs. the expanses of glass are amazing and really appealing. the shape is unique. as of last night you can add the renault "Trafic" to my list of cool vans. i caught sight of one of these at the corner of vermont and sunset blvd. my sighting was a utility version which had enormous rear doors - it took utility to a whole new place. the versions with glass must are very nice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Trafic
epilonious on November 20, 2008 at 01:44 PM
Speaking of the 1980's Minivan awesomeness decade, all I can think of is the old Plymouth Voyager Turbo. They decided to go ahead and dropped the crazy lebaron turbo-4 into a minivan (well hey, it fit!). I remember seeing somewhere someone had modded one with a bigger turbo and done some crazy drag races in it.
Presently, it seems that CUV's are the new minivans: Car-based inflations that resemble SUVs. When I look at the Acadia, Traverse, and Enclave, all I can think of is the Lumina APV and the Silhouette with better ground clearance and non-sliding doors. Things that will be used to haul kids and groceries and maybe traverse a dirt or gravel road with a bit of snow on it (and you get get squishy traction-controlled AWD for those 'trails')
Furthermore, it seems that the microvans are making a little resurgance. The Kia Rondo and the Mazda5 give me fond memories of things like the Nissan Axxess and the Mitsubishi Expo/Dodge Colt Vista
Rob the SVX Guy on November 20, 2008 at 06:13 PM
Good points Mochi. I've upgraded my SVX quite a bit.... but honestly, it still isn't anywhere NEAR the amount of fun my 89 Prelude Si is.... and I hate to say this, but it's not even as fun as my 89 Accord. Sounds retarded, I know, but it's true. The SVX is a badass cruiser, but it's driving characteristics are not exactly fun... they're just sorta along for the ride with the crazy styling and compotent power as it's fortes.
Shawn on November 20, 2008 at 07:11 PM
Add to Mochi Mochi's cool Renault "vans" the Renault Avantime. I'm lusting for one hard after watching the latest episode of Top Gear where they tune it to see if they can put up Mitsu Evo type numbers (they can't).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Avantime
Cookie the Dog's Owner on November 21, 2008 at 09:48 AM
Here's a link to that Grassroots Motorsports article:
http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/articles/soccer-moms-revenge/
Chris Hafner on November 21, 2008 at 09:52 AM
Thanks, CookieTDO.
Yikes - how did I miss hyperlinking the article in my post? I added one above, for what it's worth.