In Praise of the '80s Minivan
You can trace the fall of the minivan to a single date: June 11, 1993.
On that Friday in the early years of the Clinton administration Jurassic Park opened in theaters, smashing into the cultural consciousness like an exquisitely rendered meteor and leaving ripple effects that we feel to this day. Among them: the vehicles. Jeep Wranglers and Ford Explorers that audiences instantly fell in love with. Sales of SUVs, which had already been on an uptick, exploded after the film's release and, to this day, show no sign of stopping. (The SUV accounted for 50 percent of autos sold in the U.S. in 2020.) Virtually overnight, SUVs became the de facto family car, firmly supplanting the minivan, which had reigned since the mid 1980s, after it replaced the station wagon.
This upheaval in the car market was bound to happen. The minivan, while enormously practical, was lame—a totem of domestication, a four-wheel stand-in for the suburbs. But, in the late '80s and early 1990s, minivan design was also barreling into some glorious and beautifully strange directions. With the end of the Cold War, a rapidly expanding economy, and a young president who played the sax and admitted to smoking weed (though not inhaling!), Americans were optimistic about the future. It showed in their minivan design.
Most of the best-selling minivans around this time were fairly tame with conservative styling: Plymouth Voyagers, Dodge Caravans, and Chevy Astros. But other automakers appealed to consumers who wanted something weird and aggressive that comfortably fit a family of four and their gear. In 1986, Pontiac came up with the Trans Sport Concept minivan, a vehicle that featured a glass roof, an integrated Nintendo Entertainment system, and—decades before the Model X—gullwing doors.
Production models of the Trans Sport dropped most of the crazier features, like the gullwing doors and NES, but kept a futuristic, wedge-like shape. Dubbed “dustbusters,” the vehicles were also rebadged for Oldsmobile and Chevy. Other automakers took note and followed with unusual designs, including Nissan’s doorstop shaped Axxess, the compact Eagle Summit, and the go-anywhere Toyota Van (which is still sought after by #vanlife adherents who praise the vehicle’s reliability.)
And sitting firmly at the intersection of Innovation Street and Practical Avenue: the Ford Aerostar.
I did not grow up with a minivan. My parents refused to purchase new cars, electing instead to drive the powerfully cool—though not family friendly—vehicles they owned when they began dating. (My dad ripped around in his bullet-hole ridden 1976 Land Cruiser while mom burned rubber and smoked Kools in her 1972 Mustang.) But every now and then, when we would take a trip, my dad would throw down the First Interstate Mastercard and my siblings and I would pile into the luxurious interior of an Aerostar.
It was like rolling in a futuristic day-spa spaceship. As the eldest child, I used my superior strength and intellect to outwit my brother and sister to sit in the best seat in the house: the second-row captain’s chairs. This was the God spot. Two plush seats that stood alone behind the driver and front passenger seat with their own armrests and climate controls. I would perch in one of the seats and load the other one up with extra luggage or—if I was truly lucky—my favorite uncle would travel with us, and he would take the second captain's chair, exiling my siblings to the outer reaches of the rear seats. My parents, mercifully out of earshot of their squabbling, could not have been happier.
Ford first dropped the Aerostar on the American public in 1986 and included a number of features which were, for the time, very advanced. The long wheelbase put the tires at the corners, reducing body overhang. The distinctive sloped hood—which looked like it was slammed downward by a giant with a circus hammer—made the vehicle more aerodynamic than many sedans at the time, including the Lincoln Mark VII.
Thanks to a copious amount of glass, the Aerostar had virtually zero blind spots. It was also a little bit of a sleeper. Starting in 1990, Ford included a 4.0 liter V6 that delivered 160 HP and was standard on all wheel drive models. My mom’s one and only citation for speeding came when we were on vacation in Colorado; she was clipped doing 85 in a 55 while behind the wheel of a 1992 Aerostar.
By 1988, sales of the Aerostar proved so popular Ford began offering it in multiple trim lines, including a nature focused Eddie Bauer edition (three years before Ford would sell a Bauer themed Explorer). In 1990, Motor Trend dubbed it truck of the year. But as sales of minivans became stagnant in the mid '90s, Ford discontinued the Aerostar. In August 1997, the 2,029,577th—and final—Aerostar rolled off the assembly line.
Today minivans lag in sales, accounting for about two percent of cars sold in the United States. Still, there’s always a small but vocal proponent of people who encourage me to buy them. Upon hearing I have a six-month-old child, one colleague, who is a hardcore surfer, enthusiastically recommended I get a minivan. “Bro, you can fit so much stuff in it, including boards. It’ll change your life.” And there’s always some slightly deranged person online who theorizes about dropping a 6.2 liter V8 hellcat engine into a Chrysler Pacifica.
Nothing lasts forever. One day, SUVs will be knocked from their perch replaced by—who knows? But it’ll probably be a vehicle showcased in another culturally defining film, like a Fast and the Furious sequel or :::shudder::: yet another entry in the Jurassic Park saga.
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