Chevy is not the type of company to make an interesting but unprofitable car for very long. That's why we're worried about the future of the Camaro. But today, we want to build an appeal case for the minivan, which has been stuck in limbo for far too long.
The bowtie brand has been lucky enough to always have relevant crossovers offered as family vehicles. But it did play around with minivans for a little while. The segment originally belonged to Chrysler - Dodge Caravan, Plymouth Voyager, Town & Country.
The minivan was better than the wagon, and so it instantly made it obsolete. The other Detroit shots were forced to follow Chrysler's lead, and soon we had the Chevy Astro. It was a valiant first attempt, which was later "improved" on with the Uplander. It was kind of ugly and totally lacking in character, so back in the 2000s, Chevy gave up completely and just focused on improving the popular Traverse SUV.
They say we grow up hating the cheap cars our parents took us to school in, which explains why the wagons became seriously uncool in America. After that, minivans took a dive. And while some of them are still around, it feels like they're hanging on for dear life.
Chrysler still makes the Pacifica, but the segment is widely considered to be dominated by Japanese models like the Toyota Sienna and Honda Odyssey. More recently, we've seen an influx of Korean talent.
It's not just the Kia Sedona. Last week, we discovered a potential sister model from Hyundai called the Custo. It's designed for the Chinese market with no plans for imports to America, but it got us thinking about Chevy and Ford. Could they squeeze some profit out of this segment?
Helping us visualize a modern-day Chevy minivan is this cool rendering by Korean artist KKS Studio. It's based on a Toyota Sienna image and overlays the front end design from the latest batch of crossovers, most notably the Blazer.
Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida. Full profile
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