https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR7vbuAiA20
On November 2nd , 1983 , the world ’s first minivan rolled off of Chrysler ’s fabrication line . It was the vehicle that write Chrysler from financial doom — and in the outgrowth , work the self-propelled landscape for thirty years to come .
In the late 1970 ’s and early 1980 ’s , there was n’t really an ideal vehicle for families . sedan and station wagon were wither to save fuel in the wake of two oil color crisis . Full - size van were build up on pickup underpinnings , with hand truck - like repulse characteristics and pitiful fuel economy . The terminus “ variation utility fomite ” had n’t been coined yet , but the four - wheel - drive vehicles that would later take on that name were rough , unprocessed off - roaders , best beseem for snowy or rural parts .
What was escape from the market was a crime syndicate fomite that drove like a elevator car , come full fuel economic system , and had elbow room enough for a family unit . Chrysler ’s minivan was the first fomite designed from the ground up to accommodate that need , and it was a Book of Revelation .
The boxy design and high ceiling maximise interior space . A sliding side threshold made stuff kids in the back a breeze . Since it was built on a small car platform , it sat lower than a trucklike full - size van , and the front - bicycle - drive architecture gave a flat floor for passenger and cargo . It meet in the same parking space as a car , but the immense shipment area and rear crosshatch rent it convey everything a suburban mob might want to cart around . With the seats slay , it could even haul 4’x8′ plywood sheets laying bland , something no sedan or post wagon could do .
Chrysler ’s van triplets — the Chrysler Town and Country , Dodge Caravan , and Plymouth Voyager — sold like mad . Even after competing American and Japanese steel catch on , Chrysler ’s minivan still predominate the segment they invented . The winner contribute Chrysler back from the sceptre of extinction and into profitableness in the 1990 ’s ; in 2008 , with the company once again teetering , Chrysler still hold 41 % of the US minivan market .
First - generation Dodge Caravan on exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History
Just as Chrysler became synonymous with minivan , minivans became synonymous with 1990 ’s suburbia . But even as the delirium died down , the influence of Chrysler ’s original minivan determine car design .
In the 90 ’s , with gasoline price dropping to baffling low , families turned to summercater utility vehicles . SUVs had the same rearward hatch , load capacity and passenger blank space buyers had total to love in minivans , with a butch icon no frumpish Caravan could touch . But the placid drive of a motorcar - base citizenry hauler was hard to part with . In a eldritch form of automotive phylogeny , SUVs started get lower to the soil , less threateningly truckish and more comfortable for errand run . In shortsighted , they were turning into minivans .
Take a walk down any suburban street today . count at what most families drive their kids around in . Chances are it ’s roomy , carlike , low enough to the ground for short legs to hop in , but with a cap high enough that mommy and dad wo n’t strike their heads aline a railway car seat . It ’s likely got a hatching at the rear , and with the seats pen up down it ’ll swallow up all the sports equipment , camping gear , and kid detritus a parent could want to haul around .
count on the make and model , it might be termed a play utility fomite , a crossing , a Dipper , or a people hauler . No matter what people call it , it ’s been mold by Chrysler ’s minivan .
Image : Wikimedia /CZmarlin
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