The Japanese may have experimented heavily in the 1980s with technology like four-wheel steering and turbocharging, but they were agonizingly slow at responding to the minivan concept promulgated by Chrysler and Renault. And well into the 1990s in countries like Australia, the Japanese foisted makeshift minivans cobbled together from piles of forward-control delivery vans, chairs, and glass.
Nissan Serena, Urvan, Vanette and Nomad, Mitsubishi Starwagon, Toyota Spacia. These were all delivery vans with poor crash-test ratings, fashioned into supposedly family-friendly vans. Mazda’s MPV and Toyota’s Tarago (Previa) were quite expensive, and even though the latter came to dominate the relatively small multi-purpose vehicle segment in Australia, the Japanese saw an unserved market niche for relatively affordable seven- and eight-seater vehicles. While these vans died out in the US by the early 1990s, the Starwagon and Spacia were sold all the way into the 2000s in Australia.
It’s quite astounding, considering how van-crazy the Japanese have been for years, just how late they were in creating proper-sized, car-like minivans. Consider this: Renault and Chrysler launched the Espace and Caravan/Voyager in 1984. Mitsubishi and Nissan had the Nimbus and Prairie at around the same time, but both were a little too small for the market. It took until 1990 (Mazda and Toyota), 1992 (Nissan), 1995 (Honda) and 2003 (Mitsubishi) for the Japanese to produce proper-sized minivans in the French and American vein. And not all of them were terribly successful, either.
To Mitsubishi’s credit, they were one of the early adopters of the minivan format with the Nimbus, aka the Chariot and Dodge/Plymouth Colt Vista. But their recipe was slightly different to that of Renault and Chrysler, the Nimbus being quite a bit smaller in every dimension including, crucially, in third-row space. Mitsubishi’s Nimbus presaged Europe’s compact MPV boom of the mid-1990s, although by then they had sized the Nimbus up and out of that hot new segment. It seems the Nimbus was never quite the size it needed to be. 
Mitsubishi, Nissan and Toyota decided families would be more receptive to the space afforded by a delivery van. Never mind the tippy handling, anemic acceleration, almost non-existent front crumple zone and general lack of refinement—if the price was right, the Japanese figured they could sell ‘em. And they did manage to sell a few, even if more expensive minivans like the Tarago were more popular..
The skyline of Brisbane in the background, including 1 William Street (right).
The 1993 Spacia was based on the TownAce van, which was a cargo carrier version of the Toyota Van/Wagon sold in North America (and sold here as the first Tarago). Despite more aerodynamic styling, the Spacia was mechanically unchanged from the earlier Van/Wagon/Tarago and used the same 2.2 four-cylinder engine. For $AUD30,000, you got power steering, central locking, a cassette player and not much else. There were no airbags, no anti-lock brakes, but there was a list price $5k less than a Tarago (Previa).
In 1993, airbags weren’t mandatory or even ubiquitous in Australia. For the second Spacia – still effectively a windowed delivery van – Toyota added them as standard equipment. Contrast that with Mitsubishi and its Starwagon. Although a new, larger generation of the Starwagon was launched in 1994, sales dropped off due to a higher price so Mitsubishi had to resurrect the old 1986-vintage model as a price-leader, slapping the Starwagon Satellite nameplate on it.
Parked behind a Toyota HiAce
Because so few changes were made during the L300-series Starwagon’s run, it’s hard to pin down an exact year. This may be a 1996-2001 Starwagon Satellite, which was given a gutless 2.0 four-cylinder to keep the price down. That Mitsubishi had the gall to charge Magna (Diamanté) wagon prices for an old van is astounding, especially considering that even in 2001 a Satellite had no airbags or ABS. A radio and power steering was all you got. If you wanted any of those fancy features like power mirrors or, y’know, an acceptable level of occupant safety, you had to pony up the extra cash for an L400-series Starwagon.
Many more highly-specified versions of these vans arrived in Australia and New Zealand as grey imports, including the four-wheel-drive JDM Starwagon known as the Delica. JDM vans continue to be imported in large numbers and, while many of them are still just converted delivery vans, they can be quite plush.
Photo courtesy of OSX
While it’s nice skinflint new car shoppers had options in the seven-seater market, these Japanese vans-with-chairs were lazy, lackluster and cynical offerings. They may have been reliable, spacious and relatively affordable, but they weren’t the vans the Japanese should have been offering.
Spacia photographed in Milton, Brisbane, QLD in 2017. Starwagon photographed just across the river in West End in 2017.
Related Reading:
Curbside Classic: Mitsubishi Express: The White, Boxy Cockroach
Curbside Classic: 1993 Chevrolet Astro – How Hard Can It Be To Make A Minivan? (Part 1)
Curbside Classic: 1995 Ford Aerostar – How Hard Can It Be to Make a Minivan? (Part 2)
Curbside Classic: 1990 Oldsmobile Silhouette – How Hard Can It Be To Make a Minivan? (Part 3)
Curbside Classic: 1995 Honda Odyssey EX: How Hard Can It Be to Make a Minivan? (Part 4)
Curbside Capsule: 1998 Mercury Villager GS – How Hard Can It Be To Make A Minivan? (Part 5)
Am I the only one that made this connection?
We didn’t really get many of these in the USA, but the few that have made it here have become coveted as mini adventure-campers. While slow and blocky, they’ve become a (sometimes more affordable) alternative to the VW Vanagons that fetch major premiums here.
Actually we got most of them, although some with different names. We got the Toyota Van, the Nissan van (most had to be bought back), the Mitsubishi Van, plus the Nissan Stanza wagon (Prairie) as well as several generations of Mitsubishi/Dodge Colt Vista Wagons, etc..
Some of these sold quite well, especially the Colt Vista Wagons, the Toyota Van and the Nissan Stanza Wagon. And these three can still be found on the streets of Eugene.
Of course Toyota stopped selling the Van once the Previa replaced it.
Interesting to note then the 2nd-gen Mitsubishi Chariot got a 2nd lifespan as the Hyundai Santamo.
http://car–reviews.com/content/hyundai-santamo.html
http://www.imcdb.org/vehicles_make-Hyundai_model-Santamo.html
How hard can it be to make a minivan?
Just ask GM or Ford…
I just like to say “Starwagon”!
Of these, I have experience with only one – my Aunt’s & Uncle’s late-80’s Colt Vista. It was a nice enough tall wagon, and it did an admirable job of hauling them and my two cousins around with all their stuff. It was far easier on gas than the late-70s Chevy Caprice wagon it replaced.
Calling the Japanese vans “delivery vans” is a wee bit harsh, since all of them were designed to be multi-purpose vans, to carry both passengers and/or cargo. Which was exactly how most vans around the world were designed; from the VW Transporter/bus, to all the American vans since the first ones in 1960, even though they were front control/engine behind design too.
It’s just what vans are, by their very nature.
Clearly, the Renault Espace and the Chrysler minivans were something new, designed primarily for passengers only. The problem for the Japanese was this: although Chrysler could build a minivan for family use, they continued to build and sell large quantities of their full-sized vans for the traditional van market: more people and/or cargo. The minivans were drastically smaller then these. Which explains why the minivans never were very popular in their cargo versions.
But for the Japanese, that was not the case. They primarily built this size of van (as well as kei vans and somewhat larger ones, and the market for their more commercially-oriented vans was huge, globally. So they obviously didn’t feel it was worth the investment to build a completely new American-style minivan, at least not for some time. I don’t blame them. Instead, they built a number of MPV style vehicles that much more fit their needs in Asia and Europe.
And how long did it take for Ford and GM to build truly competitive minivans?
Back in the 1990s I had a coworker had a Nissan passenger van like the Nissan Nomad shown in the ad. It wasn’t called “Nomad,” though, I think it was just referred to as “Wagon” or maybe “Van.” She didn’t have any problems with it and had driven it something like 80,000 miles or so when it was subject to a buy back for some reason. Catching on fire or something maybe? Nissan was not as generous in their buyback as Volkswagen was with theirs and she ended up using the money to buy a Nissan Sentra wagon.
Well, judging by the number of these Mitsubishis sold in the far and middle east as well as Europe, I would not say they “got it wrong”. The L300 in my view (particularly as 4X4) in fact offered qualities the Mopar vans and the Espace did not, and here in Austria they are – if in good condition – more sought after than any of the above-mentioned.
And once the market made it clear it wanted purpose built family vans, the Japanese responded.
Neighbours had a Spacia to haul their family of four boys. The youngest had a very lucky escape when they were rear-ended at a stoplight – the corner just crumpled up to nothing and skewed the whole body out of kilter. They replaced it with a Land Rover Discovery, with a nice strong chassis. A bit of overkill perhaps, but if I’d almost lost my youngest I think I might’ve done that too.
Poor crash test results are guarenteed as there were no crash safety standards for commercial vehicles in Australia back then and just as icing on your cake JDM imports dont have anything in the safety line that can be left out.
Even the Chrysler mini vans were not competitive, they were merely a answer to a question nobody asked. And those Toyota vans, with those pushrod forklift engines we got here in the States were below horrible. Then to slap 4WD on them….lipstick on a pig comes to mind…. The Japanese think slapping 4WD on anything hides all sins….
I’m not quite sure I understand your statement about the Chrysler USDM minivans being an answer to a question nobody asked. Maybe you weren’t around in the 1980’s when people were on waiting lists for these things and well into the 1990’s when they were still hot sellers almost a decade after introduction.
Are these commercial vans such as the LiteAce and HiAce still popular in Australia? They’re pretty commonplace all over many Asian countries.
The HiAce definitely, though it’s facing stiff competition from the Hyundai iLoad. Don’t think they still sell the LiteAce here.
We don’t regularly see these minivans here in North America, other than some of the early models of the Toyotas, Nissans and Mitsubishis.
I can remember seeing the Toyota vans particularly and thinking whose bright idea was it to revive the 1961 Falcon van? Forward control vans are something I’m glad were phased out; I spent some time driving delivery vans and saw enough accidents to be glad I wasn’t piloting one.
The FWD minivan as shown by DKW and refined by Chrysler is the possibly the best use of space. The rear drive vans, unless fully loaded are just as big a handful as a pickup truck. Why the all-conquering Japanese car makers of the 1980’s didn’t just belly up to the bar and design a FWD mini is beyond me. The smaller Mitsus, Hondas, Nissans and Toyotas were the right idea, but a size too small.
I know there’s a love cult out there in the PNW for the Previa, but that was just an expensive, bizarre experiment in vanning. Let’s just re-hash our previous Van by making the engine even harder to service. What? It’s too heavy? Well, there’s no room for a V6. Let’s supercharge the 4 cylinder engine and add even MORE complication and weight. There’s a need for versatile space? We’ll just attach the rearmost seats to the side of the interior. No need to worry about impact standards, those will never come loose…. Believe me, if that had been a Chevy, Nader would have come out retirement to crucify GM again. Then, once they finally got it in their heads that they would have to compete directly against the FWD minis, they made their best copy of a 1997 U van. Woo hoo!
It could be worse, they could have private labeled an Isuzu van like Honda did. Or the oddball Nissan Quest-Mercury Villagers…
Judging from what’s been written here, I’m glad we didn’t get some of those imports that you got in Australia.
I think I am in the minority here by saving I like the Toyota town ace van. I traded my old vanagon for a previa which has served me well but I miss being able to haul the cargo the old vw used to be able to swallow. I don’t miss the constant repairs the old vw used to require and the previa doesn’t have any trouble keeping up with traffic. But it doesn’t have the same “character” as the old van.
Due to Canada’s more lax 15 year import laws I have seen lots of Mitsubishi Delica’s and a few Toyota’s but I can’t wrap my head around daily driving a right hand drive van.
“NISS-in”, eh? As opposed to “KNEE-sahn” here in North America. Never knew that. Is that still the Australian pronunciation, or did it change, like the way we shifted from “Su-BAR-u” to “Su-ba-ROO”?
Well, I had two Toyota Town Ace vans in the ’90’s while living in Japan, and thought they had quite a few strengths. They were very space efficient, and the kids really liked the rotating middle seats that allowed for them to face each other. The 1.8L fuel-injected four provided smooth power. My only concern was facing off with a Fuso 5-ton 10 wheeled dump truck in a frontal collision. Typical Toyota – both gave me years of trouble-free service.
We moved on to Previas (Estimas) in the late 90’s and have had three of those, with a current 07 version – great vans also.
I consider the original VW Transporter kind of a unique case, at least in North America, as it was heavily based on a passenger car and had a rear engine.
The Japanese forward control vans share much with early 1960’s US vans (except Corvair). By 1971, the Americans had already moved on. That is what surprised me most when I started seeing the Japanese vans in the 1980’s.
Ahh, childhood memories! I dreamed of having a van back in the 80s, all the space to enjoy, rather than us three kids squashed in the back of the Kingswood… I was jealous of my cousins in their Starwagon, and there were only two of them!
It seemed that all of the manufacturers wanted in on the forward-control van action. Nissan always had the Urvan, but Mitsubishi seemed the most well-known (to me) with their Express/Starwagon. There was also the Holden Shuttle, with mandatory orange and brown stripes; Ford had the Spectron; and Toyota had the LiteAce (Does anyone else remember the ads saying “Hello happy wheels!”?). But then Toyota topped them all with the Tarago. The fanciest, plushest, sleekest van of them all.
I can remember news stories about the poor crash performance of these forward control vans. It seemed most Starwagons and Taragos ended up sporting a bullbar at the front. And Ford fitted a truly huge cow-catcher of a front bumper bar. Yep, an extra foot of bumper bar will save you.
Considering how ubiquitous they were, it’s pretty rare to see a passenger van on the road these days.