(first posted 5/20/2016) GM struggled in many market sectors during its decades-long decline, but none more than the minivan segment. Given that this segment was expanding rapidly, had high transaction prices and healthy profit potential, GM’s utter failure to find any success in it is almost bizarre and inexplicable, but GM ended up walking away from the minivan market after consistently under-performing. Why?
There are two primary reasons GM vehicles have failed. They either arrived with deadly flaws in their quality/reliability, like the Vega, Citation and quite a few other models. Or they were conceived in GM’s notorious bubble of hubris, where its product planners and designers were seemingly perpetually stuck in a Jetsons-Futurama mind set, convinced that they could wow Americans with more advanced design and technology. What Americans really want is a minivan that looks like a space shuttle! Not.
It’s not like minivans or compact vans were an alien concept to GM. In fact GM pioneered the idea of the modern American FWD minivan, way back in 1955 with their GMC L’Universelle concept (DKW had been building their FWD Schnellaster minivan since 1949). It was shown in GM’s traveling three-ring circus, the 1955 Motorama. Like so many GM concepts, it had lots of wow factor, but was intrinsically and profoundly flawed. As in: it couldn’t even move under its own power.
The L’Universelle had a front-mid mounted Pontiac V8 engine, which in theory drove the front wheels through a transaxle. Said transaxle was actually non-functioning, so the L’Universelle was a “pusher”, meaning it had to be pushed from its transporter into the Motorama exhibit hall,
just like GM’s other FWD concept in 1955, the LaSalle II roadster. Look America; we already have two non-functioning FWD vehicles! Just wait until 1980 when we start building non-functional FWD cars by the millions!
The L’Universelle’s lack of a working transaxle was just as well. Its roof-mounted intakes for the inboard radiators was undoubtedly equally impractical. It’s not like it ever had a chance to be tested…
What shall we make of the 1961 Corvair Greenbrier? It too was a commercial dud, but it’s story is a bit more complicated. It had many redeeming qualities, and we sang its praise here. But it wasn’t what the van market was asking for, which was then focused on more utilitarian truck-like vans, rather than refined passenger-car like ones. The Ford Econoline had the right idea, if not the right dynamic qualities. But during the 60s and 70s, if Americans wanted a big, roomy family hauler, they turned to station wagons.
That all changed explosively, beginning in 1984, thanks to Chrysler’s new minivans. The combination of higher gas prices and a new generation of young baby boomer parents who didn’t want to drive the wagons they grew up in made these very compelling, and Chrysler struggled for years to keep up with demand.
Clearly the appeal of the Chrysler minivans was their unparalleled space utilization and flexibility combined with genuine passenger-car dynamics and economy. This was the recipe; and their styling was as utilitarian as their function.
And no major maker could afford to not compete in this explosive new segment; most of all, GM.
So what did they come up with? A classic GM Motorama solution, and about as practical as the glass-bubbled turbine-engined Firebird II. The 1986 Pontiac Trans Sport concept was a space cadet’s version of a minivan, with a giant glass bubble front end, and…
Fold-up gull wing doors! Ask Tesla how good of an idea those are. Ok, it was a classic GM show-circuit concept, but the direction it pointed to in terms of their eventual production minivan was highly questionable.
Needless to say, some of those features didn’t exactly make it into the production minivans, which arrived in the fall of 1989 for the 1990 model year. But some did, all too obviously. There were three versions: Chevy’s Lumina APV,
Pontiac’s Trans Sport,
and the Olds Silhouette.
They were clearly all the same except for slight changes to the front end styling and other details, like Pontiac’s trademark exaggerated side cladding of the times.
The most obvious feature of these vans are their extremely long noses, the huge low-slope windshield, and the set-back front seats. The combination of the three created a very distinctive visual effect from the outside that caused them almost instantly to be dubbed “Dustbusters”.
The effect from the front seats was also disconcerting, as there was a ledge in front of the dashboard that seemed to go on for eternity, creating the feeling of sitting in the second row of more typical minivan. It would have made a nice platform for a bed if these were autonomous.
OK; from the perspective of today, none of this seems quite so radical anymore, but the key thing is that most car buyers are actually rather conservative. They’ll get there eventually, but don’t rush them. Which is exactly what GM was doing. And buyers resisted it.
It was the 1934 Chrysler Airflow all over, a mistake all of Detroit vowed never to make again. But GM just couldn’t resist.
Fortunately, GM committed only one of its two typical deadly sins with these, as they are generally considered to be reasonably reliable, given their source. The plastic exterior body panels don’t rust, and the GM V6 engines and transaxles of this era are mostly free of serious issues. The first few years were only available with the 120 hp 3.1 L V6, making them none to exciting or sporty, despite their looks or names. The 3800 V6 came along a few years later, which made them about as well-powered as any of the minivans of the times.
The negative reaction to the exaggerated long nose was all-too obvious, and GM made a rather desperate attempt to make the front end look a bit more conventional with a 1994 restyle on the Lumina and Trans Sport, cutting their noses by three inches and grafting more upright Bonneville-type lights to them. But look how utterly disjointed that only slightly-changed front bumper looks. This came from the GM Design Center?
GM knew these were a (dust)bust, and made one of the most resolute 180 degree turns in design history. Don’t like adventuresome styling in a minivan? We’ll give you the most conservative, dull and boring minivan the world has ever seen! And so they did, with the new 1997 generation, which gave the Chevy version the new name of Venture. As if. These are the most forgettable, generic boxes on wheels ever made. When is the last time you noticed one?
These new U-platform minivans were designed in conjunction with Opel, as the Chrysler minivans were hot in Europe, along with the Renault Espace and even the Euro-version of the Trans Sport.
That was actually a Olds Silhouette with Pontiac badging, and with four cylinder gas and diesel engines. Of course the French loved it; GM was barking right up their tree.
Opel wanted in too, with the Sintra, so with their input, this new generation was narrower than would have been otherwise the case. That did not help in the US, as everything was inevitably getting bigger. But the poor passive safety ratings of these new GM vans in Europe and the US tanked the Sintra in safety-conscious Germany all-too quickly, and now GM was stuck with an overly-narrow van for the US.
With perfect GM timing, this all happened one year after Chrysler unleashed their new minivans for 1996, which went in exactly the opposite direction. They were much more dynamically styled, with a more aerodynamic sloped hood and windshield, and they were decidedly larger (and wider) too. But incrementally so, not radically. GM had totally screwed themselves by trying to imitate a more than ten-year old design. It’s comparable to GM benchmarking the gen1 Honda Accord for their new J-Car Cavalier, which then came out after the much improved gen2 Accord came out. Not they came close to matching the gen1, for that matter.
It was a death spiral that kept repeating at GM: failing to grasp the real reason why the market leaders were successful, desperately imitating certain aspects of them, falling well short, then making it even worse by retreating to a more defensive position.
The Venture eventually lost its Pep-Boys worthy cheap bright grille, but it was dead meat. It could be found on rental car lots, but who bought a Venture retail? Don’t answer…we don’t disparage owners of cars here.
In 2005, trying (vainly) to catch some of the hot new crossover fever sweeping the land, GM grafted huge new noses on the U-boats, and had the temerity to dub them “Crossover Sport Vans”. Nobody bought into that pathetic ruse. And no need to go into that here, as Brendan Saur has already covered that in GM’s Deadly Sin #24, the Buick Terraza.
The U-Platform also spawned the Buick Rendezvous and Pontiac Aztek; the less said about those two, the better, although the Aztek has become quite fashionable again in certain quarters, thanks to Breaking Bad and the perspective of time. Stephanie now wants one.
We may have seen the last of the U-Platform vans in the US, but they’re still going strong in China, as the Buick GL8. Isn’t it GR8? This is the first generation, built from 2000 to 2010, called the GL8 First Land.
It was restyled in 2010 as the GL8 Business Edition. Isn’t it even GR8er? No worries about it coming back here, though; the platform is too old to meet our safety regs; never mind the marketplace. But it’s nice to know that someone is still appreciating it, and GM must be happy to have gotten some more mileage out of this platform, which has to be one of their oldest still being built.
Well, GM has at least found a modicum of success in the minivan field, even if it is in China. Because it utterly struck out in the US, which has to have been one of their Deadliest Sins ever. No wonder the minivans—I mean Crossover Sport Vans—died in 2009 right along with the parent company. The New GM was thankfully spared that hot mess, and I rather suspect it will be a while before GM considers getting back in the game. If ever.
Related:
‘The effect from the front seats was also disconcerting, as there was a ledge in front of the dashboard that seemed to go on for eternity,…’
Not to mention how pain in the arse to spray Windex that far on the windscreen and reach into the lower edge to clean the glass.
It was also quite a challenge to place (and remove) inspection stickers at the bottom of the windshield, for states that required them.
When I lived in Pennsylvania, I remember there were a few dealers that would put Dustbuster inspection stickers on the triangular-shaped A-pillar glass instead of on the windshield. My guess is that they’d heard many complaints from their mechanics about how hard it was to reach the front of the glass, so they decided to bend the rules just a little bit for the Dustbusters.
Or some old hand, or old-timer aficionado, remembered applying the sticker around the corner on the cars w/late-1950’s wrap-around windshields! (Barring any specific prohibiting regulation, since it doesn’t swing, the FF 1/4 patch glass is technically not the door, so it must be windshield.)
But like Paul mentioned, not that different from many cars today. The difference was the whole windshield being farther forward so it was indeed a stretch to clean the inside of it.
The GM Marketing Department was eerily similar to the one where I used to work. They didn’t have an insightful bone in their bodies; what they did best was pop up out of their gopher holes, see what all the competitors were doing, and try to match every dog-gone one of them tit-for-tat. To top it off they used “Lead, follow, or get out of the way” in their advertising. If only they would have gotten out of the Engineering Department’s way. :/
LOL speaking of goohers…. you couldn’t
hit that windshield from the front seat
with a golf ball!!
I could be mistaken but I am pretty sure that was actually Chysler’s ad campaign for a few years.
I was never a big fan of the original Dustbusters but for some reason found the re-imagined ones (especially the Venture, Zafira, and Transport) to be quite attractive in a somewhat anonymous way.
I agree. Thought the dustbusters were ugly but the venture appealed to me. Not enough to buy one but to answer the question of who buys them…. the salvation army sure did. Drove one when volunteering to pick up bellringers at christmas time. It drove very well I thought. I remember having no other contact with them at all.
Enjoyable article, thanks.
Attributed to Thomas Paine and Gen. George S. Patton, and reused by Lee Iacocca:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mztTYWKIB-I
The Pontiac Trans Sport were relatively common around here (north of France), I thought they were really cool and looked like spaceships to my 6 years old eyes. My parents considered buying one in 1992 when they were looking for a minivan, but they were expensive and went with a Toyota LiteAce instead. Not nearly as good looking but it did the job fine.
Now they aren’t worth anything and nobody wants them.
And cheap they are indeed: http://ww3.autoscout24.de/classified/287345676?asrc=st|as 200 euros buys you a loaded one.
I wonder what would have happened if the Trans Sport show car had gone into production as a halo car for Pontiac and more conventional versions for Chev and Olds had followed a year or so later?
What would have happened if the actual show car had made it to production? Sadly, I think I can guess the answer, given the GM of those times.
The massive front glass would have caused a problem/price hike with insurance companies, as happened when the the original Plymouth Barracuda hit the market with its big rear window. Next, GM would have had a lot of complaints about glass distortion – tough to avoid when mass producing such huge pieces of glass with so many curves. After that in the first hot summer in the South (or the North too I suspect) the owner complaints about deep-fried passengers would have started. It’s true that GM A/C set the standard for meat freezers everywhere, but that much glass paired with an A/C unit hung on a 120 hp engine = lose.
Oh, and those folding gull-wing doors. If Tesla’s high-paid engineers can’t get them right in a $100K vehicle after designing them with the benefit of 30 years of advances in CAD, what chance would GM have had in the 1980’s in a (?) $30K today? vehicle?
The worst part of these dustbuster vans is their ability to whack you in the head with the upper corner of the door when you least expect it. It’s like they punished you for buying one. Powertrain wise, pretty reliable, GM had worked MOST of the bugs out of their FWD setup (EGR valves notwithstanding) but, sigh…made Ford’s Windstar look like…a star
There’s nothing funnier than watching someone whack themselves in the head with a car door… and nothing more painful when you do it to yourself. With their backswept doors, the Lumina and Transport indeed look like champs in this area.
I’ve never whacked myself with mine ever.
My ’96 has a yellow warning sticker on the door to warn you about hitting your head. Also it’s dangerous to open the hood when the wipers are going. Bad design decisions.
I love mine because of its quirky design and its reliability.
Yes, my parent’s ’90 had a recall to place that sticker on there.
I bought Caravans for our utility work fleet from ’82 thru 92. Our other fleet (work) cars were celebrity wagons. The ’91 Lumina van was our first plastic van. They were so-so, you needed to be very particular about which 3.1 you spec’d to get any kind of power and drivability.
The arrival of the 3800 engine was the high point in this series. The multi point EFI 3.1 in the Celebrity wagons was also great, and happened just as the ChryCo’s got the Ultradrive transmission.
GM’s pricing (compared to the Dodge Caravan) moved us up to the Olds vans thru ’96. I still see a few of these in use today (after being sold to private owners.) No one loved the look, but the drive quality, features and reliability was close to the top of the scale.
Today, there are few true ‘vans’, and their image in the psyche of anyone under 40 is parked beside the station wagon. Our fleet today is dodge Journeys and last gen Colorado crew cabs. Style and image has trumped usefulness. It will be interesting to see what comes next.
First, I should mention that I am a big fan of the Chrysler minivans. I can’t wait to see the new Pacifica. They got the original formula right, but I feel that they were highly motivated during the design phase which would have been right after the federal guarantees were granted. For several years my in-laws let us use their circa-1984 Caravan as a third car or for long trips as necessary. Because of Scouts, soccer, church outings and other neighborhood activities, I have a ton of seat time in almost all of the generations of the Magic Van.
That said, if you were GM and 5 years late to the party what would you do? You need something that stands out, not an exact copy of the breadvan that’s winning all the converts. Like Ford, Toyota, Mazda, Nissan and Volkswagen, GM had nothing to compete with the FWD Mopar vans. With the introduction of the U-van, GM finally was able to compete in the FWD minivan market. It was just a typical old-GM interpretation of the formula. “We didn’t think this was gonna work, so we threw an Astro at the problem. Then, when it took off we had to do something…” I personally thought the plastic panels on the van were a great idea, I actually hoped that by now (21st century) more cars would be made that way.
I was never much impressed by the Toyota Previa; I know several people here are enamored with the “bean”, but after having to sell these things against conventional FWD or RWD minivans, I didn’t see much advantage to them. RWD minivans had their advantages, to go along with huge disadvantages. Until the advent of the V6 powerplants in FWD minivans, they were largely grocery getters. Once you could get some torque in them, the FWD minivans were very capable machines.
I have a 2004 model Olds Silhouette, were it not for my wife’s insistence against minvans, I probably would have had one years ago. I have been impressed with how well this one drives, and the many thoughtful features it has. I would have liked to score a post 2005 GM van, as it has the better motor(s) and improved crash ratings over the first U-vans. .
GM (as was Ford) was already getting out before the crash. Minivan sales were declining, SUV sales were (and still are) climbing, the fashion had switched. The bankruptcy helped them shed those vehicles and spend more money and time on the new SUV/CUVs that were coming out. Domestically, unless you were Chrysler, why would you spend a lot of money on a declining segment? I actually think that there’s a bit of hubris in Chrysler’s marketing as “the inventor of the minivan” and such, hopefully someone over there knows a bit about history.
Last I heard the minivan segment is still right around a million sales a year. But there’s no way you’d make any headwind against the twin juggernaut of Toyota and Honda at this point. Chrysler sold on price these past 10 years (25% discount from Toyota/Honda prices); The Caravan goes away next year and I think the Pacific is going to be a specialty, not mainstream, purchase. Nothing wrong with the Dodge if you don’t have Japanese reliability expectations – with strong discounts a Caravan is a screaming deal for what you get.
Kia and Nissan have both brought out decent vans in the past few years – I hardly see any on the streets of Houston.
I do think the market is ripe for a true minivan – the size of the last Mazda MPV or Mercury Villager. The Mazda5 was too small – it needed an inch or two in each direction.
The new Pacifica, from all early accounts, is the best van on the market and competitively priced. It is not a specialty vehicle. The future of Chrysler depends on it…and it shows.
I agree. I remember when the Lumina APV was first intro’d to the public. I remember thinking “What is that?” At the time, I found Olds Silhouette way more attractive, and also Pontiac Tran Sport.
I am a lot more sympathetic to these minivans. The simple fact is that FWD minivans add much weight and frontal area to the mid size platforms from which they derive. Some were up to the stresses and many were not. With the dust busters, GM started with a simplified tbi 3.1 V6 and three speed auto to ensure dependability, lessons learned. Once satisfied here come the 3.8 four speed combo that was a nineties legend. The xcar fwd snideness is unworthy. It was a huge change in engineering and the x cars left their imprint on many reliable fwd vehicles including the dustbusters.
As far as the style, GM futurama style is as legitimate contribution to style as what was coming out of the Renault design studio. This should be self obvious given the fullness of time. Everything does not have to be the same.
I actually loved the “Dustbuster” look. Why they were hated by car magazines and certain people is beyond me. Probably because they looked weird, different. What matters to me is how well they were built, how well they stand up to every day driving.
The Pontiac never got a diesel engine in France.
Over here, the Pontiac Trans Sport was only sold with a 2.3 16V four or a V6 (3.1 liters then 3.8 liters).
Because there was no diesel offering, it was mostly confined to a niche market.
Same thing with the 1st gen Chrysler Voyager (1984-1992), offered only with a 2.5 four or a 3.0 liters V6.
On the opposite, the 2nd gen Chrysler Voyager (from 1993 and beyond) was a big hit because you could get a 2.5 turbodiesel four.
Wikipedia says that a Peugeot 1.9 turbo diesel was available in the European version, but I can’t find any other sources that confirm that, so it may be a mistake.
I can confirm I never saw such an animal; the ones sold in Austria had the 4 or the V6 gasoline engines. They were surprisingly popular nevertheless and had a good reliability record – most are gone now, but not all.
Good article which nicely covers a lot of ground. A minor point, though – the LaSalle roadster featured at the Motorama was from Cadillac, not Buick.
Oh! So that explains the dagmar bumper!
Imagine a Cadillac minivan . . . . nope, can’t even do it!
Quite true; I’ve corrected that and even added a picture if the not-so-pretty LaSalle II.
Yes, GM overestimated the importance of style in this segment when practicality was what really mattered. But they were late to the FWD minivan party and wanted to make a splash. I really like these vans because they tried to make a visual statement. Perhaps GM wanted these to be stylish enough that maybe someone who wouldn’t normally consider a minivan might consider one. Kind of like the Pacifica of today.
If these sold better and were more universally agreed to be good-looking – say, if they looked more like the Trans Sport concept – then people would not complain as much about the driving position or the long dashboard. They would praise it for injecting style into the segment, even if this segment’s buyers have always been not very fashion conscious, and they would overlook the minor ergonomic flaws. That’s my belief. Alas, people think these look goofy so these vans are pilloried, although Paul was much fairer than many others who have written about these.
Count me as a fan. Maybe a drive might change my mind but I like where GM’s head was with these: reliable mechanicals, stylish exterior. It seemed like GM had learned some lessons from the struggles of the 1980s.
My first real job (not cutting lawns or delivering newspapers), at age 16, was at a beer and wine distributorship. The company bought an off-lease 1996 Lumina APV (although they’d dropped the APV by then at least from the badging) in 1998 as a small-delivery and sales call runner.
My recollections of it are mostly favorable. It drove about like any other 1990s GM front-driver, since it had the time-honored 3.1 and 4-speed automatic. Power was fine, if not racecar material. It handled acceptably around town even if it felt really nose-heavy, was comfortable to drive or ride in, had ice-cold A/C, and didn’t seem to struggle even if we’d loaded 30 or 40 cases of wine into it (for reference, 20ish cases blew up the air suspension on one of the bosses’ Continental). On balance, that van took 18 months of very hard use with aplomb.
However, that huge nose and double A-pillar led to a huge blindspot. I probably wouldn’t notice it as much now that all A-pillars are absurdly thick, but back then it was troublesome. And, because I was also the one that got to wash and clean all the vans every week, I got the joy of trying to clean the windshield and dash. Pro tip: Duct tape a rag to a five-foot stick. It’s the only way you’ll ever get the drivers’ side cleaned properly.
Funny thing is, about four months ago Mr. X and I used his mother’s van, a 2008 Uplander, to move some of her bigger stuff after the state took her drivers’ license. Driving it wasn’t really all that different than I remember driving the 1996 Lumina van to be.
GM wasn’t the only one using space-age marketing to sell minivans, Ford used the space shuttle to try to sell the Aerostar. Remember the commercial with the age of aquarius in the background?
I do recall people mentioning that the dustbuster vans were great for getting pizza. Plenty of room on the dash to store pizza until you got home.
I also recall reading an interview of GM workers building the last generation minivans, Delaware I believe. They said the minivans were very hard to build. That is never a good sign, and it showed in their lack of quality and reliability. No doubt this drove a lot of consumers to Honda and Toyota, never to return.
I have a confession: I actually liked the Venture.
In 2004, when visiting friends in Texas, my wife and I rented a Venture. It was not our first choice, but nearly every other car on the rental lot and already been taken, and it was either a Venture or a Geo Metro. We chose the Venture.
This was before we had kids, and we took a lot of ribbing from our friends about renting a minivan (“Oh, are you expecting??”), but that aside, we actually liked it. Yes, really. Maybe we’re just that boring, but after driving it for several hundred miles, we found it comfortable, practical, reasonably well powered, seemingly well built and decent looking for a minivan. If we had been in the minivan market back then, we would have considered buying one.
Three years later, we rented an Uplander once, and hated it. It seemed to wander all over the road, was poorly built, and butt-ugly. When we eventually did buy a minivan, we didn’t consider GM at all, and bought a Honda.
I must also confess to kind of liking the Venture as well. My dad leased one right around I came of driving age. I rarely got to drive it as it was the “new” car but it was comfortable and surprisingly quick with it’s 3.8. It had far more useful space than the Explorer that preceded it and I’m pretty sure it had no issues in its four years of service.
My 7 year old self was a big fan of the dustbusters, but that faded pretty quick. I didn’t actually get to ride in one until a friend bought one around the age of 20. I still don’t know why he bought it.
I remember laughing out loud the first time I saw an Uplander on a giant billboard. That was when I knew GM fully gave up on minivans.
Great article with great detail!!
I bought a 2007 Hyundai Entourage van just before they discontinued them and dropped the price by $10K… the last minivan I will ever buy. While actually a pretty practical and comfortable vehicle, it was creaky and guzzled gas making city driving almost impossible.
I now own a Subaru Outback and enjoy all the height and space for the kiddies with added AWD, sporty handling and a 2.5L engine so my wallet isn’t being constantly drained. Minivans simply can’t replicate the driving experience that a SUV/CUV can deliver.
In GM’s defense, perhaps they went to the “sporty and adventurous” end of the scale because they had the very truck-like and utilitarian Astro holding down the other end of the market. Of course, the fat middle of the market where Chrysler was cleaning up went unserved by the General for eons.
And it is not like anyone else really matched Chrysler’s successful formula any sooner. I don’t think that happened until the 99 Honda Odyssey, which was fifteen years after Chrysler introduced the concept.
The other problem with these was that despite being as long as Chrysler’s LWB “Grand” versions, these had passenger space more like the Chrysler shorties, because so much real estate was used in that long, sloping nose, which provided zero utility for those who wanted the room for people or cargo.
I think part of the problem was that GM was so used to being the big dog that everyone else in the industry followed that following and copying a lesser competitor (especially a perennial also-ran like Chrysler) was just not in its DNA.
Arrgh! Beat me to the punch!
You are the first to bring up the Astro. I’ve always thought of it as GM’s first strike in the minivan marketplace – and it makes for a perfect three strikes along with the Dustbuster and U body editions.
Strike 1: Astro – GM wanted to redefine the minivan with RWD and more towing capacity – thinking that it was a better replacement to the old full size wagons. The problem was, the front seating area was terribly compromised by an engine doghouse in the old style American work van idiom. People that wanted real towing were moving to trucks and SUVs in droves.
Strike 2: Paul’s take on the Dustbuster styling is perfect, and your comment on the space utilization is a good point. I once owned a 1999 Chrysler Town and Country on the long wheelbase, and there was scads of room in it.
Strike 3: The U vans always had terrible safety ratings – and minivan buyers tend to be safety conscious – and the type to read Consumer Reports. I have the CR 2002 Truck, SUV and Minivan Special Summary (from when I bought my Durango) and the first paragraph on the U van slams it for safety. Chrysler, Honda and Toyota minivans all got positive recommendations. The Chrysler was even noted for being more reliable than the U van.
In defense of GM, it seemed like it took everyone a long time to compete with Chrysler – Honda and Toyota were the first to do so, and it took them a couple of tries each. Their successful solution was to copy the Chrysler and add their typical reliability. And Honda still blew it with their transmissions. It seems like Toyota holds the minivan crown these days. I’ve rented a couple of Siennas – as recently as last December. Its a damn good vehicle.
The Chrysler vans had decent reliable engines in the 3.3 and 3.8 but that was where the reliability ended for many owners. The 2.4 and Mitsubishi 3.0 were more problematic and the lovely Ultra drive trans axle was a notorious failure item even when owners followed the recommended change intervals and used the correct fluid. These things also had electrical issues starting with those power doors that were a guaranteed nuisance, A/C was mostly non operative, headlight issues were noted along with excessive window regulator/motor failures, ignition problems, some speedometer issues on later 3rd gen models and the typical hit and miss Chrysler quality control we witnessed first hand when we had our first used car dealership.
I don’t disagree with many of your points on the Chrysler minivans, but would argue that you underestimate the 3.3 and 3.8 V6s, which might go down as even better than the Buick 3.8 that has been such a workhorse. The transmissions were indeed a constant problem, but later ones would usually make it to 100K and replacements were relatively cheap.
FWIW, the 1996-2000 Chrysler minivans are still seen on the road in decent numbers, something that cannot be said for the Dustbusters or early U vans. The minivans (esp Gen3) went back to the classic Mopar formula – there were quite a few with problems, but the good ones stayed on the road or a long time.
Though I would like to point out that if the Astro was such a dud, it wouldn’t have been around for 20 years 1985-2005
Carmine had a point here, although I would offer there’s a distinct difference between “complete dud with no redeeming characteristics” and “putative mass-market contender that manages to find a small but sustainable niche.” I don’t have Astro sales figures close at hand, but my impression had always been that the Astro was not unlike the latter-day El Camino: It sold well enough to keep it around, but not well enough to refresh beyond minor, mostly compliance-related updates.
I’ve seen a lot of Astros around over the years, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one actually doing family minivan duties. Maybe once or twice when they were fairly new, but mostly they seem to have ended up as commercial vehicles for contractors, plumbers, and technicians in urban areas who wanted something to haul tools and supplies without needing a tugboat for parking maneuvers. Old Ford Windstars seem much more common among families that need some cheap used vehicle for kid-hauling.
Chrysler’s minivan was a better design than the VW Bus, which made it the standard when they went on sale. The dust buster was a bit too exotic style wise I think, and perhaps not as efficient on space. The long nose contained the engine, where it may have been better isolated from the interior (I don’t know?), and also reduced drag perhaps (not sure). Still the dust buster design was not all that bad, it just did not sell. I am not sure of how much difference there was between them and the Chrysler mini’s, but I think the key to understanding is that the Chrysler’s were a better utility vehicle.
Great comprehensive writeup on the Dustbuster vans. Has it really been three years since we’ve had an article on one of these?
Completely agree with the major points of this article. GM spent the money in the wrong places for these vans. One thing I do find attractive about them is their instrument panel and front door panel design, sans the expansive area in front of the dash.
Still, weren’t they second to the proper minivan game? The Astro/Safari and Aerostar were rwd quarter ton truck platforms, the Japanese were literal miniature vans and not “minivans”, same with Volkswagen. Chrysler gave us the car-based fwd platform minivan, it took years before others did the same. GM finally brought out the dustbusters in ’90; Nissan Quest was ’93; Ford Windstar was ’95, Honda too, but no sliding doors ’til ’99; Toyota Sienna was ’98, the Previa was mid-engine awd thus doesn’t quite count; and Volkswagen wasn’t ’til 2010, but theirs was borrowed off Chrysler (correct me if I’m wrong on any of these). Questionable as the Dustbusters were, they were the first to get Chrysler’s formula right.
Keep in mind a couple of things:
1. When Chrysler introduced the minivan, absolutely nobody (including Chrysler) was sure it was going to be the success it was.
2. When the Chrysler minivan bolted out of the gate fast, the competition’s initial response was, “So people will buy small vans? Let’s give them a small van.” What they didn’t realize (that took time) was that small van wasn’t the same as “minivan”. Which is why the first generation response was Astrovan, Aerostar, and the Japanese “your knees are your crash restraints” vans.
3. To the competition’s credit, it only took about a year or so to fully realize what a minivan was. However, these is this little matter of lead times to define something totally new from scratch.
So yeah, GM was the first to catch on and get the formula right. But they certainly weren’t just going to do a copy of the Chrysler/Dodge/Plymouth. They were GM and were expected to do something different, something more, something original – while copying a huge sales success. Unfortunately, Chrysler got the formula so right that to get original in any direction meant diluting what the customer wanted.
And Mazda was 90something.
1989-1998 was RWD; 1999/2000 to 2006 was FWD.
The Eurovan (introduced 1990 in Europe as the T4 and 1993 in the US) was actually a front-engine, front-wheel-drive setup just like the others; however, it was too large and too expensive to compete against mass-market minivans.
They sold so poorly in the US that VW skipped several model years, and some model years were camper-only!
My impression of the EuroVans was they were a very poor value; premium prices for sub-standard product. They seemed more prone to rust than any vehicle, no matter the price or age. Just as well they return to the earth so quickly- nobody wants them around.
It’s not like it was the 1st time GM tried something adventurous and struck out, as explained above with the Corvair Greenbrier.
I DO like the styling of the L’ Universelle. I’d only seen it from the side before.
With the Dustbusters, it’s like GM Design remembered only the first part of the adage behind the legendary Tri-Fives: “Go all the way, then back off.”
With just a few tweaks – like bringing the windshield and nose in a bit – from the beginning instead of the half-hearted way they did it when they facelifted it – the styling might’ve been more accepted.
The thought crossed my mind that GM’s overreach may have unwittingly helped ensure the MoPar restyle’s success, as by comparison (and in reality) the styling was much better proportioned.
But by this time, overall, GM was well into its “phone it in” stage. Long on benchmarking, short on passion. The days in which five divisions competed with each other to develop the best automatic transmission, or the best overhead valve V8, were decades in the rear view mirror. Instead, the divisions competed with each other on the showroom floor, wasting marketing and development dollars, bringing in people from Proctor & Gamble who thought cars were no different from toothpaste.
Sloan’s ladder had disintegrated and by 1990, any efforts to reconstruct it would have been futile.
If the new GM is ever to get back into minivans, I’d want to see them reinvent the species, develop something roomy that doesn’t weigh 5,000 lbs. like the current Odyssey…
…which, did you know, has optional air filled, electric MOTOR MOUNTS?
No, this isn’t “muffler bearings” or “turn signal fluid” time…
Look up “2010 Honda Truck Odyssey Touring 3.5L MFI SOHC 6cyl motor mount” at AutoZone or Advance.
http://shop.advanceautoparts.com/p/genuine-engine-mount-a7000331898oes/10726213-P?searchTerm=motor+mount
Zoom in the pic, notice the electrical plug in the left side, near the base.
Honda doesn’t make it so simple any more, do they?
I digress.
Better yet, let Honda/Toyota/MoPar concentrate on the minivan segment, it’s become a niche anyway, and just make sure the coming Traverse/Acadia/Enclave redesign puts them best-in-class.
This adjustable-firmness engine mount is not just limited to Hondas – other automakers also use them for NVH reasons – you can leave the mounts soft at idle to minimize vibrations and then firm them up for on-road cruising.
Or they may soften them when cylinder deactivation is engaged, I’m not sure (have to do some more research on this). I know that my 2001 Odyssey also has controllable mounts but they are controlled by engine vacuum instead.
Yipes, $360.00 for a motor mount. Makes me want to buy a Studebaker.
I remember the GM minivans of the 90s. I liked its “dustbuster” front end appearance. I found it more attractive than Chrysler’s minivans ever were. Another GM van I liked was the Corvair based Greenbrier van. It may not have been as successful as GM was hoping it would, but I believe that it had lots of things for it, lots of good ideas that should’ve been continued. My favourite is its rear mounted engine.
I’m always perplexed by the fact that GM and Ford found it so dizzyingly difficult to come up with anything that would compete with the Chrysler minivans. In 1983 my father came home with a new Voyager after being cajoled into trading in a gorgeous and well-loved 1980 Toronado and returning to the Chrysler fold. (we’d gone 50% GM since 1977 even though his best friend owned a C, P, D dealership. This was of course due to Chrysler’s woes and quality issues of the time, which culminated in what we’d come to refer to as “The Cordoba Fiasco”)
That Voyager defiled our driveway for no longer than 18 months, if I recall correctly. It was reliable, it was practical, it was economical, but it was ugly, underpowered, rattly, uncomfortable, noisy, and it handled like a bar of soap in a wet bathtub. We hated it. Plain and simple. Maybe we weren’t the typical All-American Family (and believe me I could tell some stories…we were certainly NOT), but I find it confounding that GM and Ford couldn’t c ome up with anything to compete with THAT thing.
I’ve always suspected that the problem was based in the competition trying to one-up Chrysler with something flashier or more feature-laden, rather than simply looking at the basic box on a K-Car platform and refining it somewhat. How hard could it really have been? The original Voyager/Caravans were a clever design, but were somewhat laughable, really.
The “Moon Van” as we called it will forever be remembered in our family lore as a failed experiment in mainstreaming. With its two-tone blue paint scheme, wire wheel covers, stand-up hood ornament and corduroy/velour interior, we just couldn’t find anything redeeming about it even if it did purport to make us seem “All-American White Bread”. Years later when the dustbuster vans came out my brothers and I breathed a sigh of relief that those abominations weren’t Chrysler products and hadn’t come first, as Uncle Jack would surely have been able to convince Dad to come rolling home in one of those embarrassments. Talk about a “Moon Van”. Oh brother. On the up-side, our Voyager was traded back to the dealership from whence it came after less than two years, the proceeds (and those things had some pretty astounding resale value at the time) were used largely to fund the purchase of a low-mileage 1983 Jaguar Van den Plas, which we all felt better suited our cantankerous nature as a family. I’m the only member of my clan to have ever owned another minivan (a Nissan Quest, briefly in the 90’s), for which I have been endlessly ribbed by my siblings.
Of course Chrysler took the platform and ran with it to much success and the rest is hostory. In truth I’d love to own an early 00’s Town and Country today, as I see those as the pinnacle of minivandom. But of course I have no need of one. Hindsight is always 20/20 I guess, but from personal experience I just can’t see that the original minivan was all that hard to beat. GM and Ford must have REALLY not thought the concept was going to stick, otherwise I’m pretty sure they could have blown those shitbombs out of the water in short order.
” I just can’t see that the original minivan was all that hard to beat. GM and Ford must have REALLY not thought the concept was going to stick, otherwise I’m pretty sure they could have blown those shitbombs out of the water in short order.”
GM and Ford were like soccer goalies way out of position and flat on their feet. They couldn’t even stop an easy rolling ball. They were scrambling. They figured that they could enter the market faster on RWD platforms. That was probably true but it most likely delayed the development of the FWD platforms. Meanwhile Chrysler had momentum in the market and kept scoring – with shitbombs, as you might say.
I’ve always been a fan of the dustbusters, although I’ve never owned one (had a Caravan C/V customed out on the inside, and currently have and love a 2nd generation Kia Sedona). Just the same, I’ll always love them if for no other reason than the couple of fannish friends who turned theirs into NCC-1701 Galileo shuttlecraft. It was perfect for the application.
Honda’s probably made more mistakes than anybody when it comes to minivans. Yet they kept at it and are generally considered to be one of the best, despite persistent issues including the transmission and now VCM, motor mounts, and a design that looks like two completely separate vehicles slapped together. Where as GM and Ford just gave up. Chrysler is now back with a vengeance as the Pacifica is by all accounts excellent. Even Kia has shown that it really isn’t THAT hard to make a decent van.
My parents bought a 1990 Lumina APV when I was in high school. It wasn’t perfect, but as one of the first in town it garnered a lot of attention. The interior was terribly built, but the drivetrain was decent which was no small matter at the time for a minivan. The modular seats were great.
+1 on the reference to two slapped together vehicles as featured on the Odyssey. Looks like the Chinese thought it was cutting edge style on that Buick GL8 Business Edition.
Some European brands , Renault, Opel or Fiat I think, have used that reverse dipped belt line, which just looks like it’s trying too hard and just plain dumb.
Compared to these Dustbusters the Odyssey looks like two salvaged wrecks welded together just as you suggested.
They’ve taken the same welder to the new Civic, which to my eyes, looks pre-wrecked.
Yeah, I LOLed at the Buick-Chinese mash up. Why would you imitate that Honda design?? OTOH, the Odysseys are so commonplace now it doesn’t affect me visually like they did 5 years ago.
Personally I like the new Civic – at least visually it has a little flair…perhaps a little over the top. Not as scared at night following one as I am the new Prius.
The Dustbusters were always very unique to me. I rented one – a blue Pontiac Transport – in 1996 to take a bunch of guys to Albany, New York for a bowling tournament. I got stopped twice in that stupid van, once for one of the passengers not wearing a seat beat (yes even back then) and the second time was a speeding ticket for doing 82 in a 65 zone. I was surprised that van could even do 82, what with 6 guys on board, their luggage and bowling equipment. It really wasn’t a bad ride at all. No one complained about it anyway. However, I do remember thinking the dashboard was very odd – the top of the dash was huge and the windshield felt like it was miles away. And the tires were wearing strangely – so there was some howl from them at higher speeds. Overall, though, it truly wasn’t that bad.
You must this article about Gmc l’universelle: http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2010/05/30/sia-flashback-luniverselle-front-wheel-drive-in-55/. There were some running prototype which draw their inspiration with the Gm buses transmissions first designed by the engineer Dwight Austin and picked up by Hans Schjolin. Then, the GM executives have found that L’universelle was too costly to produce. Furthermore, this article don’t talk about the attempt of building a minivan with the x-cars base. Look on Facebook’s GMPhotostore
Hey hey, it’s the nine-passenger minivan! Three in the back, three in the middle, two in the front, and one on the dash.
That GMC L’Universelle concept hurts my eyes, but Paul’s zingers make up for that in this enjoyable read.
I know a few people who bought used Ventures because they were dirt cheap and reasonably reliable. (Like Kleenex, use them up and grab another)
I think one Engineer I knew leased a new pug-nosed Uplander but that was strictly a cash flow decision when they had young kids. They drive Acura SUV’s now.
So NO, I don’t know anyone who bought one of these retail.
Having the 3800 V6 and rust free panels would be the way to go to see if you could keep one going forever.
A neighbor had the slightly redesigned Pontiac Transport and due to the rust free body (living in NW Ohio) he replaced far more components and kept it for far longer than he would have most vehicles just because he was that sick of rust. (Although I had known him long enough to remember when he had a Datsun pickup that was crumbling into iron oxide.)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113161/quotes
Chili Palmer: What is that?
Rental Car Attendant: It’s an Oldsmobile Silhouette.
Chili Palmer: I ordered a Cadillac.
Rental Car Attendant: Oh, well, you got the Cadillac of minivans.
this is exactly why I’d pick the Silhouette over the other two if I was looking for one of the GM triplets. I wonder if Olds approved of this product placement? “The Cadillac of minivans” was funnier before Cadillac starting making pick-ups and SUVs.
If it was official product placement, I hope somebody got a bonus for that one. Marketing and branding people tend to be so twitchy and thin-skinned about stuff like that, although the movie script actually walks that delicate line of “joking about the product without making it the butt of the joke” that the old DDB Volkswagen ads managed.
GM had so many great wagons over the 1950-1980 decades that I’ll gladly forgive them for making crappy minivans afterwards.
Even with the plastic panels, “Dusties” are nearly extinct in Chicagoland, aka ‘Saltville”. While 90’s Quests and Mopar vans are still chugging along, with ladders and paint cans.
Even the 1997-08 U bodies are dying off quick. Blue collar buyers stick with what works and lasts.
You must read this article about Gmc l’universelle: http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2010/05/30/sia-flashback-luniverselle-front-wheel-drive-in-55/. There were some running prototypes which draw their inspiration of the Gm buses transmissions first designed by the engineer Dwight Austin and picked up by Hans Schjolin for a fwd application. In addition, the La Salle II concept was a non-functionning rwd car but , initially, i’m inclined to agree with you: this concept should have to be a FWD car. Then, the GM executives have found that L’universelle was too costly to produce. Furthermore, this article don’t talk about the attempt, in 1973, of building a minivan with the x-cars base. Look on Facebook’s GMPhotostore
I checked Opel’s website, GM Europe offers 3 different MPVs these days: the Combo Tour, the Meriva and the Zafira Tourer.
Plus of course the “real” vans, the Vivaro and the 17-seater 🙂 Movano below.
And why aren’t they building those here, to properly compete with the Euro-style Transit and Ram ProMaster? GM is getting left behind in the full size van market.
Beats me. Renault is the leading party in designing these modern vans; but since Renault does not exist in the US, that shouldn’t be the problem to bring them over.
Renault Trafic = Opel~Vauxhall Vivaro (see below) = Fiat Talento.
Renault Master = Opel~Vauxhall Movano = Nissan NV400.
OMG what an eyesore.
When the Dustbusters first came out my wife and I bought a Chevy Astro conversion van (it seemed like a good idea at the time). I remember being at the dealership, waiting on the paperwork to be completed, when one of the salesmen struck up a conversation with me. We got to talking about the various vehicles in the showroom and he assured me that within 4 or 5 years all vehicles would look like the Lumina APV. I’ve always wondered if he really believed that or was just some kind of blithering idiot.
Uh, vehicles today DO have steeply raked windshields and massive dashboards beneath. My Civic can easily carry a pizza on the dash. Paul is right though, the the dustbuster vans were too much too soon. The cars that got there more slowly were accepted just fine.
I took his comment to refer to the overall shape of the vehicle and not necessarily the interior. Nearly all minivans look alike today but few, if any, really look like a Dustbuster. Most cars today do have steeply raked windshields but not all of them have the extensive horizontal area of the Lumina APV and its corporate cousins. My Mustang has little horizontal area, you could probably put a sandwich on the top of the dash but not a pizza. Back in the early oughts we had a PT Cruiser and it essentially had no horizontal area behind the instrument panel at all, for all practical purposes the dash panel was directly beneath the windshield.
I wouldn’t like to clean the Civic’s windshield after the heat from the pizza fogs it up – it was bad enough in my Mazda 3.
My parents were loyal GM buyers for most their time on earth. (Dad’s first new car was a 56 Chevy convertible with the top engine option!) They had a Dustbuster Trans-Sport with the 3800. I drove it once or twice. I recall taking a curved freeway ramp at reasonable speed and having the sensation of the thing tipping inordinately far. I took corners slower after that.
The replacement was a U-body Montana with a 3400. I both rode in and drove that one many miles. I actually liked it. It was the long wheelbase version; rounding city corners felt about like driving a bus. The engine had enough power and great torque, the 4-speed THM was excellent, the steering had good feel, got good MPG, nice highway cruiser. It would corner well enough. I got used to setting the front suspension with a quick move of the wheel when entering a corner. Yes, it could have been wider, and the rear seats were not very comfortable.
The thing that did GM in (its replacement was a Honda) was the recurring intake manifold leak, and the oil leak from Day 1 that the dealer was unable/unwilling to fix. Later learned there were ways to permanently solve the intake manifold leak, and the oil leak was probably just the cover over the vestigial hole where the distributor used to go. And, the piston-slap sound that so many of the 3400s made (not sure what it really was or if it was a problem. Wasn’t really objectionable after the engine was fully warm. I drove it gently when cold [as I do all my cars] just in case.) Sorry GM, this was their last GM vehicle. (For my part, I’d seen enough when I was growing up and riding in the predecessor cars. Nice cars, but most all had expensive problems at low mileages.)
Dustbuster and, in the words of John Travolta, “The Cadillac of minivans” heehee
Looks like Honda liked the beltline on GM’s Chinese GL8 Business Edition. It looks a lot like the current Odyssey’s beltline!
Here it is…
I sort of, kind of, have a bit of a guilty pleasure liking of these things. They’re stupid, but I don’t know, they have a certain indelible charm to them that’s hard for me to hate.
Although, I can see how this failed, its design. Or rather, the faults with its design. See, the design choices made to make it look cool, are also what hamper the driving experience significantly. That’s nothing new obviously, supercars have long been masters of sacrificing driving convenience in the name of style. But the differences between the six figure garage toy and the below 50k family hauler meant to be used as a daily driver are pretty substantial, the design flaws that are forgiven in supercars for the noveau riche are less forgiving when your target audience is middle class suburbia. I’ve never driven or ridden in one of these (I grew up in the early-mid-late 2000s when the SUV craze had supplanted minivans as the preferred kiddie hauler), but just looking at photos makes me see the problems that hamper the driving experience.
Still, I kind of do like them. If for no other reason than they’re incredibly goofy design.
Another great article, Paul–you’d nailed it. One thing that I’ll add is that Iacocca had the gift of being able to anticipate future trends in the marketplace. He did it with the Mustang (anticipating the baby boomer generation wanting something definitively theirs), and he did it with the minivans at Chrysler…..and was way ahead of the curve. So ahead that as you mention, GM didn’t ever have a proper answer to it. Had he worked at GM instead of Chrysler, you wonder how radically the history would have changed.
Iacocca tried to sell the minivan idea to Henry Ford II in the mid-late ’70s but Ford wasn’t interested. That one was based on a RWD platform then available.
When Iacocca was ceremoniously dumped from Ford and then ‘saved’ Chrysler, looks like he got the proverbial last laugh.
The Mustang was a response to the Corvair Monza.
One minor point on the Venture; the ” Pep-Boys worthy cheap bright grille” is what it had at launch. The “regular” horizontal-split Chevy grille the greige one pictured further up is the third- or fourth-year facelift.
Oh my…just confirms how forgettable they are. Now I’m going to have to fix it. 🙁
Very complete coverage of a LOLworthy
succession(no, that has the word “success” built in) series of slackassed, tonedeaf, thoroughly mediocre vehicles bearing the GM Mark of Excrement™. Pretty much all that’s missing is a rear shot of the European version of the Dustbuster van. GM chose to meet the Europe/rest-of-world lighting regs by putting three of the functions (tail, stop, turn) up in the pillar clusters and the other three (reverse, rear fog, rear reflector) down by the license plate. Just throw those anywhere; see attached. The front lighting on the Euro/ROW model was pathetic, too: they took a low beam too small to give decent performance even with a bulb that used the whole available area, and fitted it with an archaic type of bulb (H4) that uses only half the total reflector/lens area to amplify and focus the light. The low beams were thus rendered even less adequate than the notoriously nightblind ’96-’00 Chrysler minivans.The lighting was equally but differently dumb on the domestic model; I can’t think of another vehicle ever to have come with a CLMSL instead of the legally-required CHMSL (Centre High-Mounted Stop Lamp).
Daniel, that back shot ain’t too bad. Range Rover-ish.
The minivan wars are always a fascinating auto industry study. Iacocca hit the jackpot in 1983 and it took a full fifteen years until any of Chrysler’s competitors would finally come up with a worthwhile competing product in the brand-new 1999 Honda Odyssey with the magic folding third row seat. Until then, everyone (and not just GM) seemed to be going around in circles, trying to one-up Chrysler with the ‘next best thing’. It just never happened and Chrysler pretty much had the market to themselves for at least a decade and a half.
So, yeah, GM laid an egg with the Dustbusters, but so did everyone else with their minivan efforts for a long time, too. What is really amazing is how two of the biggest players, GM and Ford, eventually just threw in the towel and gave up. The minivan market may not be what it once was, but it is still substantial enough that Chrysler, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, and Kia are all still in the game.
Never cared for these, would have preferred the Astro. But for some reason they were quite poular here in Sweden in the 90’s.
My best friend’s parents were looking at a Dustbuster (likely the Silhouette, as they had a Bravada at one point) when they were new, and my friend was horrified. She made a comment to the effect of “Disgusting! I will NOT be seen in one of those!”. Her point was heard, loud and clear. I think that sums up a lot of why these were not successful. A flashy minivan has yet to become a “thing”. The Taurus wagon they settled on was viewed as less embarrassing…
My favorite description of the Dustbusters was when Car and Driver said they looked like something Batman would drive on vacation.
The prototype pictured about halfway down through
this article was also visible at EPCOT Center when
I visited there, late 1980s.
I liked the “dustbuster” look of the Lumina APV, the Oldsmobile Silhouette, and the Pontiac Tran Sport. I don’t know why it’s called GM’s deadly sin. I believe that Chevy’s deadliest sins include the Vega, the Citation, and the V8 Diesel engine for their cars. The way their diesel engines were designed, no damn wonder public perception of diesel is so negative. 🙁
If I could find a good running Lumina APV, I’d have a Duramax 4 cylinder diesel engine inside the engine compartment.
To me, the ultimate silliness of the Lumina APV was the difficulty of third row access. While most minivans had a gap allowing access beside the sliding door, the dustbusters required you to fold down the seat and do some climbing. They spent all that time and effort creating a radical design that would attract buyers from Chrysler, and they didn’t take the most basic practicality measures into consideration.
I think the problem is not GM’s inability to produce a minivan, they’ve been doing that since the Astro 30 yrs ago, maybe longer. The problem is customer’s unwillingness to try new things. Customers are so used to Chrysler’s version of the minivan, that when Chevrolet tries its hand at the same thing, with the Lumina APV, people are like “What?!” or “Seriously?! Is that the best you can do?”
Indeed, Toyota must’ve come around to concluding that what American buyers most wanted was a shameless Voyager clone with better engineering & reliability, hence the Sienna, which like the Chryslers, shares its platform with their midsized FWD sedan.
I was never a fan of the Toyota Sienna. I preferred the Toyota Previa. I found it way more attractive than the Sienna.
I have to say I actually LIKED the spaceship styling of these vans. The 3.1 V6 wasn’t anything special, and a TBI 3.1 and 3-speed auto was kind of painful to drive. (I would bet a 2.6 Caravan would dust it.) The 3100/4-speed wasn’t bad, and the 3800…is a 3800, the best V6 ever built. I have seen a couple APVs that wound up over 300,000 hard miles as taxis.
I agree with you. While it may not have been to everyone’s liking, I liked its styling. I’ve seen other vans that were more bizarre than the Lumina, but I also liked. 🙂
I liked the Previa, too. 😀 My only real complaint with it was the base engine just not being enough.
That, and the weird, expensive, super-huge wipers it needed.
I agree. The Previa’s engine room didn’t leave much room for anything larger than a 2.4 litre 4 cylinder engine. I would’ve liked the 2.2 litre turbo diesel engine that was available for most markets, but it was never available (unforgivably) for the US market.
They offered a supercharged version of the same engine…much more power and about the same mileage, albeit on, IIRC, mid grade gas. Good friend had a 92 (he needed a car, it was there & cheap)…over 260,000 miles on it, the A/C blew cold front and rear (!), it had the original compressor, water pump, and u joints.
He was convinced it was going to die, and when it needed a $500+ exhaust repair, he traded it.
It is still going, about 300,000 miles on it now.
I once saw a non-supercharged AWD Previa…that would be REALLY slow.
I’ll bet he wishes he hadn’t gotten rid of the van. It’s a shame that Toyota discontinued the Previa when they did. I remember when the Previa was on the market. At the time I thought it was better looking than Chrysler’s minivans. I got to ride in one as a passenger when I was visiting England years ago. Although it was a rather short ride, between Heathrow Airport to the Tube, I found it more comfortable than my current car, a 2006 Toyota Corolla.
When I did railroad work, the FRA inspectors were driving those pug-nosed Chevy’s, had to stifle myself as I waved to them with a smile. Those *were* just right for government work. Something about that design made the driver look like a gormless victim.
You say dustbuster, I said anteater at the time. I once thought of finding large scale plastic ants to put under the schnoz on one for a gag.
Put Stephanie in an Element for a few miles, pick an early EX with the rear sunroof you can sleep under. The Aztec will look sad after that, drug-king imprimatur non-with.
The Lumina APV came to Brazil by independent importers (GMB availed the possibility of official importation, however it never gone beyond the studies). Now imagine people who always get used to see European based old fashioned cars like Chevette, Kadett E, VW Santana, Fiat Uno, Rabbit-like VW Gol, etc… and come across with something like this for the first time… only Citroën XM caused the same visual impact of an OVNI in streets. Together with the Chevrolet Vectra A GSI and Calibra, the Lumina APV was the most notable GM in Brazil, but like those Opel cars, a very few people could afford pay what it cost here… What I love must on it is the exaggerated style with elegance, still today it definitely doesn’t look a 25 years old car. Maybe if it had the same proportion of the nose from the Renault Space, it would be more functional without loosing it’s American style.
I imagine. For some reason, the Citroen XM was never offered here in the USA. My guess is that it was too expensive, not just to buy, but to maintain. I’ve always liked the “Dustbuster” look of the Chevy Lumina that was sold here in North America. Why it’s called a “Deadly Sin” is beyond me. I’ve seen other GM vehicles that are far more deserving of being called a “Deadly Sin.”
I love these first-generation U-Bodies. Are they less practical than the Mopar minivans? Yup. Are they perfect? Nope. But while I generally am indifferent to minivan designs, this one appeals to me. If I had to buy some winter beater minivan, I would get one of these.
Depending on seat position, the driver’s head in a Dustbuster van is at or close to the front-rear centerline of the wheelbase and the vehicle’s overall length. That’s just silly in a vehicle that is supposed to maximize passenger and cargo space.
I always thought the Dust Busters would look fine as a pick up. Remove everything aft of the b’ pillars, whack off the remainder of the roof, close up the space behind the two front seats,fill in the right rear door and, viola, there you have it..It would make a nice Silhouette, if that pun is allowed.
What you’d be left with is something resembling a Tesla Cybertruck. Not sure if you’d call that a styling success.
GM makes some astonishingly ugly cars out of good-looking concepts. When they start cost-cutting they drift so far from what made the concept appealing that they’d be better off starting with a clean sheet.
The Trans Sport concept was pretty slick. If they’d kept that in production, minus the glasshouse roof and gullwing doors, it really would have been something. Instead they ended up with an ungainly mess of weird shapes and impracticalities. It looks like the guy designing the front half wasn’t on speaking terms with the guy designing the back half.
Likewise the Aztek was developed from a concept, but when they cost-cut it onto an ill-suited existing platform it became an ugly freak.
I’ve seen some GM cars in the past 20 yrs. that I find hideous to look at. I’d be embarrassed to be seen in, much less around.
Except for the Chevy and GMC trucks, including the Colorado and Canyon, I find what’s being offered today to be hideous to look at.
Surely the Renault Espace got there first, with a design by Matra, and rejected by Chrysler.
My parents, loyal GM buyers long after they might have switched (a neighbor was a Pontiac salesman), bought a Dustbuster Pontiac with the 3800, and then a 1999 Trans Sport with the 3400. I drove both enough to have impressions.
Didn’t drive the Dustbuster much, but when I did, I had the impression that the thing was overly tippy in turns. I don’t know if it was an optical illusion due to all the flat dash in front of me, or if it really was a wallowing whale. That dash sure was odd.
Took a long trip in the Trans Sport with the family. Was something Dad wanted to do as a last thing we’d all do together (he’d been given a dire diagnosis). The back seats were horribly uncomfortable. The thing drove ok; I didn’t mind driving it. Learned to get the front end set in a corner, don’t know how to describe it; seemed to corner ok for a big vehicle. The engine and transmission were decent performers & gave good economy.
Its downfall was the perpetually leaking intake manifold gasket that had to be repaired more than once, and that it dripped oil on the garage floor from Day 1 & the dealer was no help. The oil turned out to be (as I’ve read here or somewhere) from a blanking disk where the distributor would’ve gone.
Mom went to a Honda CRV when the gov’t bought it for Cash for Clunkers.
Sometimes, the best part of these reposts is reading through 5-year-old comments with the benefit of hindsight.
In a 2016 comment, our esteemed editor wonders why GM is still building “archaic” cargo vans, and why weren’t they importing an Opel? I guess we now know the answer to that one – GM was thinking of selling the entire Opel brand. And they did, so 6 years later, GM is *still* building archaic vans!
On a minivan-adjacent note… I’m sad that the true minivans of the last 20 years, the NV200, Transit Connect, and Promaster City are all dead by 2024. Either they weren’t popular enough or they weren’t profitable enough. Used values are climbing already.
Looking back this article seems to have not aged well. No GM most definitely did not make a successful minivan, but then few outside of Chrysler did. I guess you could call Honda and to a lesser degree Toyota semi-successful, although Toyota would rather not talk about Previa sales numbers. and Honda would rather not talk about transmissions.
Now minivans have become almost irrelevant in today’s SUV and CUV dominated marketplace. Talking about who makes a sucessful minivan is like talking about who makes the best VHS player.
The Lumina APV typifies GM design philosophy-put the money where the customer can see it-namely styling and everything else gets pushed to the back burner. When that vehicle crashed and burned they made an about turn with the 1997 vehicle which looked like a mediocre copy of Chrysler’s original minivan. I have heard stories that the 2005 vans with the huge nose on them were Bob Lutz’s idea being that people were buying SUV’s like crazy and making the van look like one would guarantee success. If that story is true, then Bob Lutz’s career at GM needs a total reevaluation.
And oddly, Hyundai/Kia are trying the exact same gambit with the new Carnival, but no one seems keen to criticize them about it. Probably because the Kia offering is insignificant in this market.
There’s a very big difference: GM just slapped on a fake bulbous front end on their existing (and aged) minivan; the Carnival is a totally new and original design that incorporates some of the best of both minivans and SUVs.
Why should anyone criticize it? It looks good, and is cohesive. Very much unlike those 2005-up GM vans.
Wow I really like that L’Universalle concept van; I see hints of everything from a ’55 Nomad (in the greenhouse) to a ’63 Riviera (the grille – just change to quad headlamps) worked into its design. But then I look at the mechanicals… yeah, I’m pretty sure that design would have any cooling problems in real-life use, lol. It’s like those Jowett Jupiter sports cars that had chronic overheating problems, probably because the the radiator was *behind* the engine instead of in front of it. Apparently no one got a glimpse of these before production began to tell the engineers “hey, you’re doing it wrong!”. The steering column/linkage is as bonkers as the radiator placement. I remember riding in the 2nd row of a 1980s Toyota van and how isolated I felt from the front row occupants sitting behind the engine doghouse that separated us, compared to the open feeling in Chrysler’s minivans where you could easily walk between the two rows of seats. But the second and third rows of the L’Universalle are practically in a different room from the first row. Is there a wall there? I do like the rear cargo door setup though (pic below) which opens without making you take a step back so the hatch door has room to clear. Anyway, from what I’ve read while the show car was a non-running “pusher”, GM did build some running prototypes of these for testing. As with modern vans, it was intended to be buildable as a panel van, a family wagon, a camper, special-purpose vehicles like ambulances, and more, but it could only handle 1,000 lbs. of cargo, limiting its usefulness as a truck.
The Pontiac Trans Sport concept is one of the few show cars I’ve seen up close in real life. It was shown at the World of Motion attraction at Epcot Center the first time I was there. I didn’t expect even a watered-down version of this to reach production.
I drove a rental dustbuster van through a snowfall once and found the triangular windows between the windshield and door got covered with snow that the wipers of course couldn’t reach, resulting in huge blind spots requiring pulling over to clear them every twenty minutes. Not a good design.
I feel obliged to point out that avoiding the “acres of dash between you and the base of the windshield” issue was a big part of why the much-maligned 1999 Fiat Multipla looked like it did: The greenhouse had very tall windows and an ultra-low beltline to maximize visibility, without shoving the leading edge of the windscreen forward the way the U-body minivans did. The results are basically the opposite of the Trans Sport or Silhouette: It looks deeply odd, but it has fewer practical drawbacks, with expansive visibility and a windshield you can reach without being Stretch Armstrong or Reed Richards.
I had a couple of these, a 90 Lumina APV 3.1 and a 92 Trans Sport 3800. They were built on a slightly modified A body platform, most of the underpinnings including the entire front end and firewall was the same. Had many A bodies too. There was no wasted space, and no change in driving position (just higher) compared to the Celebrity wagon which the APV was intended to replace. The windshield and dash simply extended over the engine. That’s it. Which made it more difficult to work on. These were a more radically styled way of following Chrysler’s formula of building a van out of car parts, with carlike handling and would fit in a garage. Even like Chrysler used the Reliant instrument cluster, GM used the Corsica and Grand Prix clusters.
I was only 13 when these came out, but I loved the styling of these. Unlike other later vans that looked like a jellybean, these had a lean shape with clean lines. I ended up giving the 90 to someone in a breakup, and the 92 had over 300k on it and ran great, just the rust was getting the best of it. It still towed my camper and firewood trailer just fine too.
The 3.1 engine was certainly adequate even with a family of 5, and having a V6 as an initial engine was better than Chrysler did. GM’s existing 3800/4 speed would have bolted in, however I don’t think GM was comfortable with it holding up under the weight of the van. The 3.1 MPFI could have done it but with a lot of noise revving itself silly. So GM dumped the parts bin on the floor like a bucket of Legos, found the iron head 2.8 retired in 1986, put in a 3.1 stroker kit, put on a 1987 MPFI front cover and brackets, and a S10 TBI unit, to make a 3.1 with a lower peak torque. When the 4T60E was ready for 92, bigger brakes were added too, and the performance finally matched the appearance. I think that was the only sin, not living up to the appearance at first impression. It’s a fine line, because waiting could let other competitors get there first, but waiting would give you a better initial product.
GM confused the market with the presence of both these, and the Astro / Safari minivans at the same time. Customers couldn’t decide whether they wanted a grocery getting sporty looking van, or a sturdier van that was a smaller version of Uncle Joe’s G-series Vandura.
On the way home as the Not-Mopar family were debating the two choices, they passed a Chrysler dealer, and everyone said, “Let’s stop in there, those vans look nice, and Aunt Jo has a Plymouth Reliant she really likes!” Deals were struck by the thousands.