Way back in 2011, Jim Cavanaugh asked the question in regard to the Chevy Astro: “How Hard Can It Be To Make A Minivan?” The essence of it was why GM and Ford didn’t essentially copy Chrysler’s formula for its very successful FWD minivans (Caravan/Voyager). Although the taller RWD Chevy Astro and Ford Aerostar didn’t sell as well as the Chrysler twins, they did sell in healthy numbers, and filled some niches that the Chryslers didn’t.
With the benefit of hindsight, it’s now become all-too obvious that the Astro not only had a very long run, to 2005, but their survival rate is much higher than the early Chryslers and Aerostar, both of which have become rather rare. I see gobs of Astros all the time, and the AWD versions are highly coveted and equally highly-priced. And they’re cult objects in Japan. I knew this almost-pristine swb van was from before the 1995 front end restyle, but according to its license plate, it’s a 1985.
This van has me slightly stumped, since it’s a non-window body typically used by (and loved) by the trades and such. But it has a two-tone paint job, and it’s in such good nick. One of those mysteries.
According to the VIN, it’s got the 4.3 L V6. Did they actually make many with the 2.5 L Iron Duke? If so, they must have been a bit poky, and undoubtedly their survival rate was likely lower.
The Astro had a few shortcoming, like a lack of legroom for the driver and front passenger. But they obviously didn’t get in the way of it becoming one of the all-time long-life vehicles. A simple and common drive train in a compact box had, and still has enduring appeal.
This is one of the list of vehicles I see all the time in Las Vegas and forget they’re rare in other parts of the country. One of my neighbors has one, in a two-tone of mocha and dark teal, with a very 90s graphic stripe that resembles a 90s Solo beverage cup. It’s a window van, but I can’t tell if it’s passenger or cargo, as the windows have a deep tint.
My sense is that the cargo vans survive, but a lot of the passenger versions were lost in the Cash 4 Clunkers scheme of the early oughts. Passenger vehicles qualified, but cargo vehicles did not.
The mix was increasingly heavily skewed to cargo models as the production run went on. Most family-car buyers looking for something this truckish had moved on to body-on-frame SUVs by the mid ’90s but utilities and cable companies were still ordering Astro vans by the hundreds, many of them still doing the same job but now in the hands of people who’d been “independent contractor”‘d
The Astro is a great example of the old adage, “GM vehicles continue to run badly, when other vehicles cease to run at all”.
It’s also a great example of GM vehicles that refuse to die and go away no matter how hard you wish they would!
Nice find. This version, with the short wheelbase and before the restyle, is my absolute favorite. Great colors too.
Pity that they’re such deathtraps in a crash.
The regular and EXT versions of the Astro/Safari used the same 111″ WB, just with a 10″ stretch behind the axle. Ironically, GM would later do the opposite with the 12- and 15-passenger full-size vans.
I like them, but all the ones I see in the wrecking yard, have been utter deathtraps in collisions.
They are long lived due to the reasonably stout GM RWD drivetrain and useful size, almost as much room as a big van, but way more nimble.
The commercials for these were literally out of this world lol.
GM pitched these as family vehicles that competed with Chrysler’s minivans in their first few years before it became obvious that wouldn’t fly. GM responded by bringing forth the FWD dustbuster vans, then the U vans, then those same vans restyled to look more like SUVs (and do better in crash tests). None of those sold very well, but the Astro found its niche with commercial customers, as well as a few private buyers who preferred the RWD/AWD layout and towing capacity. Chevy then conceded these were basically trucks, not minivans – note the ’95 facelift gave it a big grille that looked like it was off a Silverado.
The Mercedes-Benz Metris serves this same market today – people who want something a bit taller and truck-ier than a typical minivan. It uses a turbo four instead of a big V6, but still can tow 5,000 lbs. Plus, there’s room for both feet.
As strictly a work vehicle with only OCCASIONAL passenger use, the Metris is without a doubt the closest successor to the Astro. It has the most interior & payload capacity of ANY non-full-size van in the current US market. A lot of them are now being used as USPS vans with the Mecerdes-Benz star on the grille swapped out for an eagle head (the USPS logo).
As a passenger vehicle, however, is where “ordinary” minivans are clearly the better choice for most drivers with families, especially at the same or similar price range. By far one of the biggest issues is the fact that NONE of the rear seats fold at all, and they are EXTREMELY HEAVY when trying to remove them, ditto for any US full-size van. Even the Astro’s seats folded when you needed to get them out! Doug DeMuro did a good job of pointing out all the Metris’s weak spots in this 25-minute video:
Durable work van, never seen one at the dealership with the 4 cylinder. Did by the AWD units when I was a fleet manager, definitely better then the Aerostars. However GM did manage to piss off many customers with stupid problems. Early years had head gasket problems, A/C belts that died in weeks, 700R4 transmissions dying left and right. Then once they have most of the problems solved they come up with the one of there all time great screw ups, putting the fuel injectors, lines INSIDE the intake manifold, what moron thought that was a good idea? What moron supervisor let this get past the first review? Typically a bad injector would be a minor repair with a reasonable bill. Bad injector in this setup, well, we recommend replacing the entire system do to the amount of labor required to do this job. Wow!
Nice vehicles as long as you don’t have feet to awkwardly stuff into a too small space, and definitely don’t get in a frontal crash. It wouldn’t have taken much to make these a grand slam homerun, but this was “peak GM” at a time when that wasn’t a compliment.
Definitely a cult vehicle, very popular especially in AWD form with mountain bikers, climbers etc in the western US. In fact I think I even see more RWD Aerostars still chugging along out here than early Chrysler minivans. In some ways the AWD Astro/Safari was the predecessor of the Honda Element.
I had no idea these had ever been offered with a 4. Wow. I bet the take rate was pretty low.
If I recall correctly, a manual transmission was offered for the first year or so. I wonder if it was only available with the 4-banger?
We had a bunch of these at work. Several of the techs had accidents when ABS issues rendered the brakes inoperable. I don’t know if the issue was widespread or whether there was a recall.
Yes, I owned a 1986 4 cylinder 5 speed Astro conversion van for a couple years, curiously without factory A/C. It wasn’t fast but it got out of its own way, as the short body wasn’t especially big.
We owned a ’90 Mazda MPV with a 2.6 l 4-banger and a 5-speed manual. It drove beautifully, and had plenty of power in real life, if not on paper (149 HP if I recall correctly).
Based on that experience, I do not automatically dismiss 4-cylinder engines as being too small for a minivan.
Oops – I was optimistic on the HP. Torque was 149 lb-ft, but HP was only 121.
But again, the power was adequate, and the engine was reliable and reasonably good on gas.
I4 availability was par for the course, at least at the beginning, considering that the competing Caravan/Voyager wouldn’t get any V6 until halfway through 1987. Ford’s Aerostar would have a 2.3L I4 on the early models as well.
Wikipedia says the I4s were reserved for cargo vans, and I’ve always interpreted that as including models that were intended as conversion vans too.
Manuals were only available on the first 5 years of production, so you couldn’t get a manual van with AWD or the EXT body. The standard 4-speed manual was a Saginaw 4-speed in ’85-86, and a Borg-Warner T4 in ’87-89. I believe those were only available on I4s. The 5-speed was a Borg-Warner T5 for all 5 years, available on both I4 and V6.
With FWD minivans now a niche market, since some parents “refuse to buy one”. So in reality, the Astro was far from a “flop” and long term success.
Better question is “How hard can it be to keep FWD minivans a vital product?” as opposed to the mocking from general public?
Astute observation. I have noticed many of these still on the road as well. What is it that killed the Fords and Chryslers earlier than the Astros?
The FWD transaxles-automatic transmissions have a high rate of failure. I don’t know about the Ford, but the early Chrysler mini vans all had bad engines. You can visit the U pull it wrecking yards and see hundreds of FWD mini vans, appearing in perfect condition, most of them the tranny went out and too costly to repair.
I still see them regularly in the northeast, and still love the packaging. A good friend bought one new and totaled it off the side of the Palisades Parkway. He walked away.
Thought of another comment. Some friends of mine were considering a Chrysler mini van, I don’t remember the year, but at least 25 years ago. Anyway, they had me take it on a test drive, and I said well it seems OK. So they bought it and went for a trip in the mountains. Next thing the tranny went out. They spent something like $3500 to have the trans rebuilt. Drove if for a while, not even a year, then the engine went out!!!
It’s amazing how many of these stayed in fleet service until shockingly recently, There is catering company a few blocks from my house that used a fleet of them until about 2-3 years ago. I noticed a chevy express in the fleet for about a year, that was replaced by a promaster in short wheelbase low roof guise. Since then all the astro’s have since been replaced by more of the same type of promaster. I’m guessing the promaster met their space and efficiency needs,
I also used to volunteer with a fellow who owned an electrical service company, he had a few fullsize vans but also 6-7 Astro vans all the way up until about 2015.
These are certainly still around, with a set of virtues quite different than the competition. The driver legroom alone would have DQ’d one for me, after driving my sisters AWD version. I’m merely tallish, at 6’1″ and a 34″ inseam, but clearly recall the tightness and lack of foot room due to the intruding wheel well.
I was surprised to see an Aerostar at work recently, you just don’t see them anymore. The USPS used to have a bunch of Aerostar and Windstar cargo vans that replaced the last of the postal Jeeps.
Several mentions of the Astro’s poor performance in crash tests above, so I’m watching the video of the IIHS crash test ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kuSghb7P7U ). What the hell happened here? Everything looks good at first as the airbag deploys, then suddenly the van seems to crumble at the B pillar taking the driver’s seat along with it.
Wow – that’s horrifyingly weak body construction.
Considering these have a chassis, that must need major reinforcement behind the front wheel area, for the body to be able to fold up like that, unless the body mounting bolts gave way. The driver isn’t supposed to be part of the crumple zone. It’s a wonder these weren’t yanked from the market.
Great colour scheme on this one. They still look very modern, wearing current alloy wheels. Even better, lowered. I like the simplicity of the early grille and dual headlights. I found they looked more futuristic in their standard length. The extended vans, made them look more conventional.
A friend of mine had one for ever. It was his daily driver and they also used it for weekend basic camping. When it finally really died he replaced it with a Honda Element. He said it was the closest replacement he could find, and I think he was right.
I had two of these, an ’85 in 1997, and a ’94 from 2000-04. If I were in the market for a mid-size or small van again, I’d get another with no hesitation.
I had a pair of these, supplied by my employer, about a 93 and a 2000. For a facilities service vehicle, they weren’t bad. A decent amount of space inside, but small enough outside to be easy to get around in. I didn’t put a ton of miles on either, most of my driving was in a campus type area but I don’t recall a lot of problems with them, at least not in terms of breaking down. Both had the 4.3 engine, the later one with noticeably more punch, but at the cost of a couple of MPG. A/C was terrible in the earlier one, output air would be pushing 70F in stop and go traffic. The 00 was better, I got that one brand new, but not great.
As one with a near visceral hatred of GM products, these weren’t bad as a modest sized trade truck. I did have one complaint, right where my knee often rested while driving was exactly where the door lock was, sticking out half an inch or so, right into my knee.
In Israel those were more popular than all the Mopar and Ford vans of that era put together given their legendary reliability with the 4.3 (yes, as people noted above the term is relative – they broke down but were easy to repair at a reasonable price). They are well into collector status by now.
I still remember my conversion process that came about in writing that piece on these in 2011. At the end of my research and after thinking about it, I came away with a respect for these that I had not gone into the process with.
In fact, I was a little jealous – imagine if Chrysler of the 80s-90s could have built it’s fabulous vehicles with Astro-level durability? Old beater Chrysler minivans would have ruled the world.
The Astro is probably the prototypical GM vehicle of the era. There were significant design trade-offs (foot room, crashworthiness, fuel consumption) and some problems with spotty quality. And they were going for mass-market, but whiffed. But they stuck with it, let the market find the vehicle, and did enough updates to keep it appealing to that niche.
I still have one. Had another one before this one put 430000 on it. This one has 290 on it still got lots of life left in it. I can fit 2 of my cafe racers in it. Brakes and tires regular oil changes and a few other minor problems. When this one dies I’ll be looking for #3.
I owned a vehicle leasing company and most of my accounts were in the contracting field…telecommunications, security, electrical, etc. I leased hundreds of Chevrolet Astro and GMC Safari cargo vans. They were superb light duty commercial vehicles and had great resale value even with high mileage. To me they are still contemporary looking and it was a real shame that GM discontinued these great vans.
I bought a ’95 Astro cargo van about 4 months ago for $600 with 327,000 miles on it. Just had the transmission rebuilt a month ago. So far so good. Eventually it will become a small camper that I can pull my 18′ boat with. Looking forward to the project.
I have a 2003 astro AWD got it from some incredible people it had 133,000 miles on it . I took the backseats out and used it to pick furniture and I have hauled an ungodly amount of furniture in that little van . I have redone the front ends a couple of times replaced the distributer once . Went through about 3 sets of new tires and put over 120,000 miles on it and it is still going strong even though I have abused the hell out of it . No major probs and nothing I haven’t been able to tackle myself and I am no mechanic by far . Love it
I’ve driven both the Aerostar along with the (later) Astro. The Aerostar was a standard wheelbase ’88 with the 3.0 Vulcan. NOW before I go any further I’m non-denominational to makes, but raised GM all the way. I wanted to love the Astro with its better driveline along with the attractive lines. Always did like them. To me, and to live with everyday.. The Aerostar hands down. The Chevy had incredible torque “right there” off idle. By 98 it felt cheap, tin-ey, the fuel pump was obnoxiously loud among other things. The Aerostar was more comfortable, handled better, braked better, rode better with its stretched end to end wheelbase. The 3.0 did adequate. From a roll it would downright haul ass if you punched it. The only downfall was the transmission. The transmission was not forgiving to fluid change neglect, and would fold altogether in 70 to 100,000 miles if used in any demanding circumstances. I believe there would be more of those on the road if this weren’t the case. That’s just my opinion. HOWEVER, the earlier Astro was probably the better built vans I suspect. TBI 4.3 was really super reliable, 700R4 trans, the better interior.. The 1985 Astro had the 4.3 with 4-barrel Quadrajet carb! Hot Damn!! Ooh on second thought I’ll take that!
Yet thousands like me have had no such tragedies –have owned several and own one now.