Our 1994 Ford Aerostar: The Minivan That Carried Our Family Through It All

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– Posted on May 13, 2026

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I have always joked that I was my mother’s mid-life crisis. My parents married at 18, and did not have children until their early 30’s. They had only planned to have two children but my mother, then 36, made the snap decision to have one more. I did not fit the plan, nor did I fit into my parents’ cars. And in anticipation of my arrival, my parents purchased their first and only minivan: a 1994 red and gray Ford Aerostar.

While my mother had tolerated wrangling two children into the low-slung 1986 Taurus that served as their family car, she was not willing to do so for three children. She was equally unwilling to crawl into the back of my father’s 1984 GMC Jimmy. Both cars were also stick-shift, and my mother did not want to put up with three screaming children and a clutch.

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1991 Aerostar 4WD ad.

In what was probably the first and last time my father capitulated to my mother’s automotive wishes, my father agreed to trade the Taurus in on a new 1994 Ford Aerostar. My father, ever the spirited driver, selected a 4.0 Cologne V6-equipped model, making 160 horsepower and, more importantly, 220 lb-ft of torque. This power was directed to all four wheels via a four-speed automatic transmission and Ford’s E4WD system, which allowed for full-time four-wheel drive.

Furthermore, ours was the extended-length model, allowing our family of two adults, three children, and three guinea pigs to carry whatever we wanted in comfort. And we would be quite comfortable indeed, as the van was well-equipped. While I do not recall all the options, I do remember the sound system could be controlled in the middle row, and I do not recollect ever feeling cramped in the van. My father never complained about the options, but he did and still does complain that the van was a minivan.

Rusted Aerostar
The closest I have seen to ours. Just rustier. Source: canadiancatgreen on CC Cohort

In early 1994, I came home from the hospital in the Aerostar for the first time. It became one of the places I spent most of my time in; I can still vividly remember the subtle pattern in the gray cloth upholstery, the aforementioned radio controls, and the shape of the distinctive headrests.

As far as minivans go, it was quite competent. It would happily swallow anything you threw at it and carry it wherever you wanted to carry it to in a foot of snow, and it would do it reliably –and even doggedly so under stress. In 9 years of ownership, my father never had to fix anything that was not caused by my mother, my brother, or his own decision to store long, flat metal objects under the van. Even then, that amounted to a few dings that were easily fixed, some scratched paint my father did not want to pay to repair, and a ruined tire that my father would have replaced within six months, when the Firestone tire controversy hit the news.

Brochure Aerostar seats
Note the distinctive headrest Source: autocatalogarchive.com

I had a fairly good childhood. I grew up in Los Alamos, a little town nestled in the mountains of northern New Mexico. Compared to the surrounding areas, Los Alamos is a very safe place to raise a child. It is, however, highly vulnerable to wildfires. In the 1990’s, Los Alamos would be threatened by a number of large wildfires, but none had ever damaged the town.

That changed on May 4, 2000, with the start of a controlled burn meant to reduce the fire risk. The heavy winds that typically hit Los Alamos between April and May whipped the controlled burn into a very foreseeable uncontrolled one that almost immediately made its way into the town. Shortly after, an evacuation order went out.

In the chaos of evacuation, the Aerostar shone. It swallowed the emergency supplies we would ultimately rely on for the next month or so, as well as all three kids and three guinea pigs in their cage. I recall comfortably, but fearfully, watching the fire on the horizon while my mother grumbled at the drivers ahead of us who could not seem to gas up fast enough at our local Texaco. And, when we got trapped in a traffic jam leaving town through the one open road into and out of town, the Aerostar sat cool. What should have been a two-hour drive turned into a four-hour drive. The Aerostar never complained once, nor showed any signs of overheating or any other mechanical failure. Which is why it confused me when my father suddenly replaced it.

Junkyard Aerostar Long
Where most of these probably ended up Source: canadiancatgreen on CC Cohort

In late 2002, due to the Aerostar’s age, my father began shopping for a new family car. It had not broken down at any point in the 9 years it had been with our family, but in his opinion, 9 years was a long time to keep a car. In hindsight, he was probably right insofar as replacing the Aerostar was concerned; while plenty of cars from the 1990s remain on the road 30 years later, the Aerostar is not a common sight anymore.

I’ve been made to understand that the 4.0 Pushrod Cologne V6 was prone to head gasket problems, and the 4-speed automatic in the Aerostar allegedly did not have the finest reputation for longevity, either. Moreover, we had been traveling more, due to my brother’s ever-escalating behavioral problems, and the minivan had been the vehicle of choice for ferrying the family to the hospital and later the group home in which my brother had been placed. This would have put more wear on the Aerostar than usual, and the likelihood that it might strand us in the middle of nowhere became greater every day. After a protracted search for a new car, my father decided on a replacement. Through no fault of its own, it would become the most-hated car my family ever owned.

 

Note: Opening image, 1995 Aerostar from the Alden Jewell Flickr page.

 

Related CC reading:

Curbside Classic: 1995 Ford Aerostar -How Hard Can It Be To Make a Minivan (Part 2)

Curbside Find: 1994 Ford Aerostar – Still Polarizing

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