Move over, muscle car: There's a new van in town
The man behind the wheel of a minivan stuffed with children is probably doing more to announce his virility to the world than his Porsche-driving brethren.
But the sliding doors, extra cup holders and all that room for child-safety seats have made the minivan a tough sell when the goal is manly cool.
Chili Palmer was about as tough as the family-van driver ever got when he touted “the Cadillac of minivans” in “Get Shorty.” But did that car really compare to the Mustang Steve McQueen raced through San Francisco in “Bullitt?” When it comes to marketing the all-American family van to the all-American family, automotive companies seem well aware that they need to … well, compensate.
Sara Pines, spokeswoman for American Honda Motor Co., considers the hurdle the misperception that “anything that offers so much function may not be as much fun.”
Toyota recently took the minivan’s reputation to the cheek in a series of YouTube videos for the Sienna. In “Swagger Wagon,” a nerdy couple with two blond children rap about how they “got the pride in my ride in my swagger wagon.” As part of the campaign for the 2011 Sienna SE, Toyota made about a half-dozen videos for YouTube that focus on the family, said Richard Bame, national marketing manager for trucks and vans at Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A.
The ads are not aimed at men or women, Bame said. Instead, the idea is to let customers know the Sienna understands that parents are multifaceted people, too.
“We tried to deliver on the idea that this minivan is always for kids, but it is also for parents, too,” Bame said. “It is everything everyone always wanted in a minivan, plus cool.”
Recently, the Wall Street Journal reported that Chrysler was planning to add some more man to the van when it rolls out its 2011 Dodge Grand Caravan.
E-mail from a company representative said that a makeover was expected for the Grand Caravan and the Chrysler Town & Country, but that “it is too early for us to talk about what will go into marketing the new minivan.” Honda releases the 2011 Odyssey, the country’s top seller, in the fall. Pines said vans offer fun as well as function.
“We think you can have both,” Pines said. “I think most of our competitors in the market agree.”
The attempt at both was part of the Odyssey’s marketing campaign for its last iteration of the Odyssey, the “Respect the Van” marketing plan.
If not exactly testosterone-fueled, the idea was to make sure the world was giving the van its props. After all, a family shouldn’t take for granted its minivan just because it carts the kids and the groceries.
As part of that campaign, Honda produced a funk-themed commercial now available on YouTube that announced: “The Van is Back.” With some lava-lamp lighting and help from the George Clinton P-Funk classic “Give Up the Funk,” the minivan seemed to get its groove back.
“Vans have always had, throughout history, this dual role,” Pines said. “Our point was, respect the van, man. Look where it’s been.”
The van may have hit its funky high point in the 1970s. But the history of the familymobile, expected to perform multiple roles, goes back to Henry Ford, who expected his original motor car to be something that farmers could use, said Peter D. Norton, assistant professor at the University of Virginia and author of “Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City.” From there, the large sedan was meant to fit the growing family in the early baby-boom years.
The station wagon became the ultimate functional car for the growing family in the suburbs of the 1950s, said David N. Lucsko, assistant professor of history at Auburn University and author of “The Business of Speed: The Hot Rod Industry in America 1915-1990.” For a while, many sedans had a wagon version, Lucsko said.
The station wagon waned in the 1990s.
The tradition turned to the minivan in the 1980s. That’s the way Chrysler sees it, at least.
Some might look to the VW bus or the Renault Espace as the first minivan, Lucsko said. But Chrysler claims that with the Dodge Caravan and the Plymouth Voyager, introduced in November 1983, it invented the modern minivan formula that remains on the roads today.
All minivan sales peaked in 2000. That year, automakers sold more than 1.2 million minivans. Last year, sales were down to about 424,007.
Lucsko does not envision the end of the minivan.
“The minivan has the potential to become more important here,” he said. “The question is: Can car companies make them cool again?”
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