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Chrysler’s celebrating the minivans’ anniversary! The first one was made on November 2, 1983... so that makes it, by Stellantis logic... the 40th anniversary? Or, by H2G2, it's 42!
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Hi there. This is David Zats from
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motel.com and I'm here to talk about the
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anniversary of the minivan. The earliest
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known work on the minivan at Chrysler
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began around 1971, if you can believe
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it. And at the time, they were looking
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at two things. They had designers who
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were looking at taking advantage of the
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custom van craze. And they had product
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planners who were looking at how the
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station wagon wasn't quite cutting it.
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and what they needed was a family
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vehicle that could hold seven or eight
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people and still fit inside your garage,
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which left out the commercial vans. Both
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of them after a year or two realized
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that they couldn't just modify a regular
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van, keeping in mind that the engine was
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actually in the cabin with between the
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driver and passenger and those things,
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the old B vans and before them the A
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vans. The A vans were probably the right
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size, but the engine was still there
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with you and that's heat and noise and
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nobody wants that. and they saw what
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they needed to do, which is among other
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things, uh, flexible seating and have it
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possible to walk from the front row into
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the back row, which is great. And they
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had pretty much what they were going to
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do in the mid70s, including the look
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that we got when the first, it was a
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model year 1984, minivans rolled out in
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n in November 2nd, 1983. And it's it's
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kind of funny because Ford often gets
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the credit for developing them, but Ford
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had nothing to do with it. It was all a
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homegrown effort. And it's also kind of
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funny that they're celebrating the
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anniversary now. Uh because they could
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have celebrated it November 2nd, 2023.
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Or they could have done it in 2024,
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which because they were 1984 model year,
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but they're doing it now in 2025 for
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whatever reason. So, if you're
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interested in more of the original
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story, including uh what I learned from
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the people who were there, from the
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people in design and product planning
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and engineering who actually developed
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the original minivan, there's a lot of
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fascinating stories there. It's in this
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great book about minivans, as is
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information about each successive
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generation. All the stories I could
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collect at the time, and I hope that
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you'll pick up a copy wherever great
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books are sold online. A season.
#Chrysler