“With the van boom booming and no sign of abatement, Detroit and the importers are headed for a second generation of vans — smaller ones this time. These will come in addition to existing sizes.
The price of full-sized vans has doubled in the last five years, yet vans are selling at a brisker clip in this country than sports cars. . . . According to industry figures today’s average van owner is 22 1/2 years old, recently married, and spends about $850 a year buying van accessories. . . .
In Detroit, the first new small van will come from General Motors. GM plans to go with a front-wheel-drive (fwd), V6-powered compact minivan on the 1978 X-body, which currently serves GM’s N-O-V-A quartet (Nova, Omega, Ventura, Apollo). For 1978, this X-shell will be all new, and it’s been engineered to take fwd, probably with the Buick V6 ahead of the front-axle centerline. . . . The van on GM’s 1978 X-body might be offered by all four divisions. Regular passenger cars will also be built around the X-chassis, and these will look very much like the current BMWs.”
— Popular Mechanics (1976)
RE:SOURCES
- Popular Mechanics; 1976. “Call them mini-vans.” July issue: pp. 50-51, 118.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- oldcarbrochures.org: Chevrolet wagons (1978); Ford Econoline (1975)
There’s one photo of that FWD Nomad prototype who was based on the X-car then I saw at https://www.macsmotorcitygarage.com/nomads-that-never-were/
I’m trying to recall the zeitgeist of the mid-1970’s as I write this. I think that the older cohort of the Boomers had grown up and moved on to more adult concerns, getting married, raising families, buying homes, etc. and the GTO wasn’t going to cut it as the main mode of transportation. The hippie vans proved to be a harbinger of things to come, as they could do almost anything you needed them to do and be liveable enough to be a daily driver. As a child who attended Parochial school in the mid-1970’s, I knew of many families who had either a station wagon or a van, but as time progressed the vans were starting to take more market share.
But, I can understand the desire to make a smaller, more manageable package, rather than dress up a tradesman’s van with two-tone paint and seats for eight inside. In some regards, there seemed to be a return to the vans of the very early 1960’s, which were smaller than their successors, easy on fuel and easy to park. A good model for these would have been Chevy’s Corvan, based on the Corvair chassis and running gear. But at the time of their launch, station wagons ruled and IIRC, they were not the least expensive vehicle to purchase, either. The previously mentioned hippie vans, VW’s Type 2 Transporter, when dressed in conventional clothes was another alternative with some drawbacks, some worse than others. Typically, the lack of power and acceleration was the largest complaint. And I would never want to be in a frontal collision in one of those (or any of the 1960’s vans).
If you follow the chronology of the minivan there was a prolonged gestation period before the actual birth. That Chrysler and Ford were the first manufacturers in the mid-1970’s to offer a factory “custom” van was a signal that the van had arrived, at least for a certain demographic. If you had enough money, you no longer needed to find an old Bell Telephone van to stuff your shag carpet into and add brightly colored paint onto, Ma Mopar or Henry were happy to accomodate you. Plus, you got a warranty to go along with your payment book!
The van movement was really in full swing by the end of the late 1970’s and even marginal players like AMC were getting involved. Since AMC had much more limited resources they were pimping a van-like vehicle based on the AMC Pacer, claiming it was the future. It kind of was, but not quite in that form factor. By the mid 1970’s both Ford and GM were looking seriously at garageable vans, with the GM ones being a bit more modern being based on the then-new FWD X-car platform. It’s interesting to think just how far ahead GM would have been had they pushed to get a FWD van out by the early to mid-1980’s. But, the quality reputation of the intial X-bodies would have had a huge negative impact.
Love him or hate him, you have to give Lee Iaccoca credit for having the smarts to launch the T-115. I have to believe he would have been at least marginally aware of Ford’s efforts in making a garageable van and probably GM’s efforts, too. To me, it seems so simple, take the existing FWD K-car station wagon and make it tall, like the Mitsubishis they were starting to sell (almost simultaneously) along with the Caravan/Voyager. By the mid-80’s everyone had some sort of minivan, but not everyone was as committed to the segment as Chrysler is.
Getting back to the original Popular Mechanics article, the authors weren’t that far off the mark, with the exception of the “Regular passenger cars will also be built around the X-chassis, and these will look very much like the current BMWs.” remark. That was a premature prediction…
“…I have to believe he would have been at least marginally aware of Ford’s efforts in making a garageable van…”
More that marginally aware – Hal Sperlich, who left Ford about a year before Iacocca to become chief product planner at Chrysler had championed a “garageable van” concept at Ford but was unable to get approval for the project. Ford took two stabs at the idea – the RWD “Carousel” as early as 1972 and the FWD “MiniMax”.
Do anymore details exist on the FWD Mini-Max prototypes? Curious about its platform since the FWD project Ford had at the time was the Fiesta and the prototypes also preceded what became the FWD Escort.