By Christopher Gabriel
Blog Harbor and CGabriel.com

I was speaking to a friend the other day about cars.  For me, that alone was unusual, but this was an unusual conversation.  Suddenly, for no particular reason he launched into a tirade about minivans.  I understand people getting upset over the economy, the war in Iraq, healthcare, the Cubs sweeping the White Sox . . . but minivans?  A bit perplexed by the whole thing, I asked what it was about them that bothered him so much.  He spoke for nearly three minutes, taking one breath at roughly the 90-second mark.  During the entire diatribe, he never once offered anything that clarified his angst about minivans.  And it wasn’t too long after he finished that his wife picked up on the “I Hate Minivans” theme and ran with it even further.

But this anti-minivan club is hardly exclusive. 

Though most people don’t have a reaction at the level of my friends, minivans, for whatever reason, often make people speak about them in ways usually reserved for one’s worst enemy. 

At the other end of the spectrum sits yours truly, and I’m very much in the camp that has a decidedly different viewpoint.

The day after we moved to Minnesota nearly nine years ago, my wife had a little incident with another vehicle near downtown Minneapolis.  Our car was forced into rehab for a month.  The loner the auto body shop gave us: A minivan.  A nearly brand new minivan.  Loaded. 

It was the most comfortable, most enjoyable month of driving I’ve had in all 34 years I’ve had a license.  In fact, it was beyond comfortable.  It darn-near bordered on . . . fun.  Prior to that month, the word “minivan” never came out of my mouth except to say something like “why do people buy those things?”

These days, unless I’m out with my wife and daughters, driving is rarely fun.  Those car commercials showing the person behind the wheel, smile on their face, GPS lit up on the dashboard, satellite radio offering just under 17,000 stations, multiple DVD’s playing in the back seat, a wet bar with accompanying bartender, piano bar in the way back, laser-guided missiles in the event you encounter a road-rage specialist . . . The Complete Driving Experience looks like a weekend at the Four Seasons Hotel Chicago.

But for many of the rest of us, our car is far from sexy.  It gets us to and from where we need to go.  Period.  No DVD players, no satellite radio, no bartender, no piano bar, no laser-guided missiles . . . just four wheels, the seats and an AM/FM/CD player.  Instead of the Four Seasons, it’s a tent in the backyard.

Don’t get me wrong, I have a nice car.  Comfortable, generally reliable and ok on gas mileage.  But the experience I have behind the wheel is a far cry from those commercials.

And it’s definitely not the experience I had for that month in the minivan.

So what’s the point here?  I simply can’t shake the comments from my pal and his wife.  Finally though, a bit later on the evening, the truth appeared on the horizon.  Their utter disparaging of minivans centered on status and, incredibly, how (they believe) they’re perceived by friends, co-workers and even their family members because, of course, that’s what’s most important.  The car simply isn’t . . . cool enough.  It’s not sleek.  It’s not fast.

Cool, sleek and fast.  In the times of $4.00 per gallon at the pump, cool, sleek and fast don’t usually line up with practical.

And If we’re talking about a family that has two or more kids, what we often have are two worlds crashing into each other:  Do you go with the status car that fits a large family, maybe one of those luxury SUV’s, that displays you “properly” to the neighbors or do you go with something that still fits the family nicely, provides most or all of the same options as the luxury SUV, but places you in the group that my friends ridicule?

My car is a midsize SUV, sans satellite radio and DVD player.  I have two children.  I have to admit, I would enjoy having one of those large SUV’s, but for reasons having nothing to do with impressing my neighbors.  I’d like one that was a hybrid; maybe have a DVD player in it for my daughters so that when we go on long driving trips, they’re entertained in a way that cuts into the 48,576 questions they ask my wife and me every hour.  I like a car that has some room in it; I feel cramped in sedans.  But the cost of one of those larger SUV’s – are you kidding me?  Reality suggests a Plan B needs to be in place for my next car.

Plan B may just be a minivan.

Unlike my pal and his wife, the whole status thing means nothing to me.  Funny how getting older does that to you.  Give me a car that’s at least decent on gas, roomy, and really comfortable to drive.  Minivans make that cut.

There’s no massive engine, no slick ad campaigns with an intense, hard-driving musical underscore that screams “YOU ROCK!”  There’s no cool.  There’s no sleek.  There’s no fast.  There’s a mom and a dad with their kids. 

For a lot of us, that’s pretty cool.

It fits a family and it’s comfortable.  And sometimes, it even borders on luxurious.  Stop laughing, I didn’t say sleek.  The new ones, they’ve got it all: DVD’s, satellite radios, piano bars, small restaurants with large menus – you name it, you can get it.

They get trashed by scores of people and from what I’ve experienced, it’s ridiculously unfair.  And something to consider:  There must be a reason you see them everywhere.  From Maine to California, minivans populate the highways as much as those big SUV’s or luxury sedans.

Performance, technology, turbocharged, sleek, cool, fast . . . those words, and more, will never be spoken in the same sentence with “minivan.”  But roomy, comfortable, some nice options and reasonably priced – that works just fine by me.

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