Category: Commentary

Who Saves These Cars?

I was walking around a local auto show in August 2012, and I came across a near-perfect early Chrysler minivan.

Photo of a first-generation Chrysler minivan at a car show in New Hope, PA.
First-generation Chrysler minivan at a car show in New Hope, PA.

The Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA) has what I think is a wonderful rule—if a vehicle is 25 years old, it can be shown and judged. Period. No cut-offs because of importance or beauty or rarity or anything else.

I would argue that the first-generation Chrysler minivans were actually very important—the first of 15 million sold over the last forty years, but that’s not the point here.

What’s interesting is that almost all of these minivans led unglamorous family or corporate lives and got “used up,” and this one looks virtually untouched. It’s a labor of love bringing one of these cars up to show quality: there’s no aftermarket providing restoration parts like there is for Mustangs, Corvettes, or Porsches of the same age. Methinks there’s a lot of chasing around junkyards and perhaps a donor vehicle or two.

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A First Post For Yet Another Car Blog …

I grew up in the early 1980s, graduating high school in 1986. Almost all cars from the 1980s are unfashionable right now: they are electronically primitive, squarely styled, and most of them have fallen apart.

I love these cars.

They can be frustrating, but they were markers that things were getting better after the rather frightening 1970s: auto makers were finally learning how to build systems that could yield decent mileage, good emissions, and respectable performance. Aerodynamics were actually becoming more than an afterthought and every year brought some more improvements.

This blog will take a sometimes random look at cars of the 1980s and why they are interesting or notable. I may not publish every day, but I will make an effort to update often.