Minivans journey out of the box

CARLSBAD, Calif. -- He was there at the birth of an American icon: the minivan. But Ralph Sarotte, longtime product planner at Chrysler Corp., never imagined how that Spartan offspring of engineering and design would evolve to keep up with the needs of American families.

Chrysler is credited with giving the United States its first minivan in 1984, a time of high gasoline prices. Big sedans and wagons that could haul large families -- and bigger commercial vans that had been converted for family use -- guzzled too much fuel.

"We thought we had a formula that would create a new segment, that would appeal to all those folks," said Sarotte, who was with Chrysler from 1962 to 2002. "We were sure we had a grand slam, but no one talked about creating an American icon."

Nearly a quarter-century later, and after imitations from other US manufacturers have come and gone, Chrysler last month introduced its fifth generation of Chrysler and Dodge minivans in Southern California. Like its predecessors, they have been tuned to what American families expect in a vehicle, with standard safety features, advanced electronics and entertainment systems, and interior adaptability once again setting a bar for others to reach.

Innovations in the auto industry tend to happen over periods of years -- unlike in modern consumer industries such as electronics and telecommunications, which innovate at warp speed.

Usually, auto innovation is manufacturer-driven: A new product is launched and advertising campaigns tell consumers they must have it.

The evolution of the original Dodge Caravan and Chrysler Voyager, however, depended heavily on customer input, Sarotte said, with entire families used as focus groups to help it morph from a vehicle whose utilitarian appeal -- extra seats, a commanding view of the road, a sliding side door -- were enough to sell it at first.

"Think of it as a Commodore 64," an early version of the personal computer that hit the market at just about the same time, said Dave Smith, Chrysler's manager of vehicle synthesis.

Or think of it as a shrunken school bus: upright, boxy, riding high, flat floor, rigid upright seats with low backs and certainly no head or neck protection, and no air bags.

No advanced steels were used to protect occupants in crashes and rollovers. Front ends did not collapse to absorb and disperse impact the way they do now. Brakes were fairly primitive, with discs up front but less efficient drum brakes in the rear. There was no ABS, which meant drivers had to learn to "pump" their brakes to control skids, and electronic stability and traction control systems were unheard of.

The engine in the 1984 Chrysler was a 4-cylinder and the basic transmission was a three-speed automatic. "Instead of a lot of tricky stuff, it was just the basic package," said Sarotte.

But over the ensuing years, the Dodge/Chrysler engineers listened closely to the needs of growing American families and the product evolved dramatically on its way to selling 12 million models to date. Chrysler continues to dominate in US minivan sales. The approximately 365,000 vans it sold last year are about 15,000 more than Toyota, Nissan, and Honda combined. And Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. have left the market, making some wonder what Chrysler's American secret has been.

"We realized we couldn't sit up in an ivory tower," said Sarotte. Families wanted safety, so Chrysler's minivans were among the first to get air bags. They wanted accessibility, so a second sliding side door was added. Interior noise was cut, he said, "so you could talk to people in the third row without shouting." And then, he said, came a wave of electronic entertainment and bigger, better engines that did not use much more fuel than the old four-cylinders.

The key to these innovations, he said, was that Chrysler kept asking, "What are the things that keep families together?"

They found the answer in lifestyle trends.

Families traveled more and for greater distances. The van-driving soccer mom came into being, carrying children to games and even casting an aura over presidential politics. Grandparents decided they wanted to maintain a comfortable, smooth ride in a vehicle in which they could also haul visiting grandchildren.

"People started to ask for a different comfort level, even though at the time it was evolutionary," said Smith. "The '84 was great at the time it came out, but as customers started to use their vans and saw what they could do . . .. They wanted more features."

And in comfort, safety, functionality, engineering, power, cleaner emissions, and sometimes funky options, they got them.

"It was really how lifestyles changed and how could the minivan keep up with that," Smith said.

So change came in a way that would eventually turn the minivan into far safer, more comfortable vehicle that could be considered an elegant home on wheels for a traveling family -- or a mobile toy box for younger children.

Seats were made easy to remove and, later, bins were built in the floor into which into which rear seats could disappear to create flat floor space. Interiors were upgraded in luxury models with leather and wood and fancy metal appointments. A second sliding side door was added, making getting in and out in tight quarters at, say, a shopping center, much easier. Later, they became power operated, as did the rear tailgate.

Entertainment systems exploded from the old tape deck to advanced sound systems and multiple DVD players so children could watch movies and play games. The 2008 minivans feature video screens for both the second and third rows, and each can show separate movies, with audio transmitted over wireless headphones. When parked, even the navigation screen on the dash will show movies.

Cupholders abound, as do storage bins, including lighted map pockets. Moving reading lights using highly focused LEDs have been added. Center consoles can be removed. Middle seats and even front seats swivel for access to children or, when parked, to use a removable table that can be placed between front and rear for eating on the run or playing games.

But more important are safety changes that have been implemented since the first van. Air bags now surround the front passenger and driver. Curtain air bags drop to protect passengers in all three rows of seats.

Anchors for child seats have been added, as has high tensile steels at key points along the frame and in the body structure. ABS, which does the "pumping" for you by applying braking in microbursts to prevent wheel lockup, is standard. The suspension, which in the first model used the floppy leaf springs of trucks, is completely modernized. And stability and traction control, an electronic system that monitors wheel speed and angle, braking, and gas pedal input to detect driver error is available to shift both braking and power from wheel to wheel to fix driver error. Several studies have shown that traction/stability control systems cut the risk of having an accident by more than 40 percent and that, if there is an accident, it mitigates the severity so much that the chance of a fatality is also cut by more than 40 percent.

Combined with the upgrades in comfort and entertainment, said Mike Accavitti, director of Dodge Brand, the minivan has been transformed from transpobox to home on wheels in a way that will "forever change that family driving experience from 'When are we going to be there?' to, 'Oh no, we're they're already!' "

Royal Ford is a Globe staff writer. He can be reached at ford@globe.com.