Is the trusty minivan about to bite the dust?

Roland Jones Business news editor • Profile • E-mail

Often maligned for a seriously un-hip image, the minivan has been the vehicle of choice for a generation of suburban families. But the car with the soccer-mom image and Dustbuster styling might soon find itself left in the dust.

The main culprit: America’s newfound fascination for crossover vehicles, which blend the ride and style of a passenger vehicle with the practicality of a sport utility vehicle. Crossovers are now the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. vehicle market, while minivan sales are static.

The sector lacks originality, notes Tom Appel, editor of Consumer Guide Automotive, a service for automotive buying advice. Automakers have resorted to propping up flagging sales with hefty discounts. The market segment, which now accounts for 7 percent of light vehicle sales, could shrink further when Ford launches its Fairlane sport wagon, which is expected to replace its weak minivan lineup in 2008.

“The crossover SUV has attracted attention of car shoppers lately, and minivans are starting to look dowdy,” Appel said. “No one is really distinguishing themselves in this market anymore, and there are too many similar concepts out there. The minivan is pretty much the minivan — you have two sliding doors and seating for lots of passengers.”

Launched almost simultaneously by Chrysler and Renault in the early 1980s, the minivan found its target market in the suburban baby boomer families looking for greater fuel economy, space to ferry their kids around and styling that didn’t remind drivers of their parents’ station wagons.

Today, those boomers have seen their children grow up and leave the nest, and ironically the same stigma that first drove Americans to minivans may be driving them away again, says Joanne Helperin, editor of Edmunds.com’s Women’s Car Guide. Families with young children simply are not attracted to the minivan their parents drove.

And the new crossovers are more attractive, Helperin said. “These cars are trying to be the best of all words — they have a car-based chassis instead of a truck-based chassis. They are not bulky, and they are agile with serious horsepower,” she said.

The most popular crossover vehicles include the Toyota Highlander, the Nissan Murano and Honda Pilot. Other vehicles that could chip away at the minivan market include cars like the Chrysler Pacifica, or the considerably more expensive Mercedes-Benz R-Class.

Established minivan models also face stiff competition from competitively priced Korean imports like the Hyundai Entourage, which is priced at around $25,000 including a 3.8-liter V6 engine, front and side-curtain airbags and antilock braking, said Appel. Comparable equipped minivans from manufacturers like Chrysler or Toyota can cost over $30,000.

“[These minivans] are representing a serious threat to the dated domestic vehicles still on the market,” Appel said.

DaimlerChrysler, which was the first to market with a minivan, still dominates the market with with its Dodge Caravan and Chrysler Town & Country models, which hold a combined 37 percent share, according to Power Information Network. But the company will struggle this year to sell 450,000 units, down from 550,000 in the mid- to late 1990s, when it sold all everything it could produce.

“They have let their minivans go stale,” Appel said.

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