the sienna is awesome! super comfy, surprisingly sharp turning and maneuverable, and if it's not the AWD version it'll have no problem doing smokey front wheel burnouts!

i do love the previa though...

mid engined, awd, supercharged, 360 degree rotating captain's chairs!

 

Its not just that its "a minivan" its very hard to love and care for a vehicle that gets beaten on and abused as badly as a minivan does, is kind of my point. I'm as big a car guy as there is, and I take great care of my cars, but even I can't let myself care about the condition of our Pacifica because it just gets destroyed about 5 minutes after I get it all looking great. If it gets body damaged we can't be without it long enough to get it fixed....its a workhorse in every sense of the word.

 

It was still slower than hell, even with the S/C. But I kinda liked it.

We had a pretty cool minivan for the time, 1994 Oldsmobile Silhouette. Industry first power door, nice leather inside, pretty good build quality actually. It was faster than all the competition with the 3800, my mother drove the **** out of that thing and never a hiccup. I still remember being 15 with my permit driving it around. It had some get up for sure. Mom’s feet were on the dash a lot lmfao.


These vans were hated and I really don’t know why so much. Yes the windshield was too big… but the innovative seating (all separate removable chairs) you could do whatever with combined with the power door, and that 3800 made it a pretty competitive buy.

 

Horrendous LS430 accident from one of my groups. Driver walked away and is just sore, but fine. Yes these may not pass the newest tests as well as new luxury cars but an LS430 is still an extremely safe tank.

 

Ouch, any idea what happened?

 

They were nicknamed the Dustbuster vans, and they had plastic body panels like Saturns.

Their awkward styling made them look pretty dated by the mid 90s when more conventional minivans started being introduced. The Previa too, they looked likes eggs….

 

Holy crap! Amazing they walked away with just soreness.

 

He ran into a large flatbed because something dropped in his floorboard and he took his eyes off the road.

That is just a horrendous wreck one of the worst I've seen in an LS430. He was lucky, but he was also in a very safe car.

 

Nobody is saying an Oldsmobile Silhouette goes down in the history books lol. And oh yeah, total Dustbuster.

However I just think they were more criticized than necessary. The whole family liked ours, my mother loved it. Stab the gas (not even floor) and you'd be laying rubber. She likes her cars that have pickup.

 

 

Agreed. And, like the plastic-bodied Saturn S-series, The GM Dustbuster vans were highly resistant to dings/dents/corrosion.

 

saw some old stuff today.

 

My dad worked for an Oldsmobile dealer when these came out. We took a 6 hour family roadtrip and the dealership owner let us take a new Silhouette. White with red interior! So much roomier than our sedan!

With that said, the S/C Previas really were not that bad. According to the site below, the S/C Previa could get to 60 in 10.1 seconds (the non s/c at 12 seconds), which was not bad for the day. The Silhouette in 9.6 seconds. Neither were setting records.

https://www.zeroto60times.com/body-style/van/

 

First-Generation (1960-1962) Plymouth Valiant. I first learned to drive on the redesigned (Second-generation) 1963-66 version, which had the same drivetrains.

 

It felt so much faster than that is the thing. That's how 3800 powered cars were bc they had huge torque practically off idle. Never said it was a dragster, but it had plenty of grunt.