That Van Thing

From Reader Garry K.:

Kim, in your recent rant against minivans on your Splendid Isolation blog (“No It Isn’t“, November 18, 2024), I wonder why you have so much hatred against such vehicles?

When you played gigs, how did you get your gear to the gigs? Did you pile all of your gear (amp head, speaker bottom, guitar case, maybe a PA system, mic stands, etc) into a tiny 2-seater sports car? I’ll bet not! To me, such 2-seater “sports” cars are totally useless. Give me a minivan any day, as I HAVE used my minivans to haul musical gear to gigs, to go camping, to haul a bunch of folks to carpool to events, etc.

When I used to gig, I had a 1974 VW “Panel Van” (bought new) that looked something like this, except in a sort of pale bamboo yellow, with the same hinged side doors (rather than a single sliding one):

Basically, VW Brazil realized that poor people needed basic transportation, so they set up a production line to re-create the 1964 model, only with modern 1600cc engines.  To say that the interior was spartan is to make Spartan look Byzantine.

…except of course that mine had no radio, no snazzy “Volkswagen” chrome logo, and certainly no way to open the windshield.  Talk about frivolous.

The model was so popular that VW South Africa started to import them — and even with an import duty of 100% (!!), the cars cost, in today’s  Bidenflation dollars, the equivalent of about $6,500 (ZAR950, back then).  Brand new.

I drove “Fred” for about eight years, and put close to 200,000 miles on the odometer.  Horribly abused and always overloaded, it only needed a new clutch at 85,000 miles (along with the usual perishables like tires and so on).

They were so popular in South Africa that VW stopped importing them after only a few years because these plain-Jane vans were eating their lunch, with little profit withal, and VW couldn’t move their “regular” vans (which had unnecessary luxury geegaws like sliding doors, disc brakes, seatbelts, a curved single-piece windshield and automatic transmission).

And that was with the band back in Seffrica.  When the kids came along in the U.S., I did the full station wagon / minibus thing:  several minivans, SUVs and a Chev Suburban, before moving on to SUVs like the Kia Sportage and then a couple of Tiguans such as I drive today.

But to return to Reader Garry’s point:  it’s not a question of hating minivans.  It’s just that I never had a chance to drive a two-seater sports car as my own personal vehicle.  In fact, the sportiest car I ever “owned” (company car) was an early-model 2-door BMW 318i with a 5-speed stick shift, which I loved with a passion.

In other words, I never had a chance to indulge myself, whether in my yoot because I had to schlep a band’s worth of gear, or as an adult because of kids.

And now, in my later years, I’d love to own an impractical 2-seater, just about any 2-seater, but it seems unlikely that I’ll ever get to do so.  It’s therefore with great longing that I talk about sports cars as much as I do;  in the cold harsh light of day, though, they’re my unreachable dream.

What I do know is that if I were to win the Powerball, I’d own at least three, out of pure self-indulgence — because I’ve been the responsible one all my life, and I’d like to be irresponsible just once.

Just don’t ask me which three, because I’ll talk about them some other time.