Does This Plymouth Voyager Sale Mean Minivans Are Collectible?
After a couple weeks spent talking about super-expensive cars, it’s time to look at a vehicle that is cheaper. A lot cheaper—and a little more, well, boring. A 1995 Plymouth Voyager SE sold this week for $3762. The vehicle is humble in origin and the price is dirt-cheap, but the fact that the van popped up on an enthusiast auction site, sharing webpage space with Porsches and BMWs and Corvettes, caught our attention.
Its presence raises some questions. Have the definitions of “classic” and “collectible” become so watered down that anything qualifies, as long as it’s old enough and has four wheels and an engine? Or do minivans, which took the auto industry by storm 40 years ago, deserve more credit? Perhaps it makes sense for a vehicle that’s big on nostalgia to wind up in the garage of an enthusiast, even if that vehicle is low on excitement.
Europeans will tell you the first minivan was the 1984 Renault Espace, but on this side of the pond and unveiled months earlier were the Dodge Caravan/Plymouth Voyager. They were a big deal, and Chrysler president Lee Iacocca really talked them up:
I predict the Voyager and Caravan will be to the ’80s what the Mustang was to the ’60s… As revolutionary as the Mustang? Now that’s a helluva strong statement. You know, the Mustang became both a sales legend and a classic car in its own time. But I feel that our minivan vehicles will do all of that, too—this design, frankly, is more revolutionary than the Mustang was …
Pretty bold stuff, Lee, but that’s not quite how people view these vehicles today. There aren’t Caravan posters hanging on anyone’s walls, and nobody’s paying top dollar for vintage Voyagers. Minivans are the butt of jokes and a symbol of the monotony of suburban life.
But Iacocca was right in one regard. Minivans were revolutionary. Their clever practicality is undeniable. A relatively small, transversely mounted engine with the drive wheels up front leaves oodles of interior space. Sliding doors make getting in and out a cinch, even in a tight parking space. The rear hatch made loading and unloading as easy as it would be in a station wagon, but with more vertical space.
In Chrysler’s case, ample K-car parts kept the price low, and the Caravan/Voyager twins sold 210,000 copies by the end of 1984, providing a financial windfall for a struggling Chrysler Corporation. Caravans, Voyagers, and minivans in general quickly became the people movers of choice and were such a big part of the American landscape that the first 1984 Plymouth Voyager ever built is now part of the National Historic Vehicle Register.
As for the one sold this week, it’s a 1995 SE with the larger 3.3-liter V-6, finished in red over gray cloth. It’s a California van from new and reportedly had one owner until last year. That’s impressive for a ’95 Porsche, let alone a ’95 Plymouth. The ’95 model year was also the last for the second generation Voyager that came out in 1991.
It shows 138,800 miles but looks a lot cleaner than that. The only real unanswered issue is the extent of the service history on the transmission, a known weak point. However, the fact that the van is this clean and preserved is impressive enough. Second-gen Caravans/Voyagers used to be all over the place but, like most family haulers, the countless school runs, road trips, potholes, and fast food wrappers killed the vast majority of them. This red one, then, must be one of the nicest Voyagers in the country.
For a certain type of person, like a millennial whose mom drove a Voyager or who had a hand-me-down Caravan as their first car, a clean 30-year-old minivan brings waves of nostalgia. The price is about as cheap as it gets, and we aren’t adding Plymouth Voyagers to our price guide or plotting their market trajectory any time soon, but plenty of old automobiles have been bought on nostalgia alone. For that reason, this bright red soccer-mom-mobile is as much a part of the old car hobby as anything.
I called our minivan a back saver.
What saved Chrysler was basing EVERYTHING they made on a variation of the same platform — the K-car. AMC did the same thing with the 63 Classic, followed by the shortened/narrowed 64 American. At that point (64) there were many shared parts between all AMC models, and that kept production costs way down. Same with the K platform. Not exciting, but VERY cost effective. This is why manufacturers are intrigued with electric cars more than government pushes. A simple platform that with some variation can be shared with all types of vehicles from passenger cars to light trucks and vans. Anything larger than a light truck (like the Ford Maverick and Honda Ridgeline) and you need to change things up, and electric gets a lot less practical due to range reduction when carrying/towing a heavy load.
Not collectable just a clean used car cheap.
It’s in nice shape, it’s practical and likely gets fairly decent mileage. I’d drive it!
There was a previous article about how we shouldn’t hate the million-dollar car
While there is a nut for every bolt, and everything is collectible to someone, if minivans do achieve broader collectible status, this is probably more of a symptom of too many truly collectible cars being priced into unobtainable status
They are ugly, until you own one, then, they are the most versatile vehicle you’ll ever drive.
(A must with kids.)
It’s not the primary mode of transport, but nice to have as a second
Always starts, always runs, great mileage, cheap to insure, I’ve been in several crashes, and always come out the victor. comfortable for long trips.
Seats in, you can comfortably fit seven adults.
Take the seats out, haul as much stuff as a truck -and you don’t have to worry about getting your tools stolen while inside at Home Depot.
And no matter how nice a condition it is in, it still has that transmission. Been there gad one. Last Chrysler product I owned and the last one I will ever own.
Amen. We had a 1990 Plymouth Grand Voyager and Chrysler replaced the original trans under warranty. When that one also failed, I also said no more Chrysler products and we turned it in on a Mercury Villager. Should have listened to Consumer Reports which rated the Caravans and Voyagers with that trans “Not Recommended.”
BTW, why are either Chrysler or Renault credited with intro of the minivan? VW was way ahead of both with the Microbus.
We bought our first minivan Plymouth in ’89 for my wife and our two kids. We drove it on vaction to Colorado from Michigan and loved it! We wound up over the years buying three more Dodge Caravans. Our last one was a ’96 and after 50,000 miles it started using oil. The service manager told me, yeah this one uses oil after 50,000 miles. I said, “No recall?” He said no. I called Chrysler and wrote them about it. Their answer was you should have bought the extra coverage. I still spent 3700 dollars at the dealer to get it fixed. It still used oil. We got a thousand dollars for it on a tradein on a Honda minivan. Thank you Chrysler for being loyal to me a four time Chrysler minivan owner!!!
This isn’t a collectible except to Hagerty it seems. Don’t over think this stuff as most are not collectibles.
The Black Keys have prominently featured an old Chrysler minivan in various media forms –including the cover of their “El Camino” album (Why not a picture of an El Camino, I can’t say). Could these become collectible… in a way, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be valuable.
This is no different than someone buying a lower mileage Rambler in the late 80s. It’s old, it’s survived, but it isn’t “respected” by the collector market and wasn’t worth much in 1989.
They are deserving of more love. The 3.3 Chrysler-built engine is huge bonus in this model.
I think a lot of people confuse “collectable” with “appreciating asset”. Hundreds of millions of things are collectible. It’s just that most only give the owner satisfaction, but not necessarily an increase in value over time. Sort of like the original idea about classic car ownership. Have it. Run it. Fix it. Enjoy it with your friends. If you got out even, extra bonus.
Besides 2 Impala station wagons in the 70’s we owned 4 of these, the last one being a 2001. For a large family they were great. Did some long trips. Never had any tranny trouble either. The four banger in our 85 was pretty sad though.
Anything can be a collectible. I loved the Voyager with the turbo 4 that some people used to turn into 11-12 second drag race sleepers. Always fun to see the family pour out of the van then the car proceeds to hunt down some “faster” cars.
We had a 5 speed Voyager and a Grand Caravan. Great family cars and far more useful than SUV’s.
Our last was a 2005 Grand Caravan that lasted 15 years and 267,000 miles with its original drivetrain. Eventually, I gave it to a plumber buddy in exchange for some work & it lasted at least a few more years.
I probably should have offered to sell it back to Chrysler so the could figure out what they did wrong to make it last that long 😂
Anything clean that would be considered mundane and survives has appeal. Try parking the van above next to a Tri-Five or any other mundane car show fodder. More people will have fond memories of the family transporter.
A clean AWD or Turbo manual Caravan would be premium. Kids were taking a 4G63 drop out of an Eclipse and making the van do not so family things on the blacktop.