Yes, there is sex after minivans.
At least that’s what Nissan North America hopes you’ll believe. Nissan and other automakers are trying to scrap the image of minivans as romance killers. They want to sell the notion that minivans are hip.
But the car companies know deep in their hearts that minivans are for families, which means parents, guardians, kids, grandparents and all of their stuff. Thus, automakers have developed minivans that attempt a compromise between fantasy and reality. The 2004 Nissan Quest 3.5 SE, is an example of the latest, and perhaps most extreme, attempt to give the minivan libido.
Like its competitors, the 2004 Toyota Sienna and the Honda Odyssey, the new Quest has divorced itself from boxier-than-thou exterior design. The body is long and sensuous. The hood rises above the front fenders and slopes dramatically forward, where it meets sharply angled headlamps. The side panels are no longer flat slabs; they are rounded. The design is visually and, in a way, polemically exciting. It clearly states that the Quest chooses not to be just another minivan.
The interior picks up the theme. Yes, there are the requisite cup/juice-box holders. And, yes, there are myriad storage bins and nifty practical touches, such as the second- and third-row seats that fold flat into the floor, eliminating the need to remove them to increase cargo space.
The optional Skyview ceiling has two skylights on either side of a center ceiling panel extending over the second- and third-row seats. The skylights make the rear passenger cabin feel less confining.
The ceiling panel, reminiscent of something found in corporate aircraft, contains air-conditioning and heating vents, more storage bins and, in the tested vehicle, two DVD screens facing the second- and third-row seats.
Perhaps the biggest mechanical rap against minivans has been their perceived lack of power. It is a perception that stems from a conflict between current lifestyle needs and former lifestyle memories — the single woman or man merging into a couple merging into parents and leaving fast cars behind.
Let’s face it. Most minivans even look slow. To address that perception, Nissan installed a 240-horsepower version of its 3.5-liter V-6 engine in the Quest 3.5 SE and linked it to a five-speed automatic transmission. This baby can run.
Will all or any of these things give the Quest the sex appeal it needs to attract couples without kids? Time and sales will tell. But twenty- and thirtysomethings should at least be comforted by this: The new Quest is not your mom’s vanmobile.
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale (cdipasquale@tribune.com) and Joe Knowles (jknowles@tribune.com)
