Minivans Finally Making It Big in Europe
In this land of narrow cobblestone roads and $5-plus-per-gallon gasoline, it’s easy to see why Europeans long shunned the minivan.
Not any more. Today’s minivans are smaller, easier to park, handle better and guzzle less gas. An American favorite has captured the continent’s imagination--and it’s selling briskly.
“I’ve been seduced,” French race car driver Jean Alesi gushed at the recent Paris Auto Show, where new models like Renault’s Megane Scenic, Citroen’s Berlingo and Grand Large, Fiat’s Multipla and Toyota’s Picnic FFV were introduced.
Although sedans and sports cars still outsell minivans by wide margins, Europeans bought 250,000 in 1995, a 47% jump from the previous year. This year, they’re expected to snap up 300,000, nearly quadrupling 1990 sales.
That’s far fewer than the 1 million-plus minivans sold annually in the United States, and analysts say the pace here is slacking. Even so, the minivan remains a bright spot in a bleak European auto market just now emerging from a four-year slump.
It’s come a long way since 1984, when Renault’s pioneering Espace drew just nine orders in its first month on sale. Now there are more than half a million Espaces on the roads.
State-owned Renault says it dominates the European minivan market because it’s made each successive Espace model drive less like a truck. The 1996 Espace’s chassis is similar to a sedan’s, so it handles a parking garage or a narrow village road with equal ease.
The jury’s out on whether Renault went too far in slimming down the Scenic, the third generation of the Espace. With its standard gas-sipping 1.4-liter engine and five-speed manual transmission, the seven-seater is noticeably smaller. Critics say it’s more like a station wagon than a minivan.
“I just don’t like the lines,” said Frederic Precloux, window shopping at the Paris show. “It’s a smart idea to make a hybrid vehicle that’s a cross between a minivan and a little city car, but it’s utopian.”
Toyota is challenging the Scenic with its new Picnic FFV, which stands for Family Fun Vehicle. It has a 2-liter engine, six seats and goes on sale in Europe in January.
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American models are on the market, too, and in rising numbers:
* Chrysler Corp., the second-largest minivan maker in Europe, has a new assembly plant in Austria that’s been turning out 47,000 Voyagers a year.
* Ford Motor Co. and Volkswagen AG are making minivans in Portugal in a joint venture launched in 1995 and dubbed Autoeuropa. In May, they rolled out their 100,000th minivan, sold by Ford as the Galaxy and by VW as the Sharan.
* General Motors Corp.’s Opel unit this fall begins selling its Sintra minivan, built in Doraville, Ga., in both right-hand and left-hand drive versions. In 1998, it plans to introduce a compact new minivan.
That “mini-minivan” concept--like Fiat’s compact Multipla due out in 1998--reflects a European trend of “many customers shifting purchases from larger to smaller cars,” said Richard M. Donnelly, president of GM Europe.
But some analysts warn that all these minivans are glutting the market.
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The Ford-VW joint venture has delayed plans for a third shift that would let it crank out 180,000 minivans a year. Even Renault saw sales of the Espace slide 20% for the first half of 1996.
“All these rivals are the same product with different badges,” said Peter Schmidt, an analyst with Automotive Industry Data Ltd. outside London.
“You expect an almost vertical takeoff in the launch phase. What’s disturbing is that they’re already losing ground--right, left and center.”
Schmidt blames the price tags on most minivans, which average $28,000 without options. And in Europe, minivan owners keep right on paying at the pump; the Espace can’t do better than 25 miles per gallon.
“They’re simply too expensive for the very people they’re designed for,” he said. “Young, growing families can’t afford them.”
For now, though, convenience seems to be winning out. Many Europeans, like Americans, simply can’t resist the extra room and status that a minivan in the driveway brings.
“It offers exceptional comfort,” said Pierre Brugidou, whose family owns a 1991 Espace. “It lets us all--parents, brothers, sisters, the dog--go on vacation without a care in the world.”
