Minivan

A Van [ Istvan ] is in the German language a motor vehicle with five to seven, in rare cases up to nine seats ( with continuous bench seat in front), which thanks to a versatile seating concept, usually also in the back with individual seats, and a high silhouette significantly variable can be used as a conventional station wagon. In a wider sense thus can be called all kinds of cars with increased body, high roof vans and minibuses.

Not to Vans include more or less all-terrain Sports Utility Vehicle ( SUV).

Van term

The term Van is a anglicism who has taken on the meaning MPV in the German language area. In U.S. usage, the word van refers, however large, box-shaped van for the transport of goods ( van), and is there for the term "Caravan" emerged, the formerly used term for wagon. Vehicles of the same design and features that are designed for passenger transport, hot minivans, larger variants, such as the GMC Vandura, called contrast, conversion vans ( " Umnutzungsvan "). Traditionally called U.S. American spacious sedans with plenty of seating Station Wagon ( station wagons ), which differ from the minivans primarily by the fact that they are flat.

MPV

After the term Van has now naturalized in English, the term MPV used more often for more spacious station wagons such as the Ford S -MAX or the Mercedes -Benz R-Class.

Family car, seven seater

Then there are the terms family car and seven-seater. The Car Environment list of Verkehrsclub Germany distinguishes them from the compact class as follows:

The first Vans

The first vehicles of this category were introduced in 1983: the Mitsubishi Space Wagon, the Nissan Prairie and the Honda Civic Shuttle from Japan. In 1984, the Plymouth Voyager in the North American market and the Renault Espace in Europe. From the year 1988 in Europe, the Chrysler Voyager, which was an offshoot of the Plymouth Voyager, offered. Chrysler produced the Voyager in the first years in North America only. From 1991 the production of the Voyager was launched in Europe. On the European market other car manufacturers followed years later with comparable models. Thus developed, for example, VW and Ford together a vehicle which in 1995 came on the market as a VW Sharan, Seat Alhambra and Ford Galaxy.

In North America, Chrysler founded with his car makes this vehicle segment almost single-handedly. The company sold there parallel to the Plymouth Voyager, even under the Dodge brand an offshoot, the Dodge Caravan. A few years later came with the Chrysler Town & Country added yet another sister model.

Vehicle concept

Greater vans have a variable interior concept. The seats are usually 2-3-2 or 2-2-3 arranged in three series of the form, wherein the last row of seats is narrower due to the wheel arches. With a few simple steps you dismantled the seats in the second and third row of seats. This makes it possible to obtain an exceptionally large for a car load area of around two meters in length.

Most customers buy the cars without the two rear seats, which include many models for additional equipment. Retrofitting an extra seat costs almost 1000 euros on some models. Numerous cases have been known in which seats were stolen from vans and resold it.

Types of Vans

Meanwhile, is called in German-speaking also vehicles that are smaller than large-capacity vans, as Vans. These are the compact MPV based on compact-class vehicles, minivans to small cars and so-called base microvans belonging to the micro-car.

However, the KBA only distinguishes between large-capacity vans and minivans, not between compact MPV, minivan and Microvan. This can be seen in the list of vehicle segments of the Federal Motor Vehicle Office.

Current large- Vans

• VW Sharan, Seat Alhambra identical to
• Ford Galaxy, Ford S -Max
• Lancia Voyager
• Renault Espace
• Eurovan (PSA / Fiat ), Peugeot 807, Citroen C8
• Mercedes -Benz R-Class

Registrations in Germany

For figures on annual new registrations of passenger cars in the van segment in Germany according to statistics from the Federal Motor Vehicle Office, see the list of registrations of new passenger cars in Germany by segment and model series # vans.