Man With a Van

The Real Power of Tinted Windows

Have you been driving a minivan?

I’m a pretty big dude. Of all the cars I could drive, I never saw myself behind the wheel of a minivan, and yet there I was, driving a white minivan all over town.

It all started earlier this year when I got into a fender bender that put my truck in the shop for a few weeks. I needed something else to drive around for a while, but when I went to the rental car place, my options were pretty slim. All they had was a very, very small SUV or a white minivan. I’d never driven a minivan before, so I picked that one because I figured it would make for a funny story. Had I known it would be three weeks before I’d get my truck back, I might have reconsidered my choices. That said, I think minivans get a bad rap.

Minivans, I quickly found out, are basically just SUVs — except $20,000 cheaper. There’s so much space inside! The kids loved it. The minivan we rented had two captain's seats in the middle, and they loved to lean those things back as far as they could and pretend to be asleep during every ride. There was even enough room for me to carry my baseball equipment around in the minivan, which was great. The problem? I looked like a dork driving it around.

That’s the trouble with the minivan. No matter how spacious and useful they are, you still look ridiculous behind the wheel. Even though minivans first came out in the ‘80s, unlike other things from the 1980s, I don’t think minivans will ever be back in style. They’re just not cool. That’s why people buy SUVs instead. That said, SUVs are much more expensive than a minivan. People buy SUVs because they need the storage and they want to look cool. If you don’t care about what other people think, then a minivan is easily a better option than an SUV based on price alone.

After driving a minivan around for a few days, it grew on me, but I’m really glad to be back in my truck. I ran into so many people I knew while driving that minivan, and everyone had a comment. It was all in good fun. I started making jokes about it early on Facebook.

The minivan was a pretty good rental car for us. That said, if you’re thinking about getting a minivan, I recommend investing in tinted windows. Trust me. No amount of space makes up for how old you feel when someone recognizes you behind the wheel of a minivan.