Putting the "Van" in "Van Morrison"By Phil Eil
I was walking down Mission Street the other night, just South of Cesar Chavez, when I saw something that made my heart skip. No, it wasn’t another ex-girlfriend lookalike (they’re everywhere, I swear), it was a 1991 white Toyota Previa -- a doppelganger of my first car -- parked in front of The Knockout.
The Previa, if you don’t know, was a Toyota minivan produced from 1991 to 1997 (their popularity followed roughly the same arc as Soundgarden’s). With a name derived from the Italian word “to preview” or “to look ahead,” Previa enthusiasts, past and present, agree -- the Previa was a visionary feat of engineering.
By conventional performance standards, Previas were nothing special. The turning radius was abominable – three point turns routinely became six or seven point turns. The van’s pickup was non-existant – my brothers and I didn’t boast about 0 – 60, we boasted when the car exceeded 60.
“Dude, I hit 62 coming back from the airport.” “Nice.”
And then there was the shedding. The car was constantly shedding stuff -- losing hubcaps, mirrors, door-handles, and antennae -- sometimes mid-trip.
The Previa’s charm, however, was never based in horsepower or stop-on-a-dime handling. The Previa had style. Toyota’s website describes the van as “futuristic both inside and out,” but that’s only scratching the surface. My friends called it “The Eggmobile” and “Apollo 14.” Family members referred to ours as “White Lightning,” “It,” or “That Thing in the Driveway that Transports Nine People Comfortably.”
The Previa was also gritty. Folks in online Previa-forums compare mileages of five and six hundred thousand miles. Our Previa had over 200K -– and a slew of battle scars -– by the time my brothers and I went off to college and we sold her.
But, the real reason why I stopped, breathless, to admire the vehicle parked on Mission Street is that Previas have soul. Aretha-grade soul. When I spotted that white one yesterday, I remembered my brother giving me Dead-Arms in the backseat during family road trips. I pictured the first winter after I got my driver’s license, screaming “Yeehawww!” as I did donuts in the Blockbuster parking lot. I remembered driving to the beach with the windows down and “Welcome to the Jungle” playing at max volume. I’m new to this city, and the sight of a white Previa on Mission Street was a message from the San Francisco gods saying, “Welcome home.”
Check out these bizarre Previa links:
Previaparts.com—"Specializing in Toyota Previa parts, including the hard-to-find Auxiliary shaft.”
“Neither Fast Nor Furious: Previa Drifting.”
Previa + Benny Hill Theme Music = Genius
(Oh yeah, and with regard to Van Morrison: I don’t care that he released “Caravan” in 1970, twenty years before Toyota release their magic minivans. To me that song has always been an ode to 1991 white Toyota Previas.)
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