It’s time for a real Caravan Cargo Van
Chrysler is again missing some important sales opportunities here. The cargo van page notes that “the rear hatch and dual sliding doors ease loading and unloading.” Dual sliding doors, yes, rear hatch, very definitely no.
For a commercial vehicle, hatches do not work. For most courier, messenger, and delivery work, hatches are slow, hard to use, and get in the way. Try to load a small skid with a fork lift, or use a courier loading dock without banging your head on the hatch.
I did this work for 10 years, much of that time as a supervisor of 25 messenger routes. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, side-opening rear doors were available on Caravans though they were advertised so poorly that many Dodge truck salesmen did not know they existed.
This could be a hot item. Vans are more versatile than pick-ups for this work. And, yes, there are full-size cargo vans available. But back when Chevrolet sold Astro vans, they were very popular in the delivery business, (while neither the Ford Aerostar nor the FWD vans could make any kind of inraod). They were cheaper to buy, much more maneuverable around town, saved on fuel, and had normal rear doors. All these items are even more important today, but there is no small van available for this use due to the lack of proper rear doors.
Whatever the new commercial Caravan sales will be, they could be increased probably 50 - 75% with a pair of side-hinged doors on the rear if they were properly advertised to the trades.
(Dave from Allpar added: What’s more, many tradesmen build shelves and other storage units inside their vans. If Chrysler provided accessible floor and roof mounting points and made optional interior-window-blocks, it would also greatly expand the usefulness of these vehicles.)
i always thought that the Caravan C/V was one of the best vans for the intended use. but i guessed wrong. many business in my town have them as there delevery vans be it the 2nd 3rd or 4th gen minis.
In my suburban community there are large UPS and Post Office distribution centers. I see many different kinds of delivery vans on the roads here. Both the Post Office and UPS still have in service Ford Aerostars with the dual rear doors. If Ford could build their vans both ways, why can’t Chrysler? Many of the current Chrysler products seem half hearted in their developement. Why the new commercial van has taller gearing than the previous lighter generation model is a mystery to me. Put in the rear doors and gear it properly. With proper advertising they should sell. Why not sell a version of the commercial van with Stow n GO? Some of us have need of the heavy duty parts but need the seats. A customer can’t get the trailer towing package on the base model. The cheapest trim level offering heavy duty suspension and cooling is nearly $4,000 more than the base Grand Caravan.
To small town boy. It’s not that the cargo Caravans are totally useless. Obviously they do sell a certain number of vehicles or they wouldn’t keep building them. The point is they could sell to a much larger group of customers with rear cargo doors as opposed to a hatch. I drove courier routes for close to ten years. Had I been doing my normal 9.5 to 11 hour route with 40 to 60 stops, many of which required opening and closing what ever door I used twice, my right arm would have been hugely bigger than my left. Go out to your van and try opening and closing it 80 times for a few days and see what I mean. I will bet that the drivers you see in your town using mini-vans for delivery are using the side doors as much as possible.
Or, if doing on-call work, try to pick up a skid. Many skids moved by courier/messenger services will fit in a Caravan and be with in the weight limits. But how are you going to put a 700 pound skid in through a hatch. You cannot load it with a forklift as the mast will crush the hatch. And if your customers can’t load and/or unload with a fork lift they will tell you to go away and send in a truck. It happened to me a couple of times simply because the pick-up I was driving was not standard dock height. And if you do that too many times, the customers change it to simply “go away” and you’re out of business. You must have equipment that can do the job. The company I worked for had between 50 and 60 light-duty trucks on the road, both company owned and independent contractors. There wasn’t a hatch equipped unit in the fleet at any time during the 10 years I worked for them.