Five minivans that would embarrass your sports car so imagine this you’re on the way home in your new sports car and you see a bloated minivan pull up beside you at the lights most people would shrug off a minivan is being deathly slow only suitable for carrying families in there things here are five cars that might just make you think twice.
1 number one Vauxhall Zafira
VXR there’s never been a car quite like
the Saphira VXR on the markets and it
makes you wonder why it actually exists
having said that rocks all thought that
they could sell the thing and bravely
built it throughout the past 50 years or
so high-performance vehicles and people
carrying abilities tended to have been
two separate things
Vauxhall sought to change this offering
that VXR treatment on one of their most
ordinary yet best-selling vehicles the
VXR packs a powerful 240 brake
horsepower 4-cylinder engine which can
actually be remapped up to almost 300
brake horsepower
unlike the few other sporty minivans on
the market the VXR actually gets the
full VXR treatment stiffer springs a new
front and rear bumper side skirts and
sport seats as well as this you got a
set of sporty VXR wheels and a really
nice bright blue paint job featuring the
same engine as the already fast Astra
VXR the cefiro will accelerate from
nought to 60 in under seven seconds not
bad for a car cc
or five people in a lot of luggage the
stiffer Springs make it handle well
although some critics complain that
there is little to no steering feel on
offer still you can’t have everything
and the Saffir of VXR is a cool sleeper
that ticks a lot of boxes chances are
you will rarely if ever see another one
on the road so exclusivity is a factor
the drivers beware these things are fast
prepare to be humiliated at the lights
if hearing anything short of a sports
car.
2 number two Renault Espace f1 I’ve
always liked Renault for their crazy
contraptions notably that brilliant Clio
v6 but the Espace f1 takes it a step
further it takes a certain kind of
madman to drop a Formula one engine into
a minivan but trust the guys at Renault
to do it the year was 1995 and Renault
had a simple problem they needed
something to celebrate their 10 years in
Formula One but also really wanted
something to convey the decade-long
success of the Espace vehicle they
hummed and hard until one day some
bright spark must have suggested they
combine the two the result was rather
astonishing if a bit scary what this
meant was a v10 powered Espace minivan
paired with a 6-speed sequential
transmission the vehicle was capable of
reaching 60 miles per hour and a
ballistic 2.8 seconds topping out at a
downright ridiculous 194 miles per hour
to be fair to the engineering side of it
the vehicle wasn’t really an Espace but
more like an f1 space frame with an
Espace body shoved on top of it the
vehicle used the lightweight
carbon-fiber f1 style chassis in
combination with a carbon fiber
reinforced Espace j63 series body to
complete the project
the 820 brake horsepower v10 was mounted
in the middle for perfect weight
distribution pretty damn cool right
although I can’t see much room left
inside for the kids in the camping gear.
3 number three Mercedes r 63 AMG here’s a
factory car that will surprise most that
it even exists the art class isn’t
exactly AMG material from the factory
what the art class is is a very
comfortable germanic tourer and people
carrier a smart foot ordinary car
designed for very ordinary purposes
ordinary no doubts at least until the
boys that Mercedes AMG got their hands
on it of course you may be surprised to
hear the Mercedes r 63 AMG is a full fat
factory AMG model so unusual is the r 63
AMG that in the US mercedes didn’t even
advertise the car to get one you had to
go to the dealer and special order it in
straight from stuttgart kind of like a
secret item on the restaurant menu the r
63 AMG uses the whopping 500 and 700 s
our 6.2 liter naturally aspirated v8
from the c63 AMG sending power to all
four wheels sure it weighs around five
thousand three hundred pounds but that’s
still quite some power for a minivan no
one knows exactly how many are 63 s were
built in total but that number is almost
certainly under a thousand and more
likely in the low hundreds this car is a
wise investment folks and a truly
bonkers machine get one while C still
can.
4 number four Toyota Sienna a lot of
people look at the rather front P Toyota
Sienna and dismiss it as another rather
boring minivan for soccer moms or family
guys externally the Sienna is as dull as
dishwater yet under the hood lies a
secret that may surprise people yes you
don’t get a 507 brake horsepower v8 but
what you do get is a significant 3.5
liter v6 engine with 296 bhp more than
double that of a brand new base Spec
Miata while though the Sienna is a
plain-looking vehicle Toyota’s choice to
install the Tacomas direct injection 3.5
liter v6 combined with the new 8-speed
automatic
seems like a wise one nor 260 happens in
seven seconds not bad for a bloated and
lumbering barge of a vehicle Congrats to
Toyota for doing this the Sienna has
come a long way from the 187 horsepower
at 2.7 liter 4-cylinder that is featured
in previous models which must have felt
extremely underpowered I must say it
will be nice to see a 2jz engine in one
of these but perhaps that’s asking for
too much.
5 number five Ford s-max ST Rice’s beware
your Honda may be in grave trouble
packing 12 horsepower more than a brand
new Civic Si this minivan could show you
its tail in a drag race with a healthy
217 brake horse power sports wheels and
lowered suspension the s max ST is
sports answer to the question that’s no
one is asking but still it’s great that
they have produced this subtle but
rather wacky vehicle
being at servo charged engine you can
easily map the car to more than 260
brake horsepower which would worry some
pretty fast machinery although it’s a 5
cylinder so it can sound great the
exhaust and the Quattro style the
interior is rather more standard s-max
than sports car although you do get a
dished steering wheel and some upgraded
seats the gear stick is dashboard
mounted too just like a Civic type-r the
s-max ST is a silly vehicle but watch
out have you ever see one it could show
you up big time on a highway pull or in
between that gap in traffic so there you
are folks which minivan did I miss let me know.
