2011 Dodge Grand Caravan R/T, You're No "Man Van"

By Justan Brandt

Justan Brandt

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Justan Brandt is a journalist & writer who specializes in automotive coverage. He has been a student at Bob Bondurant's School of High Performance... More

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2011 Dodge Grand Caravan R/T, You're No "Man Van"
Dear Dodge, It has come to my attention that the 2011 Dodge Caravan will be available in R/T trim... Read More

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2011 Dodge Grand Caravan R/T

Dear Dodge,

It has come to my attention that the 2011 Dodge Caravan will be available in R/T trim and is known internally as the “man van.”  

As a single father of two, I’m still hunting for a vehicle that combines all the space I need for my kids with the raw performance of a sports car.  A supercharged Range Rover Sport, BMW X5 M or Porsche Cayenne Turbo may do the trick. But they are out of my, and the average fathers, budget.  An Audi RS6 sits high on my want list, but it carries a base price of $158,614 in Germany and isn’t available in the States.  Even the Audi S4 Avant and S3, which could be more financially obtainable, are not available Stateside.

So the idea of a high-performance vehicle, even if it is a minivan, that fits my kids, hound dog and all of our gear, sounds like a dream come true.  And after reading the specs for the new 2011 Dodge Caravan R/T, I realized it’s still a dream. There is nothing about the Caravan R/T that will have me running to my local Dodge dealer anytime soon.  For me, I am less interested in the 506-watt stereo, black leather seats with red stitching and cutting-edge entertainment.  Although I want them, they don’t help with the performance.  And I can get leather and fancy electronics in every other minivan.

I’m a man, a father and sports-car nut who needs to haul the family. I want something that gurgles and sounds like a monster.  I want to take on the Cayenne Turbo with seating for seven. I want to run down 60 mph like I’m in a ridiculously tuned turbocharged Caravan of the '80s. I would even be willing to give up some handling, it is a top heavy van, for raw straight-line performance.

A Dodge Caravan R/T equipped with the 360-horsepower 5.7-liter HEMI, would’ve gotten my attention.  Mating it to a six-speed manual gear box, would’ve gotten me out of my chair.  And running it through a rear-wheel biased all-wheel-drive system, would’ve gotten me to the dealership.  That my friends, is a “man van.”

Sincerely,

A father of two in search of the perfect family-performance-vehicle