Flat-Nose Minivans
Several models of minivans locate the front-seat driver and passenger far forward within the occupant area. This cab-forward design is evident with minivans such as the GMC Safari and the Toyota Previa. The front-seat occupants of the Previa actually sit ahead of the front wheels. In a frontal crash scenario, they are located closer to the initial impact area.

Even seemingly minor damage to the vanŐs front end can jam front doors and result in injuries to occupants. Note the distortion of the passenger front door frame and A-post.

Rescue personnel must also anticipate the special rescue evolutions needed to free front-seat occupants trapped in a minivan. In a serious front collision in which the driver is trapped, the steering wheel and column may have to be moved or removed.

Efforts to complete the task by placing tools across the hood are frustrated by the sloping front of the vehicle, which is generally so blunted that what was once horizontal has become nearly vertical. Moving steering columns by placing equipment across the windshield is one acceptable technique. Working from inside the vehicle, rescuers can complete a rolling of the dash or with strategic cuts into the A-post, can "jack" the dash away from the occupants.

Body Design: Metal Vs. Plastic
Minivans also confront rescuers with a variety of body materials. With the original, first-generation minivans introduced by Chrysler as the 1984 Voyager and Caravan models, body structural members and all body panels were steel construction.

More severe collision damage results in greater damage to the structure of the van. In this crash, the passenger front door has almost been crushed completely out of the door frame area and is jammed.

When the second generation of minivans were introduced with the 1989 model year, plastic body materials became popular. GM's Olds Silhouette, Chevy Lumina and Pontiac Transport minivans turned many heads with their long tapered front noses and huge windshields. What was also unique was their use of a steel alloy "space frame" and all-plastic body panels. As we now know, this material reacts differently during fire and extrications than the metal we were used to.

Plastic body panels are slippery, will crack or fracture suddenly, and bend differently than metal during extrication operations. It may be necessary to use hand tools to break this plastic material away before power rescue tools can actually get a grip as they pry or spread.

With all body panels removed, the Pontiac Trans Sport's "space frame" steel structure is revealed. Beginning with the 1997 model, all-steel body panels have replaced the plastic ones.

Ironically, with the current third generation of minivans, manufacturers have reverted to the familiar steel material. Of interest to rescue personnel is that the current Ford Windstar minivan incorporates the highest number and percentage of high-strength steel parts found today on any North American vehicle, perhaps even any vehicle in the world.

According to the Auto/Steel Partnership (A/SP), a consortium of sheet steel suppliers along with Ford, General Motors and Chrysler, the front-wheel-drive Windstar contains three times as many high-strength steel parts as Ford's previous generation minivan design, the rear-wheel-drive Aerostar. About 60 percent of the Windstar's 165 body structure (referred to by design engineers as "body-in-white" parts) are high-strength steel stampings.

Ford achieved weight parameters for the Windstar, however, using several types of high-strength steel. Because high-strength steel is stronger than the conventional mild steel used on most minivans, designers used thinner gauges to save weight. For the three biggest stampings – the two front doors and the sliding side door outer panels – Ford selected electrogalvanized bake hardenable (BH) steel.

This artist's rendering of the Toyota Previa minivan shows where reinforced steel pillars support the roof and help form a stronger structure around the driver and passengers. Extrication equipment cutting into these metal materials will encounter stiffer resistance and may operate slower as they sever this material.

Ford also uses BH steel on a number of unexposed structural body parts in the Windstar. Some examples include door reinforcements, body-side hinge reinforcements, D-pillar reinforcements and roof headers. In addition to BH steels, Ford uses a considerable amount of high-strength, low-alloy (HSLA) steel throughout the body-in-white. Many of the Windstar's structural underbody rails are made from HSLA steels. Ford uses ultra-high-strength steel for the side-impact door beams in the front driver and passenger doors and for a front bumper reinforcement.

Other carmakers have expanded their application of high-strength steels in new vehicles to reduce weight. Models include the Mercury Mystique, Chry-sler Cirrus, Dodge Stratus, Lexus LS400, Jaguar XJ6, Ford Contour, Mitsubishi Eclipse and Porsche 911 Carrera.