Niki Byrne is an up and coming screenwriter and director and someone who loves cars. In particular, she loves a 1991 Toyota Previa van that has been in her family since it was brand new. Now with nearly 300,000 miles on it, she still drives the wheels off the thing despite the fact that it is tattered and seemingly on its last legs as a functional vehicle. Byrne harbored aspirations of being a racing driver, attended Skip Barber, and even worked for the FIA in Europe before concentrating on her film career. So what’s the deal with the Toyota van? Well, these things are a bit crazier than you’d expect.
The Previa is a mid-engine, rear wheel drive van. That engine has a blower on it and it’s actually a Miller cycle engine as opposed to the normal Otto cycle engines that power virtually everything else on Earth in the modern world. As someone who was formally trained as a driver, Byrne recognized the layout and the advantages it had for handling and fun and as a kid when she got get license, she loved driving the van and beating on the van. No, it was never the coolest car in the high school parking lot but it did something for her and still does.
Cars are what we make of them. We all have machines in our past that probably weren’t that great or machines that we loved and held onto for reasons known only to us. The memories, the way they made us feel, the connection between the vehicle itself and your own life. That’s what this film is about and we really like it.
Don’t get hung up on the van, don’t get hung up on Byrne, get hung up on the underlying message here. This is fantastic.
I’ve been preaching this for a very long time! When I was a teenager, I drove a 426 Max Wedge Super Stocker in Sundays. But I drove a ’62 Morris Minor I bought out of somebody’s back yard for $75 bucks to high school every day. In the early ’90’s, my wife bought me a brand new Yugo for my birthday so that I’d stop riding my ZX10 Ninja to work in -19 degree weather and snow and ice. Yeah, I did that. I now have a ’15 Fiat 500 that I bought a couple of years ago when I went to a car lot intending to buy a Hemi Magnum wagon (don’t ask). I’ve said since I owned it, if you can’t enjoy driving a Yugo you aren’t a true car enthusiast. If you have to have 500+ horsepower to make yourself feel good, you’re missing the point.
Nothing wrong with enthusiasm for a “weird/plain/normal” car. I’ve owned about twenty cars over the years, including a ’69 Firebird, a ’72 Monte Carlo, and a Caprice 9c1. Yet I really think the car I’ve loved the most all together was my ’96 Honda Civic hatchback. So small, so simple to work on, but with so much cargo room, so fun to drive, lively, responsive, handled like a slot car, with a nice understated styling. I really want to find another one.
I have been a mechanic my whole life. 73 years . previa is one of the best all time vans ever built. I totally agree with the young lady.
I love and am thankful for my 2003 2wd Tacoma !