I know you’re probably sick of hearing about Chevy Astro Vans, what with how often they appear in popular culture, the news, art, and other mainstays of human civilization, but I feel like it’s important to bring up a fiercely important aspect of these humble workhorses, which were around a surprisingly long time, from 1985 to 2005. These useful minivans were available in cargo and people-carrying variations, and usually came with rear “barn doors,” which were a pair of traditional big-van-style doors, dividing the rear vertically. From 1993 on, another option was provided: the “Dutch doors” which I’d like to discuss with you today.
Essentially, the Dutch door option turned the rear of the van into a three-door setup: an upward-opening hatch-type door that was about 50% the height of the rear, and then a pair of small doors, split vertically, like the lower chunk of the standard barn doors.
Here’s the two options:
These are very interesting door choices; the Astro was a minivan, in scale, but to be initially only offered with the vertical barn doors said something very telling about how GM saw these minivans: more as actual, traditional vans than as the station wagon replacements they were primarily sold as.
The mainstream minivan market that started (well, re-started, because the Volkswagen Microbus exists) in the 1980s with Chrysler’s series of K-car based minivans all embraced a rear upward-lifting hatch as the preferred way to get stuff in and out of the back of the van, something that largely remains expected in the minivan market to this day.
The upward-opening hatch has some good advantages: it forms a sort of roof, so loading stuff in the rain is a bit more pleasant, the rear window view is open and unbroken, unlike the barn doors that need to split the rear glass in half; and you can load the rear from all the way up to the rear bumper, and if you have cargo that extends out the back, you can drive with the hatch open, though you’ll probably have to deal with some exhaust inhalation. But that’s good for the lungs, right? They need a good workout sometimes, don’t they?
Now, my theory is that GM realized they made a sort of misstep by only offering very van-like barn doors on the Astro, so the panicked marketing people desperately went to the designers and engineers, demanding a hatch just like the Dodge Caravan and Ford Aerostar and Windstar and Toyota Previas and all the other minivans on the market.
The designers and engineers did the best they could, but I suspect GM’s legendary penny-pinchers imposed some severe limitations on just what they could do. My theory is that no major changes to the Astro’s frame or structure were allowed; this meant that while a hatch could be mounted on the upper part of the rear opening, there was no provision made to change the latching mechanism at the bottom, which was designed for two side-hinged doors.
So, the designers did the best they could: they made a half-height hatch and then filled in the bottom with the same latching system as the barn doors, two side-hinged doors, giving the world option W/E54, better known as Dutch doors:
It’s a pretty clever solution really, as you do get the biggest advantages of a hatch: an unbroken rear window and some rain protection, and it can be opened without requiring extra room to the side.
But, at the same time, you have to wonder just what those Dutch doors were actually good for?
[Ed Note: For the record, I do not approve of this kink-shaming. -DT].Â
It’s a weird setup, and the more I think about it, the weirder it gets. Having those lower side-hinged doors doesn’t seem all that useful in most situations, and any advantage I can think they offer – like keeping cargo secure if you also have a long something in there that needs to stick out the hatch – can all be accomplished better with a true drop-down tailgate.
I mean, think about it: is there anything those half-swing-sideways doors do better than a tailgate would? A tailgate would allow for a longer load floor if left down, keep cargo secure if left up with the hatch open (and if reversed, could be left down to let a ladder stick out the back but the hatch could be closed for better weather/noise/etc protection), and on top of all that be a nice place to sit, protected from weather by the open hatch. I can’t think of any way that a tailgate wouldn’t have been vastly better.
Of course, I think I know why the tailgate was never considered, and that’s because GM was too cheap to re-engineer the back lip of the Astro to have a hinged setup for the tailgate, because that would have been expensive.
So, what are the Dutch doors actually good for? I’m not the only one to ask this, of course. I mean, some people sort of like them, but the advantages stated usually sound like things that a regular full-size hatch does as well or better, or a drop-down tailgate/upward-opening hatch setup would also do better.
This strange setup shows up on a few other cars, like as an option on the Ford Excursion, and I can’t say I see a lot more utility to the setup there, either. Historically, sometimes you’d see this setup on Citroën H/HY vans, too:
And yeah, that’s definitely cool, and maybe the thin, corrugated rear upper hatch just couldn’t be made full height due to floppiness, but, again, I’m still not sure I see the advantages of this layout.
Maybe I’m being too harsh; there have to be some advantages to the rear barn door/upper hatch Dutch door setup. For example, this van-life guy came up with a nice outdoor kitchen setup on his Astro, and it has some weather protection thanks to the hatch, something a lot of these outdoor kitchens lack:
Despite my belligerent headline up there, I’m kind of confused now. Maybe it’s not so bad? I think it’s still inferior to a hatch/tailgate setup, though, but I think I have to give GM’s designers and engineers credit for coming up with some sort of solution to the give-us-something-other-than-delivery-van-doors problem despite GM’s perfidy.
So, maybe the Dutch doors aren’t so stupid? Just a little stupid.
I actually worked on this vehicle during my career. Cost had nothing to do with the design selection. The Dutch door solution was actually very expensive. People complained about the lack of visibility due to the dual doors being right in the middle at the vehicle’s rear. A single hatch was investigated but it had multiple issues. The option of a single hatch caused significant engineering challenges. Those challenges were not insurmountable. The Dutch doors were chosen because it improved rear visibility and it still allowed access to the rear compartment when a trailer was attached to the vehicle.
I owned one and the biggest problem I had with the design is the flip up portion weighed a lot – I knew because the lift struts were shot. Door seemed to be so heavy that I didn’t think replacing the struts was worthwhile as that heavy door would wear them out quickly. Also, I didn’t have much $ to spend on auto parts that didn’t keep car going at the time.
I think the design concept was decent, but the final design could have used some refinement. Dang, that door was HEAVY!!!