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 think you’re all missing the true benefit of this design: overhead protection with your rear speakers facing out. The perfect tailgating setup!
The real problem is, people keep giving these the monicker “minivan” when they are just small vans. You can tell that they are not minivans because they are very cool, and do not turn your soul beige. So they get to do interesting things. Like weird doors. Hope this helps.
You keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Growing up, my family had two Astros, a ’90 and a ’01 if memory serves, with the cargo van style double doors and the Dutch doors respectively. My dad built for the back of each of them a carpeted platform that covered the cargo area. They were flush with the height of the bench seats when folded down, making one big flat bed-like area at window height, and hinged to allow access below. This was especially great on the later Dutch door model, because to get to stuff you had on the top level, you only had to open this one little hatch.
As someone else mentioned, neither door setup was hindered by a trailer. In fact, we would sometimes keep the Dutch hatch open while hitching so a spotter could communicate more easily with the driver.
I can see why people would like this. You don’t have to reach over a tailgate; you can get nice and close. Plus, you have a bit of rain protection and you maintain a full rear window which means improved visibility.
Being Dutch, I have to comment on the wrong use of the phrase ‘Dutch doors’. A Dutch door is a frontdoor of a house, which is split in two, a bottom and a top half, both having hinges on the same side. You could open the top half for extra light or a breeze, while the bottom half remained shut to keep the animals on the farm outside, or the children of the house inside. You could also connect the two sides and open them like a normal door. Only the French have been creative enough to invent the three split doors on vans, so I would rather like you to refer to them as ‘French doors’.
French doors however refer to two doors, hinged opposite one another, where one latches into the frame and the other latches to the first.
So the French invented Dutch doors, and barn doors are actually French doors.
That means my Chevy Tahoe with barn doors (that have GMC Suburban badges from the donor vehicle), is actually a Suburbhoe with French doors.
There are three reasons that I see for doing it. Like you say, it went from cargo carrier to minivan grocery getter. The too cheap to redesign argument makes no sense, because they had to redesign it for the dutchdoor system anyway. You have to think about it from a smaller person perspective, and also where it’s going to be parked, which is in the garage. Most garage doors roll up over the vehicle when it’s parked inside. The upper hatch can open without hitting the door above it, and the bottom barn doors open to the side rather than a single tailgate style so you can stand up against the back rather than trying to reach something in the back with the gate holding you a couple feet or so back off the inside. Third reason is the unbroken rear view. Remember, this was before back up cameras.
The redesign argument makes sense because other than the upper hinge, the lower hinges and door latch/striker (which is part of your crash structure) stay the same. The top hatch simply locks on to the lower doors, so you’re still using the factory lower hinges and door latch/striker
The reason a single liftgate was not available was that the vehicle was marketed to women and the upward swinging hatch would’ve been too heavy making opening and closing a major issue. This is before aluminum and power assist were widely used on hatches. The other issue is height. With the Astro twins the body is much higher off the ground compared to Caravan/Voyager. The height of the hatch in the open position would be quite hard to reach. Even Chrysler was difficult for a petite person.
Frankly the GM solution is the best as others have pointed out. It also probably cost the most to manufacture.
We had the GMC version (Safari) for over a decade with the barn doors. A very handy vehicle. Barn doors worked well for a various specific needs (moving large musical instruments, lots of bags of potting soil, potted iris plants, etc.) The Dutch doors probably would have been fine too, but a tailgate would be much more of a PITA in the various ways already pointed out in the comments. It would have been nice for the seats to be more easily removable, because of the way we used, we mostly left the back row out of the van.
I think it’s great. The old Peugeot vans also had it. Along with very cool front sliding doors!
https://heritagemachines.com/wp-content/uploads/10.-Peugeot_J7_Camper_Brochure_pic.jpg
Believe it or not, that actually seems to be the consensus amongst pro cycling training experts at the moment, although it’s controversial enough that no one ever disclosed it until rumours of this method started circulating. They now say carbon monoxide inhalation is not part of the training itself (ie. it’s not meant to influence performance in any way), but rather that it’s used for accurate measurements of physiological parameters post-training, which people aren’t really buying, especially because the Union Cycliste Internationale doesn’t seem to be looking into it – it should be noted that the UCI has historically done way more to cover-up doping than to actually fight the problem.
I have an answer. And the answer is that this is the same design they used for station wagons.
One must remember that GM and Ford saw minivans as essentially truck-based station wagons. Hence why the Aerostar and Astro were just vans. But shorter. Reminder that the original “vans” of the 1960s were truck-based solutions to build a short wheelbase “panel van” bodystyle, a bodystyle that took a station wagon body and filled the rear windows with steel insert panels. Many of the people who designed the original Chevrolet Corvair Greenbrier/Sportvan and Ford Econoline from 1961 to 1971 would’ve still been around in 1983 when the Astro and Aerostar were being designed, and thus the mindset of them being panel-vans would’ve still seeped into the design in some ways. Just like how microcomputers all followed the breadbin format for fifteen years (1977-1992) before the PC tower or Mac-style all-in-one became the dominant layouts.
What? That’s the best design. So much flexibility . Comon Torch you need help!
I have a 99 Astro with dutch doors in back. I love them. Lots of advantages over twin doors like cargo vans
I would not want a tailgate. It would cause you to be much further from the van, and the height is quite high.
My only criticism of the dutch doors is that there is no way to open the hatch from the inside, stock. Easily remedied with a quick 20 minute mod, but still, kind of dumb you can’t open it from inside.
Once upon a time, I one of these as a company pool vehicle. It had the dutch doors and they were awesome for loading heavy-but-fragile electronic equipment into. Sure, the barn doors were just as good about that, but the glass being overhead was nice when the weather wasn’t so accommodating. We had pickup trucks and sedans in the pool, but the Astro got the most love.
The reason i see is for towing. You can easily open the top hatch cover and not get in the way of the trailer, the exact same reason. It wasn’t a tailgate.
“I mean, think about it: is there anything those half-swing-sideways doors do better than a tailgate would?”
Yes. There absolutely is, as per my username:
When I pack my drums for a gig, all my cymbal stands and other hardware go into a roughly 42″x18″x10″ hard case that I lovingly refer to as “the coffin,” because it weighs approximately as much as a deceased offensive tackle on his way to his final resting place. The easiest way for me to load it in the back of a vehicle with a hatch is to stand it on end the appropriate distance from the rear bumper, lean it over until it rests against the bottom of the door opening, squat down and grab it from the bottom, then use the rear door sill (sometimes with an assist from the rear bumper) as a fulcrum to leverage it up into the vehicle – lifting with my legs, of course. To paraphrase Archimedes, give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall load that heavy sumbitch all by myself.
In an SUV, minivan, or wagon with a rear hatch door that swings straight up (or a cool old station wagon with a side-swing door, or even the coveted “disappearing clamshell” door), this is much easier and less wear and tear on the car. In anything with any sort of fold-down tailgate, over time this would dork up the fitment of the tailgate at best, or rip the tailgate clean off its hinges at worst. I mean, it’s literally a large box full of chrome-plated steel pipe. I’ve never weighed it, but I would bet you yesterday’s paycheck that it weighs 100 pounds if it weighs an ounce.
So yeah, in the most common situation where I need that cargo space anyway, I would much rather have the Astro’s “Dutch door” arrangement than a tailgate. My gig vehicle would actually, you know, HAVE a rear door much longer that way.
And tailgates generally have the edge a bit higher than the sill, due to the front-to-back suspension angle. Also, with no tailgate in the way, you can lift and rest a heavy object on the bumper first, then lift them the last bit of the way onto the sill a little easier — then finally lever it up as you say.
Joe, how many stands do you have? I used to have 4 booms, the hi-hat, snare stand and pedal, and never thought they were so heavy (mostly Pearl Export stuff). Granted, I never lifted all of them at once, so…
Well… lift all of them at once sometime, in a big box.
I had it coming… Keep beating, fella!
I like them a lot better than a tailgate just due to ease of loading. Who wants to load crap over the 2ft tailgate to get it into the van? When loading heavy things, being able to set it right into the van is so much better than setting it on the tailgate and then pushing it in.
It’s obviously designed for the loading and dispensing of a large load of apples.
Or puppies. Anyone who has tried to load multiple excited great danes into a hatchback can tell you it’s utter chaos, but being able to quickly close part of the aperture is usually enough to get them to settle in a bit so you can then close the rest without catching ears in doors.
Putting two danes and a wolfhound mix in my r53 was an adventure.
Or hams…oh wait, that’s the bumper
I actually have a soft heart for the Astro/Safari, especially the AWD version. I hired those vans many times for moving and for the road trips with friends. Perfect for Colorado winters…
They were very popular in Japan despite the lack of sliding door on the left side and right-hand-drive.
The half barn doors don’t keep you away from the rear edge of the vehicle as a tailgate would, allowing you to reach further into the cargo area. Much better. Don’t some pickups offer tailgate that can open to the side for the very same reason?
I came here to say this! I have an SUV with a tailgate and, although cool, I have to climb right in to load the trunk. I actually find it really irritating!
I love the Astro’s “Dutch doors”, plus I think they likely provide some wind shelter when sat in the bumper.
RAM 1500, one of the therapists at my work has one and loves to play with it.
The Ford Excursion was this easy as well. Way better than a single large hatch, but still not as good as my 1988 3/4 ton suburban was with a powered rear window that dropped into the tailgate.
Another possibility is that the rear edge of the roof wasn’t strong or stiff enough to carry a rather heavy full rear hatch, but an upper glass panel was within limits.
We had two Astros when I was a kid. They were AMAZING. The interior volume was miles beyond minivans of the 90s. We could haul a wooden crate with two pigs, 14 sheep, or 4 Boy Scouts and half the Troop’s equipment for a transcontinental road trip. (Some of these activities required laying down heavy plastic beforehand.)
The quasi-captains chairs in the second row were an amazing luxury and they came in and out much more easily than was common on vans of that era. The AWD was an uncommon feature on vans of the time.
Our first Astro had the regular double doors. The latter had the Dutch doors. We liked the DDs compared to a regular van upward-swinging gate or the two full doors because they permitted the carrying of timber or boats that were too long for the cargo area and the half gate was much easier to open and close than a full gate would have been. Remember that the back end of an Astro is a good foot higher than a Town and Country of similar vintage, with a correspondingly bulkier gate and longer distance that it needs to swing.
Compared to a tailgate, the advantage should be obvious. You could the doors while standing right at the bumper. This meant that you didn’t have as far to reach as you would with a tailgate and, in a parallel parking scenario, you didn’t require a distance of bumper+human to reach directly in. You could stand in front of the rear left door, open the right door, move to that side, and have the trunk floor right in front of you. It was truly the best possible compromise for closing off such a large rear end in a compact and versatile manner.
Yeah you got this wrong. Everyone I knew who had the dutch door option really liked it. It makes for easier loading of something small by just opening the top and is far better for carrying long things than a hatch or barn door set up. With the bottom doors closed the long thing can sit on top of them and all the loose stuff down on the floor won’t fall out. The shorter hatch portion also means less clearance is needed to open it and it being lighter was very welcome in the days before powered tailgates were a thing. It is also better for accessing things in the vehicle when you have a trailer hitched up as the hatch won’t run into the trailer jack or propane tanks like a full height hatch can.
It is also way better than a split gate system where the top folds up and the bottom folds down, being able to stand at the bumper makes loading/unloading things much easier, especially heavy things. Depending on your trailer set up the lower doors can be opened in many more instances than can the drop down tailgate.
Seriously the dutch doors are better than a full hatch, a 1/2 fold up 1/2 fold down, or barn doors on everything except that it takes 3 steps to fully open or close, instead of 1 or 2. But since much of the time you are only opening the top it isn’t that big of a deal on the occasions you do need full access.
I’m pretty sure a Dutch-door equipped AWD Astro was an absolute cult favorite.
Or as they would say around here Holy Grail.