By Sam Foley

Like many of my generation, I came of automotive age hating the minivan. Just as my parents and their contemporaries detested the station wagon and the vision of compliant domesticity it represented, I saw the minivan as an ugly icon of 1980s-era yuppie parenting -- the final surrender of a man’s individual will and masculinity to the needs of his family. However, the history of the minivan is a bit more complicated than most of us haters might have understood.

 

The original Dodge Caravan didn’t spring full-formed from the brain of Lee Iacocca in 1983; in fact, the minivan has a rich heritage, one that traces back to the Stout Scarab of the 1930s, an American vehicle with a degree of design innovation matched only by its outrageous-for-the-t​ime price of $5,000. Americans may have invented it, but the Europeans caused it to evolve, with famous incarnations such as the Fiat 600 Multipla in the 1950s and the Volkswagen Type 2 minibus in the '60s.

 

I'm hardly the first to point this out, but in light of recent news it bears repeating: Ford alone among Detroit automakers didn’t take any bailout money. Thankfully, Ford has found an old-fashioned way to pry money out of Americans -- by building cars and trucks that people want to buy. Envious gazes from GM and Chrysler turned a deeper shade of green today as Ford announced a third-quarter profit of $1.7 billion. That's up a staggering 68 percent from the same quarter in 2009, an admittedly dismal year for the industry overall.

 

While Ford isn’t fully out of the woods, this was the sixth straight profitable quarter for the Dearborn, Mich., automaker. Market share likewise rose, by two percentage points, bringing it up to 15 percent. But here’s the stat I liked best: Ford buyers paid an average of about $30,600 for every Ford and Lincoln in September, with buyers spending generously on options such as Ford’s Sync-enabled audio and navigation systems. Loading up on options is a sure sign that people like what they’re seeing at dealerships; these are cars that don’t sell on bargain-basement discounts, but on their merits. You only slap leather and a nav system on a car you’re proud to own, not one you’re settling for.

 

In a bold move from performance-oriented​, upscale automaker BMW, fleets of "the ultimate driving machine" will be available for rent by the hour, and renters can even book over the Internet.

At this stage it's simply a pilot program and only in Munich, Germany, though plans call for an expansion to other locales after the 12-month program runs its course.

Still, the entire fleet is on tap for online, telephone or in-person booking. Yes, you can sprint away in an M5. Yes, you can roll up to your potential in-laws' house in a 7-Series. Either one of those marquee vehicles will run you about $44.60 per hour, including insurance, cleaning and servicing. Prices varying by vehicle, a 1-Series would run you only about half that cost. 

Fancy cars and golf sort of go hand-in-hand; just ask a valet at any swanky country club. But when we think "golf enthusiast," we tend to picture badges like Lexus, BMW, Mercedes and Audi, not a primo supercar like Lamborghini.

And yet Lambo and golf-gear manufacturer Callaway have made a literal connection between links and track laps, having collaborated since 2008 on a new carbon-fiber material known as Forged Composite, which boasts nanoscale construction and the strength and light weight that that implies. 

 

Finally, someone put a figure to the whole electric-vehicle thing.

Sadly, talk surrounding electric vehicles tends to be vague and full of qualifiers -- small surprise when you consider it's still an emerging technology with an as-yet undefined, unquantifiable customer base. So it's refreshing to see that Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn has done some number-crunching in terms of cold, hard sales, rather than a vehicle's impact on, say, brand perception or technology leadership.

 

High-volume sales are the key to reducing cost for any product; EVs are no exception. Right now, the Nissan Leaf EV sells for $32,780 -- quite a high sticker, considering the Leaf is the size of the Versa subcompact, which starts at less than 10 grand and tops out at less than $17,000. But of course, research and development -- not to mention lithium-ion batteries -- are expensive, and manufacturers look to high initial prices for early adopters as well as to government subsidies -- in this case a federal payback of $7,500, which knocks the Leaf's price down to a more manageable $25,280 -- to move cars while staying profitable. By Ghosn's numbers, he could sell the full electric at the lower price figuring annual sales of -- wait for it -- 1 million Leafs.