The results are in

 

The minivan conversion to a towcar worked just fine.

 

There was a lot to do.  We needed a baseplate mounted to the front for our Blue Ox towbar.  Blue Ox doesn’t make a baseplate for our car, but Roadmaster does, so they installed a Roadmaster baseplate and modified it to connect to our Blue Ox towbar.  We needed a wiring kit so the towcar lights and turn signals will mimic whatever the motorhome lights are doing.  We need a braking system to apply the towcar brakes when the motorhome brakes are applied.  We got an Air Force1 system for that.  It is activated by way of an air line from the coach to a physical connection with the arm of the brake pedal.

 

Those are the basic components; baseplate, wiring kit, auxiliary braking.  There is an additional twist though.  Normally, in a towcar, we have to turn the ignition key to the accessory position to unlock the steering wheel.  The minivan doesn’t have an ignition key; it has a push-to-start button.  It’s a little tricky to get everything in the right place.  The transmission has to be in Park to turn the engine off.  Then, without touching the brake pedal (or the car will start again), push the start button twice to get the ignition to the correct position so we can take the car out of Park and put it in Neutral.  At that point it’s ready to tow except that all the dash lights are lit and alarm bells are ringing because the ignition is on but the engine is not running.  The installers added one more feature for us, a battery disconnect.  Throw the battery disconnect and the car entirely shuts up.  Close the hood and the car is ready to quietly tow.

 

The process isn’t as simple as it was with the Jeep, but we don’t want to tow a Jeep anymore, we want to tow a minivan.  It seems like a lot of moving parts to make this work, but we towed the van for a thousand miles, unhooked it here in Colorado to drive, and everything is working just fine.  We declare the tow setup to be a success!