Again, you prove my point. You are a car guy, not a tech guy. So you buy what works best for you, regardless of historical context. Just like a vast majority of car shoppers.

 

If you were 30 years old and bought the first Caravan, you would be 65+ today. Makes it hard to believe that anyone in their current 20s or 30s look at the Chrysler Pacifica and think about how Chrysler invented the minivan. If anyone who actually did a search of “Pacifica” would come up with the cross over model that was available back on the early 00s.

 

I just don’t care for the Sienna, I’d get an Odyssey. I think we’re just going to ride it out and get a crossover once the lease is up though.

People do remember what their parents had also, which has an impact on their own purchase decisions

Chrysler’s experience with minivans shows in its design also.

 

Right. But I think what’s is of debate is whether or not the inventors of the minivan have any influence on the purchase of a new Pacifica. I tend to think no. Chrysler’s reputation for reliability casts a dark cloud over their past reputation for inventing the segment. Only thing that fuels their sales figures is the far lower starting price point, large discounts, the their test data supplied by the publications. It’s hard to go wrong with Honda, Toyota or Chrysler from a moving people POV. But Toyota looks in a higher purchase price based not their reputation for reliability and value. Nobody would pay the higher price for the Toyota or Honda is they didn’t last 10 years at the minimum

 

No comment on the age LOL.

I'm usually not one to go around feathering my own cap, but I will say this: That was arguably the best automotive prediction I ever made. Chrysler took a big chance introducing during the world's first FWD minivans (VW, of course, had been selling the RWD air-cooled Microbus for decades...made famous in the American Hippie movement of he 1960s). Chrysler, that same year (1984), also introduced the Dodge Daytona and Plymouth Laser sports-coupes. The two sports-coupes didn't appear, to me, to be that big a deal (there were many sports-coupes available at the time), but the moment I first saw the two minivans, and their amazing versatility and space-efficiency, I said "Whoa, Chrysler REALLY has something here....these are going to go places". The rest, of course, is history.....it almost completely overturned the traditional station-wagon market. Too bad that Chrysler, like with most of its American-designed vehicles at the time, didn't see fit to use better-quality materials and construction inside and out with them (and drivetrains of sufficient power and reliability)...but the basic design completely revolutionized the whole concept of people-movers...even more than the VW bus.

Unless they have kids of their own now (which, for a number of reasons, many Millenials don't), or are just so used to riding in Mom or Dad's minivan that they don't mind having one of their own, most people that age aren't going to be looking at minivans anyway. They'll probably be checking out anything from boy-racers to super-environmental hybrids/electrics to small, inexpensive entry-level gas-powered vehicles.

The original Pacifica (I remember it well) had a unusual 2+2+2 interior seating-arrangement that was quite similar to the now-discontinued Mercedes R class....though the R class was RWD and the Pacifica FWD. The smaller (and also discontinued) Mazda5 also adopted htat seating arrangement, albeit with tighter quarters inside.

 

I don't think people buy the Pacifica "because Chrysler invented the minivan", but I think the fact that they have more experience with minivans than Toyota or Honda shows through in the product they designed, which drives people to buy them. Now, if only it was well made.

 

Out of curiosity, does anyone know why Chrysler went with "Pacifica" as the naming of their only minivan and dropped the Town & Country nameplate?

 

Probably to get rid of the bad reputation that went with the name of chryslers minivans. unfortunately that reputation stuck with them long after the crappy minivans were most all in the scrapyard.

I thought GM had the first minivan (Chevrolet Astro). We had an Astro growing up (1985 model), it was turd brown and rode like a covered wagon, but it was indestructible. we had like 600k on it when my folks sold it in 1996.

 

No clue...

 

The Pacifica name was first used on a 1999 luxury concept minivan that never went into production (the actual 1Gen Pacifica, with its 2+2+2 SEATING, was a different vehicle altogether)

 

The Astro, as I remember, did not debut until 1986. One reason the Astro was durable because, like the old Aerostar, it was based on a body-on-frame truck. That (partly) also explains the buckboard ride. The Chrysler vans were lighter, more car-like in their road manners, and more space-efficient inside per cubic foot. Quality, though, as you noted, was a problem...as with most American-designed Chrysler products of the period.

Ford and GM were actually caught flat-footed when the first crossover Chrysler minivans appeared in 1984. It took them several years (and Toyota and Honda) to even begin to catch up.....the Astro and Aerostar were essentially truck-based stopgap measures, if reliable ones.

 

We had a 1987 Aerostar when I was a kid. Man was it a POS.

 

People often had to learn, the hard way, that these (and similar vehicles) were NOT sports cars. The center of gravity on early minivans was nothing to fool with....and, remember, this was before the days of traction control, stability systems, and roll-control systems. I once watched a 16-year-old kid, right in front of me, flip an Aerostar over on its roof, on the service-road coming off the main road by my condo development. I rushed over to help him get out (fortunately, there was no fire, and the doors hadn't jammed from the warping). I didn't have a portable phone in those days, and someone else called 911...the police and fire were there in a couple of minutes.

(I'm sure you had better sense than that, even as a teen-ager...you don't strike me as a reckless driver)

 

Obviously I was way too young to drive it, but it was body on frame, RWD, and clearly top heavy so I can imagine

 

That was one reason (out of several) why the Astro and Aerostar, despite their truck-frame-toughness, couldn't really compete with the Caravan and Vooyager. And, obviously, the Caravan/Voyager, despite their somewhat more docile driving manners than the Astro/Aerostar, were not sports cars, either....far from it.