Just this Thursday, Chrysler has announced that it will be splitting its Pacifica minivan off into two individual models. The prestige minivan will retain the Pacifica name, while as a shock to almost no one, Chrysler’s new entry-level minivan will be called Voyager. Sound familiar?
As one may recall, after its successful 16-year run as a Plymouth, the Voyager (and Grand Voyager) nameplate was transferred over to Chrysler’s lineup midway through the 2000 model year as part of Plymouth’s phase-out process.
Following the minivan’s fourth generation in 2001, the Voyager would be short-wheelbase only, and apart from minor cosmetic changes and the obviously different equipment levels, the Voyager and Town & Country continued side-by-side for three years.
Yet at some point, someone must have thought that having two Chrysler minivan nameplates in addition to one Dodge was a bit too confusing. Thus, beginning in 2004, all Chrysler-branded minivans were called Town & Country, further lowering the little prestige left in the Chrysler name. In Europe meanwhile, all Mopar minivans had been continuously sold as the Chrysler Voyager since its introduction in 1988, albeit with many Dodge Caravan-exclusive trim, just to make things more confusing.
Here in North America, Chrysler has carried on with one Chrysler-branded and one Dodge-branded minivan since 2004. Currently they are in form of the highly-competitive, vintage-2017 Chrysler Pacifica, as well as the archaic yet competent and solid value, vintage-2008 Dodge Grand Caravan. For 2020, the Chrysler Voyager will slot between them.
Taking the place of the 2019 Pacifica L and Pacifica LX are the the Voyager L and Voyager LX, plus a fleet-only trim, somewhat curiously dubbed the LXi. It’s odd that the fleet model is called the LXi, as generally the more letters in an alphanumeric trim, the higher its positioning. Additionally, while reviving the LXi is and appreciated nod to the past, the LXi always represented a higher-trimmed minivan, dating back to its debut as the Town & Country’s most prestigious trim in 1996. But I digress.
Regardless of trim, all 2020 Voyagers will come standard with 7-passenger seating, cloth upholstery, manual climate controls, Uconnect 4 with 7-inch center color touchscreen and 3.5-inch digital gauge cluster display, Apple CarPlay and Google Android Auto, plus the 3.6-liter Pentastar V6 making 287 horsepower and 262 lb-ft torque, and 9-speed automatic transmission.
LX models add a few more features, while fleet-only LXi models curiously add the most standard and some exclusive equipment, such as leatherette upholstery and Stow-and-Go rear seating. In all honesty, 2020 Voyager models haven’t changed much from the 2019 Pacifica models they are replacing, which begs me to question, what is the point of the 2020 Chrysler Voyager?
This move is clearly a marketing tactic, as there is no other real benefit of splitting the minivan into two separate model lines. It actually makes a bit of sense, and here me out. For 2019, there are no fewer than six trim levels offered on the Pacifica, and nine total if you include the three Pacifica Hybrid trims. Instead of covering an $18,000 spread between the Pacifica L’s $27,235 base price and the Pacifica Hybrid Limited’s $45,795 base price, the Voyager will be associated value while the Town & Country, I mean Pacifica, will be for those seeking a higher-optioned or even downright luxury minivan. The only anomaly is that FCA will still produce and sell the Dodge Caravan for the time being.
Once again, this is no different from what Chrysler did 20 years ago, but history seems to have a way of repeating itself for the smallest of the Big Three, whether it is the automaker’s own doing or not. Additionally, this move most likely also is to generate buzz around the Chrysler brand, as it hasn’t released a “new” model in three years. It also could be to broaden the Chrysler lineup, as at present, the brand sells just two vehicles, the Pacifica and the aging 300. I guess we’ll see how long this voyage lasts.
I’d say this is the first step in dropping the Caravan. They were supposed to have done that by now but obviously the volume at that lower price point is something they are not willing to walk away from.
That fleet only LXi doesn’t sound like a fleet special, ie for gov’t users, it sounds like a rental car special.
I had the same reaction. At some point FCA will assign a new Jeep to the Windsor assembly plant, and the Caravan line will shut down to make room for it.
So youre saying the retail Voyager not offer stow n go 2nd row seats? If so then I’d get the grand caravan if i was gonna be cheap.
Up until now, Chrysler (the brand, not FCA) had precisely two vehicles on offer, the 300 and the Pacifica. Now they have three 🙂
No one knows what’s going to happen to the FCA brand lineup, perhaps not even senior management. I’m fairly certain there’s no such thing as a standalone Chrysler store anymore, it seems like just a sideline for Jeep and or Ram stores.
The only place I’ve seen standalone Chrysler dealerships is in Pacifica commercials….
With me being Polish, “Voyager” is in no way prestigious in my eyes.
It makes me think of a middle-aged dudebro rolling up to Kaufland in a beater and casually mentioning how American it is in conversations, as if it was a classic Eldorado or a Hummer H1 or something. One guy in my town even took it as far as painting his 3rd gen Voyager in US Army colors.
BTW, Polish suburban bliss is more adequately conveyed by something like a BMW E91, F31, E61, Audi A4 B8, A6 C6, Opel Insignia or, if you prefer Japanese reliability, something like a Honda CR-V, Mitsubishi Outlander, Toyota RAV4 or Suzuki Grand Vitara.
Does your post have a point? If it does, then I ain’t gettin it.
In Poland, this name may conjure up different images than the Chrysler execs might imagine.
Just my Euro perspective.
So do they need to rename it for Poland only, or all of Europe?
Yes, not sure what to make of this…
I expect the next move will be a midcycle refresh with more distinction between them; low- and high-series Pacificas always had different lower fascias and the Voyager inherits the low Pacifica one but the swap from a single to two separate identities opens up scope for more.
Somewhere around then will be the final phaseout of the GC.
“low- and high-series Pacificas always had different lower fascias…”
The press release and this comment were the first things that made me even notice that! In my neck of the woods, all the Pacificas have been purchased by older folks with more money, so I’ve not even seen the low-trim models.
I agree this is just a step to phase out the grand caravan. I had a GC rental when my accord was getting fixed and while it was nice it couldn’t hold a candle to my 2016 odyssey or the Pacifica. Yet I still see them everywhere and more than the Pacifica. FCA doesn’t want the gc to keep eating Pacifica sales so it’s the final step to phase out the GC.
Agreed. It’s meant to be a transitional gap, and I’d assume the Fleet LXi is being used to get brand equity built back into the Chrysler minivan. “Honey, that rental Voyager was really nice on our Disneyland trip. What do you think?” and bam, showroom traffic. Then it’s “The Voyager we have isn’t as well equipped, but for that price we can get you into our premium Pacifica if you are interested…”
The GC is mostly a fleet product in the US. Then it gets flushed into used car lots.
It certainly seems that way, I’d be curious to see the breakdown of retail/fleet sales on the GC. The issue with buying one new, is that you can get a loaded up one year old ex-fleet Caravan GT for about $18k, which is a crazy value to get stuff like heated leather seats and steering wheel, etc. We ended up with a Town & Country ourselves for the removable center console and we preferred the styling, but the same sort of deal: 2 years old, still under factory bumper to bumper warranty, $18k.
IMO: Dropping the “Town And Country” name for their upscale mini-vans was one of the dumbest marketing moves Chrysler ever made.
It’s debatable. Despite the brand equity of Town and Country, the Pacifica was all-new. With the Grand Caravan remaining in production, they probably didn’t want any kind of connection between the two.
On the other hand, if they actually go through with eliminating the Dodge Caravan, I think that will one-up the dropping of the “Town and Country” name as their dumbest marketing move.
Fun fact: The Caravan is Dodge’s longest, continuously in use nameplate.(though you could make an argument for “Ram” too, which has been used on a series of various vans and trucks starting in 1971, and ending in 2010 when it was spun off into its own brand).
They should make a top of the line “town and country” edition of the Pacifica, like they did with the LeBaron. And it should have fake woodgrain.
My only beef with the Pacifica is the styling. Its ugly. The 08-now grand caravan has masculine practical styling and is a well proportioned body shell with great visibility which is one of the reasons it’s always outsold the competition and remains in production. It’s a cool van.
Before FCA drops the old-style Grand Caravan, it will have to bring the Pacifica-based Voyager sales volumes up to a level currently being generated by the Grand Caravan. Last I checked, the Grand Caravan outsold the Pacifica almost 2 to 1. For legions of us unsophisticated drivers, an archaic if competent Grand Caravan is all we need.
I think you have hit it. This is the way to offer a cheap Pacifica without hurting whatever status the Pacifica has been able to build up. This will also be a good test of whether price shoppers like the old van better on its merits or whether they would prefer the Pacifica, all things being equal.
If Grand Caravan sales tank, then the way forward is clear. Or if the GC still holds up, maybe this will make for a Good Better Best kind of lineup.
If pricing was equal, I would have ended up with a Pacifica, it is hands down a vastly more modern vehicle in terms of dynamics compared to the old Caravan/T&C…however: the first few years of the Pacifica have been marred with truly poor reliability ratings, with unpleasant issues like auto-start/stop cutting engines out at highway speeds. As it was, we paid something like $7k less for our lightly used ’16 T&C Touring L as we would have for a comparable ’17 Pacifica Touring L with comparable options.
They didn’t cook up a dedicated rental grade machine w/o intending it to replace the Caravan as the budget minivan option for Budget, Hertz ect. That is where a ton of the Caravan volume goes. Drop the rent a car Caravan and watch its sales drop like a rock while the Voyager picks up all that volume.
I’m sure this is driven by a war of the bean counters. The Pacifica project is undoubtably behind projections and thus failing to amortize the development and tooling at the desired rate. You can bet they are crying that they were told the Caravan was going to die shortly after the Pacifica line got up to speed. Meanwhile the Caravan group is saying you can’t kill us look at the volume and while the gross margin might not be that high the net margin is great because the development and tooling is fully amortized.
Pretty weak sauce, IMO. Let’s be honest here folks. FCA, and especially the “C” part, is a zombie car company. Where’s the FCA “Death Watch?”
Other that its RAM trucks and niche muscle car offerings it has nothing competitive with the larger automotive world that is moving rapidly away from the very cars “C” sells. Its cars are all based on ancient platforms. Even its Jeep brand seems stuck in the past, although remains probably its most valuable brand apart from RAM.
“C” has been shopped around by its parent for several years now and nobody wants them, and for good reason. Maybe the Chinese or Indians will come in and try to buy up RAM and Jeep. However it ends up “C” at least in its current form is not long for this earth.
I will be very surprised if Chrysler is around in any form in 10 years, perhaps even 5. They have the same status Studebaker did in 1963 to me. I might have shopped the recently featured Dart if it was still around and had improved it’s reliability reputation, especially in a standard trans format, but that’s gone. The Charger and Challenger don’t inspire lust in me, neither does the 300. I have no need for a minivan, CUV or a truck so what exactly can they sell to me?
I expect FCA, the company, to be around for awhile, but I’m much less sure about the Chrysler brand. Like GM twenty years ago, FCA simply has too many brands and will ihave to make the difficult decision to cull some of them.
FCA’s problem in the US isn’t the same as GM had. FCA doesn’t sell the same product with five brands like GM did. FCA’s problem is that no one much wants to buy anything but Jeeps and Ram pickups. If FCA sold hundreds of thousands of sedans and non adventure SUVs, it would be fine to have sedan/non adventure SUV brands. As it is, FCA will not walk away from minivans or on road SUVs and it would be dumb to brand those as Jeep or Ram.
“Like GM twenty years ago, FCA simply has too many brands”
This may be true. But GM’s problem was compounded by each of those brands having a dedicated dealer channel. The Chrysler part of FCA consolidated all of its brands into a single channel some time ago, so a one-model brand is not really a problem so long as other things are selling. The Fiat sales channel seems to have been a mistake, however, unless the Fiat/Alfa side of things picks up a lot here.
Jeep is much more valuable than Ram. Jeep far outsells Ram, and Jeep has worldwide appeal, like Levi’s. Ram is riding on the coattails of the US market for pickups and has no prospects beyond that single fashion trend (which still is a market worth having). FCA has appropriate products for other markets.
Agreed! I would question Fiat’s ultimate value, though. Interesting “edge of the seat” times for sure as the worldwide auto industry shifts, consolidates and adapts to rapidly evolving new realities.
What a shame they lost the low cowl and beltline of the originals. The new one just looks generic. Hey, that’s it – they could name it the Generica!
RIP Lido, your legacy lives on!