Just the other day I went with my folks to an antique show. As we were walking in, I noticed a woody Grand Voyager in the lot. I was drawn to its largely intact Di-Noc paneling, but did a double take when I saw how lavishly this Plymouth was equipped.
That’s right, ladies and germs, this is a full-boat Grand Voyager LE, with wood siding, alloy wheels, captain’s chairs in the second row and–wait for it–all-wheel drive!
Although the ’91 Chrysler minivans got new sheetmetal, interiors and other refinements, they still looked quite a bit like their 1984-90 forebears–and still had much in common under the skin. But AWD was new. A system engineered and built by Steyr-Puch in Austria, it was optional on all three flavors of Mopar’s “garageable van.”
image: thebellinghamauction.com
When I was 11, my mom finally gave up on Volvo station wagons (us three kids were getting too big and too immature for the single rear seat) and ordered a 1992 Grand Caravan ES in monochromatic white, with charcoal leather, captain’s chairs and AWD. Even then, I recall rarely seeing AWD minivans on the road. Figure 20+ years of attrition, and, well, I considered this Voyager quite a find.
It even had leather seating, a real rarity in a Plymouth, but I remember the LEs as being awfully plush. I think this one had to have been ordered new by a dealership as a “ringer” to put in the showroom. For one this loaded, I think most folks would have gone for the more prestigious Town & Country. In any event, it’s always nice to see a Plymouth still on the road! Even better, I found a mini CC at the show for fifty cents. You can’t beat that!
We used to have a fleet of Diesel powered, manufactured in Austria by Steyr-Puch, short wheelbase Caravan’s at the company in the late 90’s.
They were awful with their noisy and harsh working engines that were totally inappropriate in a car of that class. But beside them we also had two full-spec Caravan’s that looked similar to the one pictured here. In fact the only missing detail was the wood…
They were white, had leather seats and AWD. And… they were not much better than the Diesels…
Still not very fast, with rather spongy ride and nearly no handling at all. At least compared to VW Sharan that replaced them in 1999.
The only thing they did really, really well was cruising. And – looking at the condition of a pictured car – this one must have had a pretty easy life…
Were they manual transmission?
I don’t know if any were sold in the US, but I was told by some engineers who went to a meeting in Spain that their rental car was a 5-speed Caravan.
Diesel, AWD, 5-speed minivans?
A former colleague drove a 1st-generation Caravan with a manual transmission, so they were offered stateside for some period. Pretty sure it wasn’t a 5-speed, though. My memory is a little hazy, but I want to say it was 3 on the tree.
He was a frugal fellow. Not sure that vehicle had any options.
I don’t think they were ever column-mounted manuals.
The only manual Caravan I ever drove was a floor-shift five-speed. The shifter was tucked down right next to the driver seat, low to the floor. You’d never know it was there until you reached for the normal column shifter and found air.
So yes, they were definitely offered in America, usually as a low-spec sort of tradesman’s van.
I also drove quite a few manual-equipped Aerostars back in the day. Fleet vehicles.
You can see the Caravan shifter tucked down there in this pic:
Wow, the broken tachometer in that pic brings back memories of my Turismo. (Unless the driver shut the engine off while at redline.)
You could have spec’d a manual in all the early mini vans, even the Astro/Safari.
I think there were manual trans plastic “bullet train” GM vans made for export too.
If you dont know how to drive a diesel they will be slow.
I think I remember reading that the AWD option was pretty popular. ChryCo was late to the game with the flip & fold rear seat, because packaging issues made it impossible to offer both the foldable wayback seat and AWD. Since they were selling a lot of AWD models, they weren’t willing to give that up. So AWD stayed on the option list; foldable seat did not come until many years later.
Never thought I would be saying this, but those running boards really ruin the lines of this minivan.
A rather, uh, thrifty coworker of mine has a nearly identical one with the same running boards. The stuck out to me, as well. In fairness, the different color, non-woody junkyard sliding door does far more to throw off the lines.
I think he’s had it since it was new or almost new. He must be skilled in the black arts in order to keep one of these pieces of crap roadworthy in this part of the country that long.
Yep, fairly rare to see this combination of options. As a kid, I thought the AWD was a gimmick until my uncle had one as a Pioneer sales rep in the late 90s. It matched our Cherokee on some snowy winter pheasant hunts. I’d still take the Jeep for total off-road ability and especially ground clearance, but the MoPar AWD was no joke.
Reliability of the AWD, on the other hand…
Separate memory: the two youngest, hippest, and richest moms in my neighborhood both had Chrysler T&C minivans in the mid-90s. FULLY loaded, one in green, one in white, gaudy gold wheels and pinstripes. It was the last gasp of fancy domestic minivans; from about ’95 on, it was special edition SUV (Eddie Bauer, Orvis) or nothing in the ‘burbs.
In reality, the AWD was reasonably reliable. It was the A604 (or the variously renamed band-aid solutions that the 604 received) that was the problem; it couldn’t handle the extra load of the AWD system.
Great point. I was lumping them together.
If it’s any comfort to Chrysler owners, Consumer Reports rates AWD Toyota Siennas as having Worse Than Average reliability.
I have a very close friend that has an AWD Sienna that has had nothing but problems with it since the first year of ownership. He hates it!!
Haha, my mom was one of those moms when I was a kid. We had a loaded ’90 Chrysler T&C — the first year of the T&C, and in the original bodystyle only for that one year. White, woody package, white painted rims. Even though it was only a mildly dressed up Grand Caravan, people treated it like it was the arrival of some amazing new luxury model (much like when the Navigator was introduced).
I distinctly remember the Infinity stereo with the joystick, the shallow cupholders, and the drawer under the passenger seat. I thought the remote-controlled power vents in the third row were the coolest thing ever (those cranks on lower models were just so ghetto, I thought snobbishly).
The van was a smash hit in the neighborhood and served us well. My parents replaced it with a ’94 Deville, so any and all cool points were not just erased, but we plunged into severe coolness debt for the next six years.
This may be a rare find, but in my mind still not as rare as the mid- 90s Voyager with the “Espresso” trim package. Years ago a coworker had one, and I always chuckled as I walked by her car and saw the wild and brash cursive script on the side of the car.
Espresso? What the hell does that even mean? Don’t forget we’re talking basic minivans here.
I could never tell what options one would get with that package, other than the goofy decals. But I’m not a minivan expert, and I’m sure there had to be something worthwhile to it.
It was actually Expresso, with an ‘x’. It could also be had on Neons.
I think it was mainly a sticker & cloth package.
Wasn’t it essentially the value package, à la SXT?
It could be called a “value” package, but it wasn’t the “base” vehicle. Back then, the base vehicle, (rather than having it’s own call-out) was just called, get this, the base model. You could purchase a Plymouth Voyager (base), a Plymouth Voyager SE, a Voyager LE, a Voyager Rallye…etc.,etc.
Your typical base vehicles were rarely seen on dealer lots, though. Mostly a fleet sales and rental type of car.
So in the end, yes, somewhat similar to the SXT…one step up from base.
Latte-proof upholstery.
A minivan for the Starbucks set?
“Expresso” was a decor package on late-90’s Plymouth Neons, Breezes, and Voyagers. It basically added a few more features like upgraded audio system and nicer interior cloth. Neons and Breezes got dark cloth with colorful spots and specks. For some reason Voyagers didn’t get the fun colors.
It was similar to Rallye, Sport Wagon, and 10th Anniversary packages of the past. Just something to advertise to get buyers a little more excited and into showrooms. I actually see a good number of Expressos (relative to the number of Voyagers I see). I can’t say I’ve seen a woody LE in few years though.
My wife’s family hauler is actually a ’98 Expresso! Ours is definitely not a base model, in fact it’s got every option aside from Leather. Which is.. odd. And by every option I mean the 3.8 V6 (not anemic 3.0 or 3.3), rear captains, rear A/C, Infinity stereo, alloys, etc. It’s totally oddly equipped.
It also refuses to die, as much as I want it to. It just likes to break in little annoying ways that I can fix < 4 hours for < $100. As long as the kids still spill stuff and track mud and sand into a vehicle, I guess it's what we've got.
We had a “Sport Wagon” version.
I am still unsure what was sporty about it, as I was only a teenager at the time, but it did have some nicer wheels, cladding, and bumper mounted foglamps to dress it up. I believe this replaced the rare “Voyager LX” after the 91 restyle.
It looked like this:
The adjective “Sport” is abused in marketing. I can think of Ritter “Sport” chocolates (allegedly made to fit in sport jackets, another odd application), & we have an aging but good Bernina “Sport” sewing machine.
Yes, for many years the sport model had the word SPORT painted somewhere on it, a body-color grille, and maybe one size larger tires.
Garageable? More like garbageable. Lots of reports of quality problems from day one.
But, evidently, whatever issues they had weren’t bad enough to keep Chrysler atop the minivan pile for decades (unlike the equally successful 1957 ‘Forward Look’ cars whose second year sales plummeted because quality was so bad). Even today, of the few remaining ‘true’ minivans, Chrysler still perenially maintains the number one sales position.
With that said, Chrysler’s SWB minivan was really a stroke of genius that, along with creating a whole new market segment, created a whole new suburban dweller descripton – the soccer mom.
I’ve always loved the concept and practicality of the SWB minivan (if not the execution), especially the original.
In reality, despite Chrysler maintaining that they were the number one minivan they really weren’t until later. The Aerostar was the number one selling name plate for many years, and once the Villager and Windstar came along Ford the company sold more minivans than any other mfg for a number of years.
Are you saying that the Aerostar outsold the combined sales of both the Chrysler minivans? I’d like to see some verification on that. If you’re hedging your statement by using the term “number one selling nameplate” by limiting it to just the Dodge Caravan, it’s not going to fly.
Great find! I’ve always had a soft spot for these “woody” vans, especially Plymouths. It’s amazing that this one actually has the available leather seats. They were a standalone option for some $1,500 extra. You’re probably right in that it was ordered as a showroom model. In any case it’s a cool and very rare car.
Minivans here mostly hail from Japan the Chryslers we have seem to be newer than this one and I do see quite a few so it looks like after the Jeeps entry into our market Chrysler was on a roll and the Voyagers I see do run unlike most of the Neons and other efforts.
In Norway many of these Plymouths (FWD) was sold with a 2.5 liter diesel engine from VM Motori and the Plymouths was badged as “Chrysler Voyager”. My father had a 3.3 liter V6 and I remember that it was a very good car. My dad often talks about it as the “best car I’ve ever had”. Before the Chrysler he had a Volvo 240 and twice Peugeot 505 GTi. Then the Voyager and then two new Peugeot. He would have been buying an american car if it wasn’t for the Norwegian taxes.
The Chrysler Corp. got a pretty bad reputation here i Norway because of the dieselengine. Samme with Jeep.
NZ Chryslers have the same diesel option even the 300s ours are Belgian sourced I didnt know it was no good as they still use them.
The problems was that the engine couldn’t handle temperature over ca. 90 degrees C, if that happened the heads and headgaskets have to be replacet. This happend quite often as many of the cars was used to tow a trailer or had heavy load. This is the 2.5 R4 engine from VM motori, earlyer on the Chrysler Corp. used a 2.1 liter Diesel from Renault/Peugeot/Citroën. But I’ll think that was just in the Jeep’s.
The 3.3 liter V6 Chrysler Corp. engine was the best I belive, but the automatic Ultradrive had som issues early on.
This is probably one of the last of the “loaded” Plymouths. Once the Chrysler Town & Country minivan hit the showrooms, there was no reason for an awd Plymouth (with leather, yet) on the other side of the same showroom. I still think that Chrysler missed an opportunity to market the swb minivans and more economical cars as Plymouths.
Probably but by the time this minivan came out, there was often nothing more than a nametag and possible a grille to distinguish most Dodges and Plymouths across the car lines. At least in the 80s there was some more (albeit still slight since it usually did not involve body changes) distinction. I saw SWB minivans all the way until about 2008.
Minivans were popular from the get go, but got really popular after they came out with the LWB version and the V6 for 1987. I remember when my sister purchased one (yes she did pass on the Astro because it was RWD) and it the dealmaker was the extra room in back. The 4 cylinders were OK, but they were slow especially when the vehicle was loaded. The later models with the 3.3 & 3.8 V6s were pretty fast for a minivan. The vans I have come to see are decently reliable except for the 4speed Ultradrive in the early 90s that often stuck in 2nd gear.
Dodge offered a Turbo 2.5 I4 in 1989 and 1990 to help rectify the power problem, but the V6 proved to be far more popular than the turbo. A fair percentable of the already small percentage of turbos were 5 speeds. If I am not mistaken, the turbo was only available on SWB.
Part of the problem with the Ultradrive was that that was the transmission that drove the switch from the standard Dex/Merc that most every automatic in the US took to the new ATF+3/4. People would not use the proper fluid causing problems in driveability. Additionally, the Ultradrive was electrically operated and like the V864 in the Cadillac in 1981, the computer often got stumped as to when to shift causing constant shifting in the transition zones. Eventually they worked out an algoritmn that took care of most of the problems but the Ultradrive was plagued with reliability problems for quite a long time. My sister’s transmission had to be rebuilt at around 81K when it stuck in 2nd gear and would not budge from that. Apparently that was the default mode when the transmission detected a problem.
Chrysler hit the jackpot with the Stow-N-Go and the Swivel-N-Go seating. We have rented Caravans on trips before it is a novel and very useful feature much nicer than removing the seats.
The SWB Voyagers are still amazing after all these years. Just came back from a trip to Florida (1300 miles each way) and my 95 Sport Wagon with 3.3L got 26 MPG consistently. Only had the second seat installed and still was able to haul 3 disassembled bikes, a TV, two pieces of luggage behind the second seat and still have great visibility out the rear.
We used to have a ’93 Grand Caravan. That rear seat was a bear to remove. The tranny was replaced when it was a couple years old and the paint began to peel off the roof by 2000. From what I remember, it was very thin and would flake right off, making me wonder if it was even bc/cc. The other thing that bothered me was the plasti-chrome trim on the sides looked like crap even when it was just a few years old. Ours had the styled rally wheels on it, the rest of it was a run of the mill blue Caravan. Had good power for what it was and didn’t handle or ride too badly. I thought the dustbuster vans looked cooler but these always seemed more rugged and practical.
Anyone that I know that has owned one of these either loved it or hated it. I know someone that had well over 180k on theirs and drove it into the ground. Another friend had problems from day one and sold his at around 50k because it was always in the shop.
Strange that you could get a Voyager this loaded, this would have been sharing showroom space with the Town & Country, which already came with everything this had extra, except the AWD.
True, Carmine. These vans could be optioned out so many different ways. I had a neighbor that had a loaded green Town and Country with tan leather – AWD – loved it and owned it for years.