Crash71100 posted this shot of a rather pristine-looking Chrysler Voyager wearing French plates. The Chrysler minivan was first exported to Europe in 1988, and branded as the Chrysler Voyager. It’s obviously got Euro-spec headlights, and we can be sure Professor Stern will illuminate us on their particulars.
The Voyager was eventually built in Europe, by Steyr-Magna in Austria, starting with the revised gen2 version. It also got a VM Motori 2.5 L diesel.
The Chrysler Voyager was a big seller in Europa; it made quite an impact and was embraced for its practical size and space utilization. I was rather surprised at how many I saw the last couple of times I was over there, especially in Austria, where it was embraced particularly so, given its local manufacture. A Steyr diesel van; how great is that?
Too bad he didn’t capture the rear end, where you would see the amber turn signals and the odd Chrysler lettering on the liftgate handle in size 400 font. Not too many first, second, or even 3rd-gens of these vans left in Europe, but I still see plenty of 4th-gen vans around; many with a turbo-diesel and manual transmission. In the NL, it appears that the majority of these have been converted to work vans. I’ve seen multiple vans where the “Chrysler Voyager” badging was removed from the tailgate and replaced with “Dodge Ram/Van” badging. I wonder if that helps to reduce the taxation/registration fees…
Here’s a picture of the rear:
There it is. Unlike most US vans, the handle for the liftgate hasn’t popped off.
The first two generations of Chrysler small vans were well suited for use all over the world, with an incredibly practical shape, good looks, and have-it-your-way interiors. Comfortable and reliable too, plus pleasantly comfortable seating if you needed it, pickup-like hauling capacity if you don’t. Little to complain about here
Indeed, to this day, the T-115 minivan was sized ‘just right’, particularly when compared with today’s minvans which seem closer in dimensions to a traditional, full-size van. Daimler saw the SUV writing on the wall and when the new 2008 Chrysler minivan debuted, there was no SWB version. Daimler accurately predicted anyone looking for a SWB minivan would buy the new Journey SUV.
To that end, I’ve always felt that the unlamented 2nd generation 2000-06 Mazda MPV, which included the Honda Odyssey’s new fold-flat 3rd row seat and roll-down sliding door windows, was almost the perfect package, and its only flaw (a smallish 2.5L V6/4-speed auto) was rectified for 2002 with a larger 3.0L/5-speed.
Sadly, not many buyers agreed and the MPV was replaced in the US for 2007 by the even smaller Mazda5 (aka Premacy).
Their end was lamented by me! I gave serious thought to buying one of these secondhand about 15 years ago, also considering the same-size-on-the-outside 2nd gen Honda CR-V, also a nice packaging job but lacking a 3rd row seat or sliding side doors so less practical. It did have van-like access between the first and second rows though. It was hard not to notice that CR-Vs were selling for about $4,000 more than high-end MPVs, despite both having similar prices when new. I wound up buying a new VW Rabbit instead of a used car.
The Mazda suffered from buyer confusion. The earliest MPVs were aimed at Chrysler’s 2nd-gen minivans, with a similar appearance outside but better drivability. But minivan buyers didn’t want rear hinged doors (door really, none on the driver side yet), rear drive, or a step up on the floor when the rear seat was removed (which wasn’t easy to do). Mazda then recast the MPV as the MPV All-Sport SUV, now with hinged rear doors on both sides, available 4WD (which was also optional on earlier MPVs), a longer hood, and tough-looking body cladding and grille. It sold moderately well, but then Mazda confused us all again by going with a straight short-wheelbase minivan for its follow-up, axing 4WD and adding a new, highly-configurable interior with excellent ergonomics. If I could get a top-trim model and find someone willing to swap out the velour seats from the mid-grade model, I’d have my perfect van/trucklet.
I remember how absolutely, slavishly enamored the automotive press was with the 2g MPV. The handling, size, packaging… It was the unequivocal Big Thing in minivans at the time. But they just never sold well. I guess the market spoke, and preferred Odysseys.
The powertrain was weak, but in a time of 3400-powered U-Bodies and 3.3L Chrysler vans, not to mention the execrable Quest/Villager and original 16,000 lb Sedona, was it really that bad?
My takeaways as those MPVs have aged is that they fall apart badly, the Ford-sourced powertrain is weak in longevity, too, and something makes their interiors smell like pungent BO as they get old. And I feel like they disappeared in about the same percentages as the vehicles I mentioned above, and weak powertrain longevity affected all of those, plus the overwhelmingly still common 2g North American Odyssey.
When my kids were still toddlers, we frequently borrowed my in-laws’ fourth car, a 1984 Voyager, for family outings. I wasn’t a fan of the minivans until we borrowed that car, but once I did become one, I never looked back. The design, engineering and ergonomics of that car was so well thought out that I have a hard time imaging a better package for an all around car.
The Daimler era cancelled a bunch of Chrysler’s plans and with them the SWB minivan died. The SWB version was probably the most city-life livable, but like the CUVs and oddballs like the Mazda mentioned in the older post, four door jacked up station wagons were not a good alternative.
Now that all of them are LWB, you get the large economy size or you get something entirely different. I frequently buy from the used car market and my latest acquisition is a 2010 Chrysler Town and Country. I’ve long desired the convenience of the Stow n Go seats, especially when I want to take a quick jaunt to the local mountain bike track. However, even hauling around a 29er, I still think that that the extra room is a bit of a waste. There are plenty of jobs I could do with a SWB van instead.
TL;DR, the original T-115 was a genius design and virtually nothing has really come to supersede it.
There is still one of these first generation Voyagers left in my german hometown. I see it occasionally when driving around. Looks like this one, except a darker grey color.
I remember these were popular back in the day.
Some West Berlin friends purchased one of these. After the Wall fell in late 1989, they visited ancestral sites in the former East Germany, and also formerly German parts of Poland. They informed that the van did very well navigating the terrible roads in those now formerly – communist places…
Amber turn signal:
I love seeing these European-market minivans… somehow these vans just seem so quintessentially North American, so seeing them in a European setting is always a treat.
One feature that I never noticed before is the hood ornament. The 1980s were long after the glory days of stand-up hood ornaments, so I found it somewhat odd that even US market Chrysler minivans had hood ornaments, given at how these were revolutionary vehicles that ushered in a new market segment. But I never considered that the European-spec vans had them too.
The stand up hood ornament came on en masse in 1974 when the mass market Ford LTD got one. Previously reserved for luxury cars, they were suddenly on the compact Ford Granada in 1975, and the gloves were off. Every damn car was going to get one!
Various ’70s legacy designs like the Old’s Cutlass Supreme wore them through most of the ’80s.
GM saw fit to maintain ornaments on the X and A bodies when introduced in 1980, and 1982 respectively, and Chrysler featured them on the lowly K cars in 1981 and 1984 on the minivans.
Ford started the ornament war, and was a leader in stopping it. With introduction of the 1983 Thunderbird, very few new models were equipped with hood ornaments. But, the ’83 Cougar still got one, and various high end Fords kept up ornaments into the 1990s.
Given that most cars had ornaments in the early ’80s, its not surprising that Chrysler felt compelled to put one on the van, even if it looked quite out of place. After all, they were trying to lure away Country Squire drivers.
Having a hole tooled into the hood, it was probably easier to just fill it with the ornament on the European spec vans.
Good point — I guess the timing isn’t too far out of line with Peak Ornament.
I suppose Voyager’s hood ornament is another example (like the optional wood paneling) of Chrysler threading the needle between innovative and traditional, and given Iacocca’s preferences at the time it’s not too surprising. It still surprises me on the European models, though.
Europe too had/has hood ornaments, and more recently than most (all?) US brands – Mercedes, Jaguar, Rolls-Royce being the obvious top of mind examples.
The 1971 Monte Carlo had a spring loaded stand up ornament too. So, the ’74 LTD wasn’t the “first low price brand” to get one. Many other examples.
Older style, fixed ornaments, were banned in ’68, so Plymouth Fury had them prior. Many “low price brand” models had ornaments long before the ’74 LTD. The ’65 LTD had a fixed one, too.
While it’s true it was probably just a typical Iacocca affectation that he was slapping on every Chrysler product, there is the (slim) possibility of a practical reason for the hood ornament on the new T-115 minivan, and that’s that it would be a way for the driver to know the location of the leading edge of the sloping hood.
The hood ornament does help the driver locate the leading edge of the otherwise invisible sloping hood.
That forward lighting was not unique to Europe. In the US, the cargo van version got the same lights, albeit in a glass sealed beam. (It was cheaper that way, and better in the long run – since they were glass and replaceable – provided better lighting than the aero lights that got cloudy over time). The Euro version simply replaced the sealed beam with a standard form factor “e-code” 200mm headlight.
I see plenty of these Chrysler minivans in European based movies (Bourne Ultimatum) or TV shows (Occupied).
I guess they’re popular with Euro sinister types and secret agents.
Regarding Dr. Stern and this vehicle’s lighting, I await his verdict.
His judgement cometh, and that time (hopefully) soon.
What are you suggesting, Paul, that I have some kind of, I don’t know, fixation with vehicle lighting? Are you insinuationg that I’ve got an unhealthy accumulation of minutiæ about ’80s-’90s Mopars? Well okeh, fine I guess; if you insist…!
Evan’s got it pretty much right on the headlamps, though the bezels were chromed or painted argent on the North American cargo vans; these charcoal-grey ones—which might in some cases have been painted body-colour—were unique to the export vans. The lamp units were H4s from either Hella (better durability/poorer performance) or Cibie (better performance/poorer durability), depending on which supplier’s wallet Chrysler were squeezing harder and more successfully that month. The H4 lamps had a built-in front position light—Americans say “parking light”; Brits say “front side light”, Euro fanboi types say “city light”—because in most places outside North America they have to emit white light, not amber, so the front turn signals are only turn signals, not park/turn like the home-spec vans. And the front turn signal lenses were made of amber plastic rather than the American-spec colourless ones, because there was no amber turn signal bulb approved in Europe until 1992 or so. The amber side reflex reflector was either deadened or absent and the front side marker light was disabled, for these two functions aren’t required in Europe—they’re allowed, but if they’re present they have to be type-approved, which costs money.
There’s a side turn signal repeater on each front fender; Chrysler bought them from Lescoa, their usual small-name supplier of other-than-headlamp lighting components. Lescoa were well capable of making high-content, high-spec, European-compliant lamps, and they made some for Chrysler, but on these vans Chrysler skipped Lescoa for the rear lights and spent money on them from Japanese supplier Stanley, Honda’s main lighting supplier. They are four-bulb, five-section, six-function items (stop/tail, turn, reverse, rear fog, rear reflex reflector), versus the home-spec two-bulb, three-section, seven-function items (stop/tail/turn/rear side marker, reverse, rear/side reflex reflector). No rear side marker light or reflex reflector on the European lamp.
I have one of these, new in box (shaddup; I can quit whenever I want). Three views attached. Because of its various bulb entry angles, It makes a good test buck for confirming every so often that yep, the overwhelming majority of “LED bulbs” are still fraudulent, unsafe junk. With legitimate bulbs the stop light function is a little dimmer than optimal, as many European stop lights have been over the years, but this one is still probably within the brighter US intensity range. The rear fog lamp is a fireball, the turn signal is nice and bright, and the reversing lamp is far more effective than the US-spec item. These lamps almost certainly met all the relevant American regs, and could very likely have legally been used worldwide (either with separate side markers in the American markets or with integral ones added to the design) but the American lamp was surely very much cheaper.
Other, less visible differences on this van: the sideview mirrors are spring-hinged rather than rigidly mounted, for pedestrian and property protection. The tailpipe is a rear-dump design rather than the American side-dump item, which was not allowed in some European countries. That stand-up hood ornament mentioned above didn’t last very long on the European-spec vans; pedestrian-protection regulations drove a change to a flat pentastar adhered to the leading edge of the hood while the American vans kept the stand-up type (American regs are still silent on pedestrian protection, because real American he-man patriots drive cars, and those weirdo losers who walk pretty much deserve what they get for being a bunch of smelly ol’ crummy ol’ girly-communists and stuff).
Thanks for the executive summary, Professor 😉
The first few years of Chrysler minivans, before the long-wheelbase models or V6 became available, had quad rectangular sealed beams in the U.S., even on the (rare) cargo models which were called Mini Ram Van at first before switching to Caravan C/V for gen 1.5. The first two generations of Chrysler cargo minivans were the only ones with proper dedicated rear side panels with no windows; 3rd gen (1996) and later used window vans with steel filler panels in the windows, not as good if you’re trying to advertise your company on the lumpy surface.
I would guess the switch to filler panels had to do with the manufacturing costs of 2 different body side stampings for both sides, with the spread of dual sliding doors and their requires tracks.
This van reminds me of my ’90 short wheelbase Dodge Caravan. It was a revelation in excellent interior packaging. Seven comfortable passenger seats, the front Captain’s chairs were great. The single sliding back door wasn’t a problem, though when I replaced it with the second gen I got used to having the extra door. A puff of smoke on take off and paint that exploded off the roof at around that mileage.
It all sounds rather like a case of Europeans getting a better American car than us Americans. A diesel version would have been great.
My ’85 Voyager is the type with the rear seat folding down as a double-bed. When I had my shop in Ventura CA and my home was in Arizona, that van became my bedroom for 9 years while I was at my shop working. It is as comfortable to sleep in as in my own bed at home. The van also makes a great ‘mini-motorhome’ with the front passenger seat removed and an electric cooler chest and porto-potty in it’s place. I have made many business/vacation trips with that format.