This is a throwaway sentence in a CNN story about problems with the Stellantis vehicle lineup:
Chrysler, once the company’s core brand, is essentially down to one model, the Pacifica minivan, arguably the weakest segment of the US market.
It turns out this isn't quite fair. It's true that the Voyager minivan is just a version of the Pacifica, but Chrysler also sells the 300 sedan. So that's two models.
But wait! It turns out the 300 has been discontinued even though it still shows up on Chrysler's website. So they really do sell just a single car in 2024. I did not know that.
They do sell over a million of one model, but sheesh.
Is a minivan s car? It is a vehicle but not really a car.
When they first came out, I heard that engineering-wise, they really had more in common with trucks.
Someone who knows more about vehicles than I do (i.e., just about anyone) is invited to correct me or add more informed perspective.
Been a while since I thought about it, but I recall that SUVs were built on light truck chassis and minivans were built on car chassis. Like my Toyota Sienna was built on the Camry chassis.
I don't know, but assume, that modern SUVs were redesigned at some point to ride smoother like cars.
If the car companies can call a car a truck, they don't have to worry about mileage as much. That might have changed a bit under Obama.
Trucks are generally body-on-frame whereas cars and minivans are usually unibody. The EPA has some definitional quirks relating to classifying vehicles for CAFE standards and minivans often qualify as trucks even though they're not. The definition is quirky enough that the PT Cruiser managed to qualify as a truck, so don't take much from that definition.
I believe the later-introduced category of ‘crossover-SUV’ describes a unibody (or monocoque) vehicle.
I was in a van pool for many years and can assure you that minivans are built on car chassis and drive like cars, while full size vans drive like trucks.
Okay, but Chrysler did outlast Nash, and Studebaker, and Pontiac, and Oldsmobile, and a few other brands that have gone bye-bye since WW2.
And let's not forget the Edsel.
Or Packard, Hudson, and Kaiser.
They still sell two cars under the Dodge brand (Charger 4 door sedan on the same platform as the 300) and Challenger (Mustang class two door) but they are 2023 models.
A complication is that the old family station wagon is an SUV, and SUVs can be compacts and almost the same as a hatchback car.
Meanwhile the Stellantis overlords make some really nice Peugeots or even Citroens of various types that could have been facelifted into being Dodges or Chryslers but they never did that.
One remarkable thing that Chrysler in its various forms has accomplished is consistently making the most unreliable vehicles around ever since the game changing but too cheaply engineered 1957 line. (And I've owned three of them and loved each one.)
I took my 88 Honda Civic offroad. So yeah, they can be an SUV.
The Alfa Romeo’s built by Stallantis are nicer than the Citroens or Peugeots, but the French have 51% control of the corporation, the Italians 49%, and the Americans roughly 0%.
If you're down to a single product, and it's a minivan, time to close up shop.
They sell like a hundred thousand of them a year.
Sales of RAM pickups dwarf minivan sales, just as sales of the F-150 dwarf sales of any Ford sedans.
But wait, does it have fine Corinthian leather?
😄😄
That's Corinthian 2 leather. . .
That's two Corinthians' leather.
Rich Corinthian leather: https://youtu.be/uvyTTx33PPQ 🙂
The Pacifica sells quite well despite the idiocy of the category. It's efficient, low cost of ownership, easy to modify for accessibility.
Most of its competitors are 'suvs' because they have slightly more ground clearance. That's it,
Idiocy of the category? I think "unpopularity" would be a better description.
Way back when, we were shopping for a new vehicle for our growing family. We had the salesman at the dealership show us both minivans and SUV's, which were a relatively new product at the time. I remember asking him afterward: "OK, so compared to the SUV's, the minivans have more space, are safer, have a smoother ride, and get better mileage. So why do the SUV's cost $4000 more?" His answer: they're just really popular right now.
Minivans came to be viewed as the vehicle of choice for Mom to shuttle the kids to dance lessons and sports practices, so *Real Men* couldn’t be seen behind the wheel of one. ‘Sport-Utility Vehicle’ though — that’s something to drive up the ridgeline to fell some timber, or, well, drive to work where I’ll sit in a cubicle ….
SUVs are allowed to be crappier safety and mpg assuming they have an inch more clearance and approach angle.
It's not popularity. Most SUVs the same damn thing with a worse engine.
Chrysler is just another brand in the basket, as is Jeep, Ram, and Dodge, to a multinational corporation based outside of the US.
Remember when they were one of the Big Three? Admittedly always the Sick Man of the Three, but now they're just a single brand in another company. How times change.
AMC?
the undestroyable rambler
Thank goodness we saved them from oblivion. Twice. (?)
The K-car rules!!!
I forget exactly when, but it was after I was 16 but before I was 19, we replaced my Mom's '71 Pinto with an after-factory K-car convertible conversion. There were angle-irons welded to the underside but the thing still rattled and squeaked like some worked-over Model-T.
Dodge isn't doing much better, it will be a two-model brand very soon. The Charger & Challenger have been discontinued.
Police around here are trading in their Chargers for the enormous Chevy Tahoe.