Shortly thereafter, the market shifted briefly away from minivans and SUVs with the gasoline price spikes of the earlier part of This trend began to reverse itself towards the fall of as prices held steady and more drivers were planning their trips ahead to save fuel.
Beginning with Generation V, Volkswagen began marketing the Routan, a rebadged variant of the Chrysler RT platform minivan with revised styling and content, for the North American and Mexican markets. The Routan is manufactured at Windsor Assembly alongside the Grand Caravan, debuted in at the Chicago Auto Show and with sales beginning in autumn of , and features neither Chrysler's Stow'n Go nor Swivel'n Go seating systems.
Chrysler has regularly innovated new seating systems for their minivans, to enhance interior flexibility. In innovated a second row bench seat integrating two child booster seats. These seats have continued as an available option through Generation V. In , Chrysler introduced a system of seats to simplify installation, removal, and re-positioning— marketed as Easy-Out Roller Seats. When installed, the seats are latched to floor-mounted strikers. When unlatched, eight rollers lift each seat, allowing it to be rolled fore and aft.
Tracks have locator depressions for rollers, thus enabling simple installation. Ergonomic levers at the seatbacks release the floor latches single handedly without tools and raise the seats onto the rollers in a single motion. Additionally, seatbacks were designed to fold forward. Seat roller tracks are permanently attached to the floor and seat stanchions are aligned, fascillitating the longitiudinal rolling of the seats. Bench seat stanchions were moved inboard to reduce bending stress in the seat frames, allowing them to be lighter.
The Easy-out system remained in use through Generation V — where certain models featured a two-person bench and the under-floor compartments from the Stow'n Go system. The Volkswagen Routan, a rebadged nameplate variant of the Chrysler minivans, uses the Easy Out Roller Seats on its second row seating.
In , Chrysler introduced a system of second and third row seating that folded completely into under-floor compartments — marketed as Stow 'n Go seating and exclusively available on long-wheelbase models. Even so, the new seating system precluded incorporation of an AWD system, effectively ending that option for the Chrysler minivans.
The system in turn creates a combined volume of 12cubic feet L of under floor storage when second row seats are deployed. With both row folded, the vans have a flat load floor and a maximum cargo volume of The Stow 'n Go system is not offered on the Volkswagen Routan, a rebadged nameplate variant of the Chrysler minivans. Chrysler introduced a seating system in , marketed as Swivel'n Go. In the system, the two second row seats swivel to face the third row.
A detachable table can be placed between the second and third row seats. The two minivans ushered in a new trend in vehicle buying, according to Business Insider. The minivan began a new trend in family vehicles, and the Dodge Caravan and others like it soon took market share away from the station wagon. By the following year, Chrysler manufactured 50 percent of all minivans. The Dodge Caravan was one of the top minivans during that time, and Chrysler was the number one minivan producer.
By , almost 1. The minivan turned out to be the hit it needed. The Caravan and Voyager combined traditional van with station wagon, making them a strong challenger to the latter. Early Caravan ads described it as "one vehicle that takes the place of an economy car, sporty car, station wagon, and van. It was a "transportation revolution," the ads said. Chrysler's vans became an overnight success, with the company selling an astonishing , minivans in the first model year.
Soon, other automakers wanted in on the action, and a flurry of new minivans hit the market. Ford rolled out the Aerostar …. The Passenger Van had a unique mid-engine layout, and, perhaps more uniquely, an ice maker. Chrysler followed up its two wildly successful first vans with the upscale Chrysler Town and Country in That year, Toyota ditched the Van for the Previa — an egg-like mid-engine van with a supercharged variant. By , Chrysler's vehicles accounted for half of all minivans built across the industry.
By the latter part of the decade, Chrysler was selling upward of , minivans each year. Also in , Chrysler pioneered a driver-side sliding door. The popular feature was soon adopted by other brands, but gave Chrysler a brief-yet-significant edge over the competition. Despite Chrysler's dominance, other manufacturers held out hope they could win some market share with new offerings. In , Honda launched the Odyssey ….
Smaller makes like Kia and Nissan got in the game as well, while Mazda launched its second-generation MPV, which stood for "multi-purpose vehicle. The US minivan market peaked in , when nearly 1. In the years since, annual minivan sales have dropped steadily and the field has thinned out.
Minivans only made up 2. That's at least partially due to the increasing popularity of SUVs and crossovers It looked like super-fast luxury minivans might have their moment when Mercedes-Benz introduced the R-Class in In , Fiat Chrysler celebrated its 15 millionth minivan sold. It led the US minivan market that year, capturing more than half of the segment's sales.
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