The New Face Of The Chrysler Pacifica Is An Excellent Way To Understand The Modern Face Of Auto Design

When you’re surrounded by something, especially something that changes gradually over time, it’s easy to miss how things are changing. It’s like the thing with the frog and the boiling water, which I was reluctant to reference because even if we put aside the inherent cruelty of it all, who the hell is eating a boiled whole frog? No amount of VW Curry Ketchup is going to make that good. The point is things change, and sometimes we need a jarring moment to actually see that change. And I think Chrysler just gave us that moment with their new facelifted minivan, the Pacifica.

As you may have seen in our earlier story, Chrysler has given the Pacifica it’s third facelift since its 2016/2017 introduction, with a mid-life face job in 2021. This should show how important this minivan is to Chrysler, which it should be, since it is also the entirety of Chrysler’s lineup of cars, which technically includes the Voyager, but the Voyager is really just a slightly cheaper Pacifica that still retains its original face.

Since we’re talking about car faces and facelifts, here’s a little visual reminder of what the various visages of the Pacifica have looked like:

Personally, I always liked the original 2017 look best; I thought the way the flowing lines that defined the upper and lower grille seemed to blend into the other character lines of the car was quite elegant, and I especially liked the double-ended infinity-symbol-like lower grille treatment.

The 2021 redesign I always felt was a step back, to me cruder and less refined, but I know it was just echoing trends of the time with its wide, thin headlamps and prominent hexagonal grille. This latest refresh is quite different, and I think is a really effective way to look at how car front-end design has changed over the past few years. Let’s compare the current Pacifica face with this latest one we’ve just seen from Chrysler:

There are a lot of interesting things happening here. I suspect – though I’m by no means certain – that the only changes have been to the front bumper skin/fascia panels. I think sheetmetal like the hood and front fenders remain unchanged, which would mean the designers had to make their new look work with that triangular notch cut into the front fender to accommodate the last generation’s headlamps, which I also believe was the case when that facelift happened, too. I think all of these can share front fenders, which, considering how different they all look, is a pretty impressive design achievement.

Now I haven’t actually measured the size or angle of that triangular-ish notch, so I’m not 100% certain, but it looks like it.

But look what’s happening here; the whole way front-end elements are arranged is changing. Here’s a sample of some other 2026 front ends that seem to be also part of this overall design trend so you can see what I’m talking about:

We’re firmly in the Lightbar Era; full-width white LED DRLs are becoming very popular, along with illuminated badges, both of which the new Pacifica now has. The orientation of headlamp units, which were once trending to be extremely wide and thin, have not taken a turn towards the vertical, and often remain visually connected to the light bar itself, creating designs that resemble downward-facing angled brackets or shapes made from bent paper clips.

The lights themselves have more distinct graphic elements inside them, similar to how grille patterns are becoming more unique and graphical as well. Upper grilles on many cars are becoming smaller and more vestigial, while lower grilles, once de-emphasized, are now taking on greater visual importance.

Paired “pods” of vents and lights under the bumper line and on the extremes of the lower bumper are falling out of favor, with the vertically-oriented “tails” of the headlight units compensating for that visual space on many cars.

Car faces are becoming somewhat less anthropomorphizable and less “facelike” in the bio/zoo/anthropological sense. Headlights are becoming a bit less eye-like, grilles a bit less mouth-like, and the car face is increasingly becoming more, um, machine-like, if that somehow makes sense?

Having a car like this, where everything remains the same except for the vocabulary and design language of the front end, is a real gift when it comes to being able to see exactly how car design is developing. I think, based on what we see on the punim of the Pacifica, we can sort of distill old and new car faces into something like this:

That’s a crude sketch, sure, but you see where I’m getting at. Front ends, I think, are entering an interesting period of attempting to make more overall cohesive elements, and less collections of individual components. These attempts already seem to be getting oddly ornate and many are even taking on design vocabularies that feel, to me at least, like some sort of neo-Aztec or maybe neo-Myan, in the sense of how Frank Llloyd Wright found inspiration in those cultures for much of his architecture.

Look at this Cadillac Escalade IQ, for example; see what I’m getting at?

There are a lot of interesting things happening, and I should thank the Pacifica for making me take a moment to reflect. That’s important sometimes, and the most we can hope for from any refresh of a nearly decade-old minivan.