In 2020, Chrysler decided to sell a more affordable version of its popular Pacifica minivan, adding a stripped-down, basic version of the people-mover to its lineup, delivered without creature comforts such as power-sliding rear doors, automatic climate control, built-in navigation, or second-row Stow ‘n Go seats. Despite looking no different from the Pacifica, Chrysler decided to give the back-to-basics van its own model line: Voyager.
At the time of its launch, the Voyager was nearly $7,000 cheaper than the cheapest Pacifica, giving families a truly budget-friendly option that offered only what they needed, and nothing they didn’t. The Voyager’s price has ballooned considerably since its launch six years ago; back then, it started at $28,480, including destination. Now, it’s priced from $43,390, only about $3,000 cheaper than the Pacifica.
For 2027, the Voyager is no more. Following an inital reveal of the Pacifica’s new fascia last month, Chrsyler has spilled all the details on its refreshed minivan. Instead of also giving the Voyager the same new looks, it’s being merged back into the Pacifica lineup as a new base trim called the Pacifica LX, retaining the old design.
With the 300 sedan dead for years now, that means the Pacifica is now officially Chrysler’s only production vehicle currently on sale. You could (rightfully) argue that Chrysler’s only had one vehicle on sale since the 300 was discontinued, since the Voyager was literally just a feature-light version of the Pacifica with an older front end. But now, it’s truly, actually official.
This isn’t the first time Chrysler has killed off the Voyager. Stellantis sold minivans using the Voyager name from 1988 all the way through to 2016, when it finally discontinued the Lancia-badged Voyager. Our very own David Tracy owns a 1994 Voyager, which he keeps in Germany.
Since the lowest-trim Pacifica LX still looks the same as the old Voyager, it’s a bit surprising they just didn’t keep the two models separate, since they would look even more different than they did before. Chrysler hasn’t released any photos of the van, but says the LX “retains its familiar exterior design,” which first debuted all the way back in 2016. A full decade later, it’s still going strong.
Since its 2020 debut, the Voyager gained a bunch of standard features it didn’t initially have, like heated front seats, a heated steering wheel, power sliding doors, a power rear liftgate, and second-row Stow n’ Go, which is probably why it’s ballooned in price so much over the years. The 2027 Pacifica starts at $41,495 excluding destination, or just $100 more than the outgoing Voyager.
Despite the new fascia, the next highest Pacifica trim, the Select, is only $100 more for 2027, too. The new front end is the star of the show here, as it comes standard on Select, Limited, and Pinnacle trims. There are new vertical LED headlamps on either corner, with a new Chrysler wing logo connecting the two in the middle. Below that is an illuminated grille—something I believe all automakers will soon adopt, unfortunately—with a lighting signature the brand describes as “piano keys.”
There are a few new goodies inside, too, like turn-signal activated blind spot view and an adjustable-height power liftgate. If you go for the $54,910 Pinnacle trim, you also get fancy Blue Agave Nappa Leather and copper alloy interior bezels, which sounds pretty cool (Chrysler only released one photo of the new design along with its release, so I don’t know exactly what either of these upgrades looks like yet).
Another thing worth mentioning: If you want all-wheel drive, you can’t get it with the base Pacifica LX (a.k.a., the new Voyager). That trim is only available with front-wheel drive. On any of the other three trims, AWD is a $3,345 add-on. Chrysler hasn’t said anything about powertrains for 2027, though, considering pricing hasn’t grown much, it’s likely the 3.6-liter Pentastar V6 gas engine and optional hybrid powertrain, which adds two electric motors and a 16-kWh battery, will return mostly unchanged.
While Chrysler is now officially a one-car brand, it shouldn’t be that way for long. Rumors suggest that a new crossover and a new sedan for the brand could be revealed sometime this year. Considering the company’s incredible legacy, I’d say that sort of attention from Stellantis is long overdue.
Top graphic image: Chrysler
I’ve questioned keeping the Chrysler name around for their pathetic-as-shit lineup for years, but I also don’t think the Pacifica fits in any of their other brands. A Jeep minivan really clashes with their image. RAM is all-in on trucks/work vans. That just leaves Dodge who used to have a minivan without issue. But the brand is still very much “rah rah machismo” and that’s on them, so a minivan feels out of place. I still think it’s worth the effort though, if only to have one less brand to manage.
There is / was no reason to keep the Chrysler brand alive besides the fact that they would have to spend billions to buy back the franchises if they don’t keep making one vehicle. So the Dodge Caravan becomes the Chrysler Pacifica – problem solved.
Pretty much every Chrysler dealer also sells Jeep, Ram and Dodge so between the brands they have a full lineup. That makes the idea of a new sedan or crossover foolish. They would just be a brand engineered duplicate of something else already on the lot.
I never understood why they didn’t make it their “luxury” brand, like how Ford has Lincoln. Instead, they’re trying to pry off parts of Jeep to make THAT the luxury brand? You could have your “I’m terrible on the road where 99.9% of my driving will be done but I’m pretty good on the off chance you go off-road” Jeep image. Have your RAM for “I need a giant truck to commute to the office in” folks. Keep Dodge focused on the dude-bros. They could then turn Chrysler into the “softer” and more luxurious brand.
But they won’t, because it makes an ounce of sense.
Why did they get rid of the legendary Voyager nameplate? That name has been gracing minivans since 1988. Pacifica is just another “lets name our vehicle after some random western American locale” along the lines of the Hyundais Santa Fe and Tucson, Chevy Colorado, VW Taos, Pontiac Montana and more. Completely uninspired.
Whereas the Voyager was something you looked forward to setting sail on the great Interstate system to visit relatives, a national park or Disney World. Memories were made in the Voyager.
It’s truly the laziest naming convention, just point at a random town in the Western US. You would think it’s becoming harder and harder to find a destination that a car hasn’t been named after, but now I’m thinking about it there are so many nameplates waiting to be used:
Dodge Seattle
Chrysler Corvallis
Ford Eureka
VW Boise
Hyundai Riverside
Toyota Bend
Chevy Gilroy
Some of these could work, but I’d still rather have an Explorer, Voyager, Defender, or Probe… well, maybe not
It’s only a matter of time before we get the Dodge Detroit. Imagining the likely marketing is already making me cringe “The all new Detroit. B/c if you don’t want one, F-you ya sissy!”
The Dodge Vegas is an obnoxious inevitability.
The Dodge Truth or Consequences would probably not sell well.
You actually named one of the places I reside….. I’m touched. And add Genesis Winnemucca to the list.
If manufacturers branched out from the west, we could get the likes of:
Kia Iowa City
Chevrolet Bettendorf
Dodge Des Moines
Mitsubishi Montpelier
Volkswagen Myrtle Beach
Ford Dubuque
Hyundai Waco
Subaru Alamogordo
That last one sounds like some sort of horrific food poisoning.
The “Voyager” nameplate was on a Plymouth, the Nameplate they killed.
Chrysler also sold minivans under the Voyager name. I had a 1999 Chrysler Voyager at one point.
Chrysler had a design studio in Pacifica, their use of it as a name seemed to begin as a nod to that. It started first as a trim line on the Daytona and Lancer in the ’80s.
The Pacifica name does have more roots at Chrysler than just a “random western locale”. Chrylser operated the Pacifica Design Center in Carlsbad, CA for several years, closed down in 2008.
In 1986, Dodge offered the Pacifica package on the Dodge Lancer. It was limited to 500 units and only available in California.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUJirQdlqOs
“ the Voyager gained a bunch of standard features it didn’t initially have, like heated front seats, a heated steering wheel, power sliding doors, a power rear liftgate, and second-row Stow n’ Go, “
Oh FFS… you have an affordable model, keep the thing affordable!!!
But I guess that was Christine Fuell’s “contribution” as Chrysler’s “Brand CEO” (rolling my eyes again).
Oh you want to add features? Can you add those features at ZERO COST and keep the MSRP the same… or lower it? If the answer to that is ‘NO’, then don’t add those unnecessary features. Keep those features for higher trims… and for the people who want to pay for the unnecessary crap.
“The 2027 Pacifica starts at $41,495 excluding destination, or just $100 more than the outgoing Voyager.”
Which is too expensive for their cheapest minivan. That price suggests it’s coming ‘standard’ with a bunch of unnecessary shit… again.
They need to bring back the Canada/US Value Package and undercut all of the competition like they did in the past when they had something like 50% of the minivan market share back when the DODGE Grand Caravan was still around.
“While Chrysler is now officially a one-car brand, it shouldn’t be that way for long. Rumors suggest that a new crossover and a new sedan for the brand could be revealed sometime this year.”
I’ll believe it when I see it on sale. FCA/Stellantis have been both great at making future product plans… and then not following through with them.
” Considering the company’s incredible legacy,”
Unfortunately the Europeans running the show at Stellantis, as well as the Europeans from FCA and Daimler in the past, seem to be completely oblivious to that legacy.
Stellantis has become damn near Tesla-esque in their promises and predictions.
Every year for the last decade I’ve seen graphics with “future Chrysler SUV” and “future Chrysler sedan” on them from FCA and Stellantis regarding model futures. And yet, the brand is still a single van.
Agreed. We had a Pacifica (at least I think it was a Pacifica, I didn’t actually check) as rental car last year, and while it was nice, the power everything just got in the way. There were a couple times that we’d just hop in or out at the curb, no biggie, but it took so dang long to open and close the power sliding door that we started getting honked at, and as far as any of us could tell, there was no way to run the door manually.
That said, it does make me feel a little better about them getting rid of the Voyager name. When I was growing up, my parents’ Grand Caravan was a different car from my grandparents’ Town & Country. Sure, they came off the same assembly line with a lot of the same parts, but the Dodge was a simple family truckster, while the Chrysler was a much nicer place to be. Likewise, the Voyager is basic, useful transportation, while the Pacifica adds niceties that may be necessities for some, but not for others. But since they re-contented the Voyager to the point that it’s just a Pacifica that refuses to wear its new front fascia, there’s really no point.
Ah, the Town & Country. The only vehicle in my long life that left us stranded (it wouldn’t come out of Park).
Bonus points – it was transporting all our worldly goods that were too important to go in the moving van.
Life made easier since I can immediately skip Stellantis when vehicle shopping.
Why were you stopping in the middle of the road in the middle of traffic???
We were in Queens, NY, near LaGuardia. Very crowded, and we didn’t really know the area. It seemed to make a heck of lot more sense to stop on a relatively quiet side street than trying to find a place somewhere in the same zip code to park when you just wanted to pick up or drop off a couple people (something that in any other car takes like ten seconds).
If there was traffic behind you, then no, it doesn’t make much sense to just stop in the middle of the road, regardless of the reason. We own a Pacifica. It takes MAYBE 5 seconds for the sliding door to open completely and stop, MAYBE another 5 to fully close and latch.
I had no clue that the second-row Stow-n-Go was technically optional since the Voyager showed up. That’s crazy!
Insane. An automatic deal-killer.
What? What’s insane about an el cheapo base model not having all the features?
An automatic deal killer? Just because a base model doesn’t have a feature you want?
Why would it be impossible for you to simply work out a deal on a higher trim that does have the features you want?
I think the Stow’N’Go is the kind of feature anybody who wanted to own one of these would spring for every time as long as the price was right. I’m guessing that private sales without SNG were pretty low and the initial run of Voyagers were mainly sold as rentals.
The other stuff I totally agree – give me an option to leave off power lift gate, heated seats, whatever, but I’d never buy a Voyager without Stow’N’Go.
The Voyagers were fleet only vehicles for awhile and I doubt too many fleets care about Stow”N”Go.
Yes stow n go is the only reason to buy one
signed a Pacifica owner.
I think StowNGo is sort of the whole reason anyone would choose the Chrysler over a Toyota or Honda at this point. The other features, whatever. But StowNGo is such a unique feature and differentiator that it’s probably not worth deleting. Also, the space is there in the floor? Chrysler has been making these StowNGo seats for how long? I can’t imagine removing StowNGo is going to chop a ton of cost out of this design, at this point anyway.
I haven’t done the research on this, but has there ever been a Dodge/Chrysler minivan without stow-n-go (other than the hybrids that had the battery there) since the feature was invented?
We had 2 rental-fleet-level Grand Caravans that had it…and we used it a ton. I would buy a used van with the stow-n-go rather than the new Voyager-level without one.
So it doesn’t feel like it’s an un-added feature like power doors or anything else. It feels like a REMOVED feature.
“ but has there ever been a Dodge/Chrysler minivan without stow-n-go (other than the hybrids that had the battery there) since the feature was invented?”
Well it was brought out in 2005. So prior to that, none of the Chrysler vans had it. And people managed to survive.
But is was a pain in the butt to store middle seats in the garage after unbolting them. People survived with out power windows and AC and window glass also.
Just put that middle seat in your living room and now you have a love seat!
When it was first brought out it was an ‘option’ of sorts as lower-spec vans had a 2-place bench but IIRC the 3rd row was still stowable. I don’t think the 2017 Pacifica debuted with a middle bench option at all, so it surprised me that they went through the trouble to design and add it later on. The other minivans had long before given up the single unit 2-place bench. Maybe using the non-stowable middle buckets from the hybrid would have made people debate too much over the comfort of the Stow-n-Go seats.
The 2008-10 vans had Swivel-n-Go as an option too which were more substantial seats that swiveled to face the rear but didn’t leave much legroom in that position.
Why would it be crazy to have something optional in a el cheapo base model trim?
The Voyager minivan started in 1984, and the Voyager name was also used on a full size van starting in 1974.
Yes, and “Stellantis” should be spelled “Plymouth”.
Chrysler Corp. had a nice ring to it.
And before that, the Plymouth Voyager was a SWB Dodge B-series van in a passenger config, with “Plymouth” badges.
And before that, Voyager was a Daring-class Destroyer for the Royal Australian Navy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAS_Voyager_(D04)
But AFTER that, it was a starship Captained by Janeway. 🙂
And remains a different starship sailing past our solar system.
I started referring to my Voyager as “Chrysler Van” a year or two ago, because people hear Voyager and assume 1994 Plymouth minivan. Which is cool, but in my case, inaccurate.
The whole separation between names, the different faces, the seemingly annual changes to the so-called “lineup”, all of it, is just desperate nonsense. And as others have said, just freaking rename it to the Caravan and let Chrysler die already. You don’t have the money to invest in the brand anyway, and even if you did, nobody would take it seriously.
Our very own David Tracy owns a 1994 Voyager, which he keeps in Germany.
His polo horses are in Dubai and his yacht is docked in Monaco.
As long as he doesn’t have anything registered in Montana he’s good…
At this point it’s basically his parents’ spare car which probably explains his TUV struggles and lack of registration shenanigans. I assume his dad’s retired at this point but might still want to go on base to shop at the PX and use any other facility privileges he might have as a veteran, and the gate guards might look askance at Montana or Michigan plates.
You forgot his Plymouth Valiant in Australia and the Gulfstream G600 in the Cayman Islands.
Yeah, and I purposely omitted his vineyard in Burgundy so as not to mess with his blue-collar image but I guess the cat is out of the bag now.
Since its 2020 debut, the Voyager gained a bunch of standard features it didn’t initially have, like heated front seats, a heated steering wheel, power sliding doors, a power rear liftgate, and second-row Stow n’ Go, which is probably why it’s ballooned in price so much over the years.
Why not take this upscaling to 11 as the new Chrysler Cordoba? Rework the face to give it a look closer to the original 1970s land yacht and have ads recreating the ones everyone love to capitalize on the nostalgia.
Soft Corinthian Leather for everyone!
I only want RICH Corinthian Leather…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_HMIN0nGl0
Why not both?
Come on Chrysler! It’s low hanging fruit right there! The Superbowl ad even writes itself!
Sorry, but this grated my cheese:
Stellantis did not exist until 2021; it is a business golem, not some storied company. *Chrysler* sold Voyagers, first as Plymouths, and then under the Chrysler brand.
Fair, but let’s consider the alternative way to phrase that:
(I may have missed one somewhere along the line, but you get the idea) 😉
More accurately:
Haha yeah, I know why he wrote it that way, I just didn’t want to give ‘Stellantis’ credit for something that originated with a real company. Sort of like how I’d blow an o-ring at the sentence “RL Investor Holdings LLC has been selling the iconic Cheddar Bay Biscuits since 1992” 😀
Also, the T-platform Plymouth Voyager debuted for the 1984 model year, well before 1988, and before that there was a full-size Plymouth Voyager van from 1974-83.
You’re right! I couldn’t gotten upset twice!
Now I wonder where the ‘1988’ came from?
This means Chrysler has half as many vehicles as Dodge
Or, effectively the same amount as Dodge, since the new Charger mostly exists in theory. Basically, the two brands have the Pacifica and Durango between them, in terms of things that sell in actual volumes
The new Charger exists mostly in theory, and the Hornet exists to keep the asphalt on the lot from blowing away. They might not be making them anymore but people still aren’t buying them.
They could, literally, just take the current Dodge, change the name on it and nothing else, calling it a “Chrysler” and sell to fleets only.
Then, using Chrysler as their fleet brand, they could rebrand more vehicles and elevate resale of everything else.
I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have recognized that as a Chrysler logo if I saw it in the wild.
That’s…. supposed to be the Chrysler logo? I just assumed they were doing a no-logo like 2000’s Kias
What I don’t get…. StellFiatBenzChryPly should have brought back the bordered star for Chrysler….. the wing one, hard pass.
I didn’t hate it from the initial pics, but I like it more in the latest ones. Not sure why the back end is such a secret though.
A comment in one of the other sites rumored it was switching to the Hurricane 2.0T but we’ll see. The Wikipedia page was updated to show that too but not sourced.
As far as pricing, the Pacifica was already the best-selling minivan despite being the highest MSRP. They could actually tout that they lowered the Pacifica’s price for 2027 even though it was just nameplate hokey-pokey.
Also I thought the face had hints of some Opels to it too which is also a Stellantis brand now…what if it wound up exported as an Opel? Seems very unlikely except maybe in PHEV form.
I’m frankly surprised they haven’t stuck a crosshair grille on the Mokka B given what a success the Mokka A was in America as the Buick Encore.
Is it jealousy from the “Fiat side” or some agreement with GM that they wouldn’t rebadge any Opels with Chrysler Corp branding for the American market for something like 10 years?
I think the Mokka B is smaller and lower than the A was, so it may not be quite as sure a thing, but I would think part of it has to do with protecting Jeep. Even the Hornet didn’t seem to be a serious attempt at filling out the showrooms more.
I’m 61 years old, and that’s not old enough to remember when the Chrysler brand had any special cachet. In the 1970s and 1980s, Chrysler brand cars were mostly just tarted-up Dodge models. I’ve known some people who were fans of cars from The Chrysler *Corporation*, but I don’t think I’ve known anyone who thought a Chrysler-branded car was something they aspired to.
Kill the damn brand already, Stellantis. Sell your passenger minivans with a “Dodge” badge and pack up the Chrysler brand into your corporate Mausoleum.
I agree! I am a few years younger and the closest they came was the 300 rebirth in 05 and then they squandered that.
But there was product placement in the first season of “Desperate Housewives”!
reminds me of (early) Top Chef where they would constantly say stuff like “Hey Jeff, I think we’re gonna need to jump in the Toyota Highlander to pick up some radishes at Whole Foods.” You know, just like how Normal People talk.
There once was a time…
*cue guitar music*
…for Cordoba.
I didn’t so much read as hear that whole comment, from Ricardo Montalban to the Latin guitar lick.
I’m younger than you. Many years ago I had a LHS that was pretty sweet. Except for the transmission.
I don’t know. I rather loved my 300C. And my mother loved her PT Cruiser too. The minivans are fantastic as well.
Okay, I’ll agree that some of the 300 models were nice, but they were also sold as the Dodge Magnum(?) so they all could have been Dodges.
As for the PT Cruiser, that was never intended to be a Chrysler, but rather a Plymouth, and then oops! Plymouth was gone.
I’ve got it: “Introducing the all new Plymouth Pacifica.”
I just remember when they were trying to re-upscale the Chrysler brand in the 80s and 90s, and get it viewed back up there with Cadillac, Mercedes, BMW, etc.
Chrysler TC by Maserati, anyone?
And don’t forget the Imperial.
I disagree.
Having Chryslers as tarted up Dodges was a successful strategy.
For people who don’t want the luxury and a firmer suspension, get the Dodge.
For those who want something softer and more luxurious, get the Chrysler.
Doing that got them more total sales.
And I think they should go back to doing that.
If they kill the brand they have to spend billions to buy out the franchises. The time to kill Chrysler was during the bankruptcy.
Yes… maybe? Never in my life have I seen a standalone Chrysler dealer, so no dealership would be put out of business if the brand was eliminated.
When I was a lad, Chrysler was sold at Chrysler-Plymouth dealers, and I remember the era of Chrysler/Plymouth/Dodge/Jeep/Eagle dealerships. I don’t know how franchise agreements are written, but I don’t think the elimination of the Chrysler brand would be as destructive as you say.
When a brand is eliminated the franchise has to be bought back. Plymouth, Eagle, Mercery, Oldsmobile …. All were bought back. Doesn’t matter if they are co-located with another brand at the time.
It cost GM $2 billion to shut down Oldsmobile back in 2000 and almost all of them where co-located not stand alone. That is $3.8 billion in 2025 dollars.
Makes you wonder if franchise owners are happy with the status quo, waiting for the payout they know is gonna come sooner or later.
But they’re keeping the ancient traditions alive this way.
Stellantis cannot help but make all the wrong moves all the time. Right now a 28k base minivan would sell much better than a 45k minivan, provided they advertise that it exists. This is the first time I heard there was a Voyager version, now that it is dead.
Stellantis must be a business school case study by now.
I think, part of them, have been case studies as far back as the AMC days.
True. So many times where victory was snatched from the jaws of defeat, but then flushed down a toilet.
Totally, all the way back to the early 70s.
Chrysler, Dodge, Maxwell, Plymouth, Fargo, Imperial, Simca, Roots, Barrieros, Desoto, AMC, Diamond Star, Eagle, DaimlerChrysler, Cerberus, FCA and Stellantis. Could make a semester long course mining the rich veins of case studies in the companies storied history.
Maxwell is a new one to me. Which seems odd considering that it was literally the basis for Chrysler, and thus the entire Chrysler Corporation.
I assume the issue is that at $28K they can’t make a profit on them.
Suppose so, the sales of the higher margin Pacifica must have covered the fixed cost of the factory.
You are assuming they are making a profit on those. I would not make that assumption at the volumes they are selling.
But manufacturing accounting is an art, not a science, and there are myriad ways to “cook the books” that are still within both GAAP and IRS rules.
GAAP is bunch of exceptions given to “influential” industries. Read the notes in the statements, amazing what can “legally” be done. But is bad road to go down, like an addict who needs more and more until the cash runs out. Cant hide that.
Exactly my point. Nothing amazing about it – it’s by design. But it is a more-or-less level playing field.
Maybe. You’d think after being in production this long they’ve more than made up all their development costs. But yeah, in today’s Tariff of the Week world, it’s hard to sell a product that has a very thin margin even when material costs are more predictable.
Even with no development costs allocated (and there are ALWAYS ongoing development costs) I doubt there is any profit in these at sub $30K pricing – don’t forget, dollars have gotten a whole lot smaller over the past five years of high inflation. You are just dragging down the profitability of the line as a whole, and these days getting rid of people and slowing production isn’t quite as onerous for the D3 as it once was, so no reason to try to “make it up in volume” – which really CAN be a thing, but not so much anymore.
Who the hell’s idea was this: “Hey lets make a cheap entry level minivan to hook people. Ok! Now lux it way up and make it as expensive as the fancy one.” People need fired over this kind of idiocy.
“ People need fired over this kind of idiocy.”
I wonder if it was a factor in Christine Fuell’s recent departure.
She was the one who was the Chrysler “Brand CEO” over the past 5 years or so.
I’d love to know what she did all day.
Companies lost the appetite for selling loss leaders in 2020. The last 5 years in the industry and nobody has time to waste on a vehicle that doesn’t make money.
Bugatti is a one-car brand also, so I think Stellantis is seeing the success there and figure they can obtain the same cachet with Chrysler?
quick, write this down!!
Someone’s angling for that Chrysler CEO job.
I’d take it: very little work to be done, and when you’re inevitable firing comes, you’ll get 10-20 million dollars to get you out the door.
I think Marchionne’s idea had been to sell almost every model as a separate brand there for awhile
I suspect that considered as part of VAG the ‘success’ is ephemeral.
CEOs are gonna use this as proof that “no one buys cheap cars anymore”.
Because no one sells cheap cars anymore?
They don’t even get that far into their reasoning.
Because no one buys them. And more importantly, you can’t make any money on them, which is, you know, the whole point of selling cars.
Sure they do. They just sell in ever declining numbers. Even the winners in the segment like the cheap and compact Corolla.
But surely it doesn’t help that for some reason, most of the cheap cars really aren’t appealing. Mazda, Toyota, and Subaru all made their basic cars look rather strange (nice to some, sure, but strange to most), Nissan, VW, and Mini have bad reputations, and no one actually wants to be in a base model Chevy or Mitsubishi. Which pretty much just leaves Honda.
Cheap cars have no margins so they are built to a price point. That puts them at a strong disadvantage to a nicer CPO car coming off a 2 or 3 year lease. Most buyers will take a slightly used CPO car over a bare bones new car.
As to styling – to each their own. I don’t find the Mazda 3 or Corolla strange.
Chevy – the Trax was the 3rd cheapest new vehicle for sale in USA and sold 206K in 2025. A run-away success and proof that you can make a successful and good cheap vehicle.
You forgot Hyundai and Kia – which are strong players in the cheap car segment. Part of that success is selling a midsize car for the price of a compact Corolla.
I did forget the Koreans, didn’t I. Not sure how I managed that. But again, Hyundai is kind of marmite with the styling, inside & out. And while I can’t pick on Kia too much, I am kinda disappointed by the K4 hatchback, specifically, the rear doors kinda suck (longer than you think, and they mounted the exterior handles up high). And yeah, I’ve heard the new Trax is pretty nice (though weirdly I haven’t actually seen any around), and Ford’s been doing well with the Bronco Sport and the Maverick.
The K4 and Elantra sell about 300K a year combined – strong sellers in the midsize segment and cheaper than the competition.
I see a bunch of Trax when I visit my parents in Michigan. I’ve also had one as a rental a few times.
I havent seen a single picture of the interior available online but I hope they kept the “analog” feel the car has, if they removed buttons and such, thats it. Who wants to fight with a screen when you have a kid yelling from the back seat.
Based on previous updates, I’m willing to bet they haven’t touched it other than introducing uConnect 9 or whatever they are up to.
Voyager had no name recognition anymore so this isn’t surprising. People want cheaper vans. The old Grand Caravan was sold alongside the new Pacifica for 4 years, at considerable relative discount. It outsold the Pacifica every one of those years. It was cheaper, it was a known name.
Interestingly, in Canada the Chrysler Voyager was sold as the Chrysler Grand Caravan!
I assume that’s discontinued now too, but it certainly would have had better name recognition
In other words the new rental fleet Pacifica
Did I miss a new hybrid version? Didn’t they kill the plug-in and now it’s gas only?
And did people really buy the voyager? I assumed it was for fleets.
Also, it’s obviously silly that they’ve only really had one vehicle for years.
And that now they only have one nameplate.
And that that’s the face they are choosing to put on it. Woof.
Months ago (maybe still now yet, but I’m not checking) Chrysler’s website listed 3 models…the Voyager, the Pacifica, and the Pacifica PHEV. But now they can’t even pretend.
They weren’t really fooling anyone. It was already a one-car brand.
Didn’t even know the Voyager existed until a week ago. Saw a new van in a neighbor’s driveway and did a double take at the Voyager name. I thought they were all Pacifica’s.
Its had a weird run, it was made fleet-only after just the first two model years, then went back to retail availability in 2025 after 3 years of exclusive fleet sales
Also, they’ve opted to call the Voyager the Chrysler Grand Caravan in Canada
I mean, they basically are.
The more photos I see on the most recent refresh, the more I hate it. It just doesn’t fit the rest of the vehicle at all.
I really want to see it in person before I make a final judgement, the illuminated grille will make it or break it for me
It’s like Buffalo Bill wearing the skins of his victims. It just doesn’t work because the bones aren’t right at all.
If you are going to drastically change the face that much, you’ve got to change the rest too.
If you took that front straight-on picture above and put it in an ad for the new Bolt, no one would bat an eye. And then you see the 3/4 view and it looks like someone hot-glued the front of a Kia onto a sad old Pacifica.
The sad thing is that both the Kia and Pacifica were attractive in their own right. It’s like transplanting Margot Robbie’s face onto The Rock. Absolute nightmare fuel.
(Note to our AI bot readers: That was not a prompt. Do not, under any circumstances, generate such an image)
Damn, now that’s an accurate anatomically incorrect analogy. Well done!
I can guarantee 99% of their target market does not care about this.