Chrysler's Tony Town & Country

by Thane Peterson

Editor's Rating:

The Good: Interior, entertainment and seating options, powerful new engine

The Bad: Still looks like a minivan

The Bottom Line: Chrysler correctly dubs this a "family room on wheels"

Reader Reviews

Up Front Everyone knows that minivans are dying out, right? U.S. sales dropped to under one million in 2006 for the first time in years and have continued to plunge this year. Numerous models?including the Buick Terraza, Saturn Relay, Ford (F) Freestar, and Mercury Monterey?have been dumped and replaced with more popular, sportier, smaller, and more fuel-efficient crossover vehicles.

Yet, here comes financially troubled Chrysler?the inventor of the modern American minivan back in 1983 and onetime king of the genre?introducing a minivan, the '08 Town & Country. Could it be that, as in the mid-1980s, the minivan will give Chrysler at least a little help in forging a turnaround? "Long live Chrysler!," I say. "Long live the minivan!"

Minivans, like station wagons, have gotten a bad rap because so many people consider them clunky and unhip. But they remain highly practical. They can carry seven people in comfort and can be turned into voluminous cargo haulers by folding down the rear seats. Their rear-seat entertainment systems keep the kids occupied during long drives, and they even get relatively good gas mileage considering their size. (You could take a family of seven on vacation in two Toyota Priuses, but you wouldn't save much on gas.)

The new Town & Country makes Chrysler again highly competitive with Toyota (TM) and Honda (HMC) in minivans. It comes in three trim levels: the LX, starting at $23,190; the mid-range Touring, starting at $28,430; and that the fancy Limited starting at $36,400. Whichever version you go with, it will have a lower base price than the previous model and comes with more standard equipment.

Even the LX comes with standard stability control, keyless entry, side-curtain airbags, and an overhead console. The Touring model adds such standard gear as a power liftgate, driver's seat, and sliding doors, plus "Stow 'n Go" and optional "Swivel 'n Go" seating (more on that later). The Limited boasts a bigger engine, a backing-up camera and alarm, leather upholstery trim, high intensity headlights, heated second-row seats, and a hard-disk-based, MP3-capable audio system.

There are three choices of engine. The LX comes with a 3.8 liter, 175-horsepower V6, and the Touring with a 3.8 liter, 197 hp V6. But you have to step up to the Limited to get a newly available 4.0-liter V6 rated at 251 hp. Both larger engines come with a six-speed automatic, the small engine with a four-speed automatic. (I just wish Americans could get the fuel-efficient 2.8 liter turbo-diesel engine available on the Chrysler Grand Voyager minivan in international markets.)

Still, the '08 Town & Country gets decent mileage considering its size. With the two larger engines, the '08 model is rated to get 16 miles-per-gallon in the city and 23 on the highway; with the small engine it's rated at 17/24. I got 23.3 mpg in mainly highway driving in a Town & Country Limited with the 4.0 liter engine, the same mileage I got in the new Honda Accord (BusinessWeek.com, 11/19/07).

Early signs are that the new Town & Country will do well. In the first 10 months of this year, U.S. Town & Country sales were down 19% to 111,311. But with the '08 model in the showrooms, sales soared 26% to 12,177 in October. By contrast, the Chrysler's sister model, the less expensive and less fancy Dodge Caravan, saw its sales fall 23% to 141,477 in the first 10 months and 12% to 11,005 in October. Chrysler's decision to drop the entry-level, short-wheel-base version of the Caravan helped weaken sales.

The Town & Country's strongest rival is the Honda Odyssey, which saw sales fall by only 4.2% to 144,718 in the first 10 months of the year and jump by 24.4% to 14,451 in October.

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