Posted on 10/10/2011 6:00:11 PM PDT by Teflonic
Chrysler is getting rid of the soccer mom staple Dodge Grand Caravan minivan, the company announced on Monday.
2013 will be the last year the Caravan is sold, despite the fact it is currently the best selling Dodge vehicle on the market.
The more upscale Chrysler Town and Country minivan will continue on as the only van the company offers.
Chrysler created the modern minivan in when they introduced the 1984 model year Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager models.
Chrysler will replace the Dodge Grand Caravan minivan and the Dodge Avenger mid-sized sedan with a single crossover in 2013, Chrysler Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne said in an interview with the publication in Turin, Italy.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Must be orders from headquarters, err, I mean Washington.
And one would have thought the Caravan to be the type to be government-approved as well. Way to go to shoot company in foot. Fare thee well, Chrysler . . . we hardly knew ye.
Central Planning is awesome, isn’t it? Just look at that stupid VOLT! Couple thousand sold, huh?
Nuttin’ like a ‘gummit owned company to crank out the correct products.
Best-selling model? Kill it. No one wants that old thing.
And the economy is in the crapper, why?
Maybe we’re all going to take a Presidential risky bet of an investment of sun-powered cargo vans - it’s all OK ‘cuz there were Obama Bundlers as co-investors.
Methinks the decision might have a little sense to it. Chrysler - at least - appears to be trying to make cars folks want, as opposed to Chevy Volts.
Had it been a government creti...er...minion, the decision would have been to make the Caravan all electric - with a range of 10 miles and a recharge time of 23 hours.
I always had a soft spot for Dodge. I bought their neons and got a lot of use out of them. My family van when I was a child was a Dodge passenger van. I also owned a dodge stratus, and it was a very good car for me. However, I bought a 2007 Dodge Caliber AWD. I never seen a car loaded with so many problems. I had to get rid of it because its rising maintenance costs, and my expanding family. Unfortunately, I predict Dodge/Chrysler will no longer exist in the coming years due to the events of the past several years. Its sad really, because car manufacturing was something we did better than everyone else.
That is the vehicle my Daughter drives. She probably qualifies as a soccer mom too.
Their other vehicle is a Toyota Camry.
Margins on the Caravan may not be good enough.
Why don’t they just get it over with and give us all a volkswagon. You know from that other experiment in corporatist central planning.
Oh wait. They already did that. Its the Volt.
They should rename it the Voltwagon.
All hail Obama.
Why don’t they just get it over with and give us all a volkswagon. You know from that other experiment in corporatist central planning.
Oh wait. They already did that. Its the Volt.
They should rename it the Voltwagon.
All hail Obama.
Ridiculous! Morons at motor companies BUMP!
. . you can say that again, . . oh , wait
Fiat.........
Farewell Dodge. We'll miss ya.
That’s what our Leftist government has been pushing for for the last 40 years - investment in losers whether companies, ideas, or people.
I bought a new Caravan once but I will never buy another GM or Chrysler vehicle. I am a Ford man for life now thanks to that kenyan we have in the whitehouse.
Wait... Doesnt Fiat own Chrysler Corp (Dodge) now? Uh, it’s hard to know which is more incompetent at cars.
But they will keep making the Town & Country which costs more and has more features. At a time when people do not have money.
The real one that is...
Okaaaaaay.
Maybe it’s just silly old me but I don’t get it.
prolly the same geniuses what killed the station wagon which spawned the minivan in the first place, except now there's nothing to put in it's place
“Ah... Hemi Challenger...”
Vanishing Point...
an old and cool movie.
Governments are incapable of running a business at a decent profit.
I don’t know why it keeps doing that.
I apologize.
The Caravan is on an old platform. It needs to be replaced by something be that called Caravan or something else.
Between my husband and I we owned 4 of them. Great vehicle to schlep a bunch of kids around in. Don’t have one now because almost all the kids are grown, but they were a great car for a family.
Now, I only had a handful of business courses in college, but I don’t remember getting rid of your most popular selling item as being part of any theory i was taught. Maybe that was covered on the day I was out.
Our Caravan is 14 years old now. It has served us well on vacations, dragging around our boat, taking Scouts on camping trips, carrying home lumber for household projects, and everything in between. It has been a great family vehicle.
They are acting as if they are the only car maker, all this will do is send their customers elsewhere to find a minivan at that price point. Those lost customers will likely find their new honda, mazda, ford, etc much better than the Dodge they used to buy and never go back. So yeah, this smells like a death throe for the company.
Love it. That and the Cuda...
Excellent pic...thx for the post.. had an immediate ‘flashback’ :)
The Neon was a good car. The the Dodge Truck is still a good buy. I just think the company is sinking, and will become extinct.
Just the Good Ole Boys.
Doesn’t matter...union-built. I doubt anyone on this site is DUMB ENOUGH to buy a car from the America-hating UAW.
This reminds me of a story someone told back when the Soviet Union was at it’s height.
They were on the Trans-Siberian railway far out in the sticks of subarctic Russia. At a station stop the person noticed a long eastbound train loaded with dimensional lumber, in the hole (the siding).
In the distance, a westbound freight could be seen approaching. As it finally rushed by, the observer noted that it was also loaded with dimensional lumber, bound for wherever the other train had originated from.
Such are the perils of centralized government economic planning.
I guess the VW Routan, a rebadged Chrysler Town and Country, is also dead.
You are correct. Read auto industry news. New owner Fiat will use the Chrysler network to promote their own brands, Fiat, Alfa-Romeo and Maserati. I doubt this will prove successful, but even if it is, Chrysler and Dodge are dead.
Ahhh, '69 Hemi Cuda - a real car if there was ever one built!
The Dodge Caravan (and Town and Country) are the only minivans with seats that fold down into the deck, making a cargo van out of a minivan. Dodge/Chrysler spent millions of dollars inventing a way to store the seats below the deck. You can practically live in one, especially if you’re a man and don’t really need an indoor bathroom.
I’m just glad the Town and Country will still be manufactured. I rent one every year for Burning Man in Nevada, they’re great!!
In 1970 I was 18 . Bought a second hand Camaro SS 350 hardtop and she was my baby until 1973 when I made the huge mistake of selling her to my cousin and buying a new 1973 Z-28 ( special order 16 weeks wait ) . LEMON from day 1 . Nightmare . Never bought another “ new “ GM vehicle . Shoulda bought a Cuda or Challenger ! : )
if only it did.
Hyundai/Kia makes a pretty good van with non-union labor and 10 year warranty.
Good-bye old Dodge/Plymouth. This is the vehicle that saved Chrysler the first time. Built on a K-car platform.
FUBO and FUGovMotors
>Fiat.........<
Fix It Again Tony!
My ‘70 Challenger will NEVER be a freakin’ Fiat. Never.
Yes, Obama saved the U.S. automaker Chrysler by selling them to Italy’s Fiat.
Awwww...that’s not a good memory at all!
I had a 1986 IROC...Z28. THAT was my baby. I had a love affair with that car. Waxed it 2 times a month. Covered it even in the garage! It was a beauty. Then....like you made a mistake of trading. Bought a 454 Chevy Pickup. It was ok; didn’t give me any problems but it wasn’t my baby.
*sigh*
Maybe Chrysler should send someone to Russia and see if they can work out a deal to produce the Lada in the U.S.
About Russian cars ...
When we visited SIL and her family over there several years ago, our middle son was about 9 years old.
He finally said something about seeing that same car everywhere! Is it following us?
His uncle laughed and said no, there’s pretty much only one kind of car over here.
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