2008 Chrysler Town & Country LTD

Laurance Yap

SPECIAL TO THE STAR

When Chrysler first introduced its family of minivans in the 1980s, it was truly the revolution of the box.

Since then, the last two generations were sleek, almost sexy, continually upping the ante in feature content and car-like driving dynamics.

With the latest version, however, the company has returned to its roots: the new Dodge Grand Caravan and Chrysler Town & Country are boxy once again.

They are, however, a lot more versatile, offering a multitude of seating configurations that were unheard of back in the 1980s.

Which seating configuration you choose largely depends on the configuration of your family. My loaded-up Town & Country tester was fitted with the optional Swivel 'N Go seats, which are two very substantial (100-plus pound) seats that can face forward or backward.

While not that easy to switch around – you have to move the front seats all the way forward first – they are bigger and more comfortable seats, when facing forward, than their Stow 'N Go counterparts, which can be dropped into the floor at the flip of a couple of levers.

Swivel them to face rearwards, taking the seatbelts and all requisite safety gear with them, and you're left with a living room that four kids could happily call home.

When facing back, the Swivel 'N Go seats don't offer enough legroom for adults to face each other, but there's more than enough room for young feet; you can also install a handy activity table, which hides under the floor when not in use.

This level of seating versatility is what sets the new Chrysler vans apart from their competition. No other minivan, import or domestic, offers the ability for rear passengers to face each other and none offer the under-floor storage that comes standard in the Chryslers regardless of seating configuration.

Other vans, however, offer easier ways to reconfigure the positions they do offer: stowing the third row of the Chrysler, for instance, requires pulling on various straps and levers, none of which are very elegantly presented; swiveling the second-row seats can only (in theory) be done by folding them first; un-swiveling them requires you to reach across the seats into the middle of the van to reach the folding lever.

On balance, I think that I prefer the standard Stow 'N Go seats, myself. They're a lot nicer than the old Stow 'N Go seats, with bigger frames and more comfortable bolstering, plus they give the new Chrysler van a lot more versatility.

If, for instance, you find yourself needing to haul away some really large object from the antiques market, you can simply throw the seats into the floor, turning the Town & Country into a luxurious cargo van.

Seats up, it's as nice as minivans come, with leather and alcantara on the seats, individual armrests, rear-seat audio controls and other goodies. And, as childhood experience has taught me many times over, facing forward on long drives is far more preferable to looking back for stomachs that are sensitive to motion sickness.

Not that, given the way it drives, the Town & Country is a vehicle that's going to induce it. This is a real smoothie of a van. Its 4.0 L engine whispers except when you're using full throttle, at which point it emits a refined snarl; the six-speed automatic transmission snaps off barely-perceptible shifts.

Road and wind noise are near-nonexistent at highway speeds. The ride is excellent, smoothing out the biggest bumps without verging into floatiness; it's soft, but, behind a three-spoke steering wheel that delivers a good sense of the road surface, you always feel in control.

Handling, while by no means sporty, is impressively stable and composed for a seven-passenger vehicle, with good grip levels and not too much body roll.

Only the brakes really disappoint: the pedal feels dead during the initial stages of travel and there's never quite as much stopping power as you're hoping for.

Refinement is the name of the game here; something that's echoed in the interior trimmings.

My tester's two-tone dashboard was trimmed with a convincing combination of wood and metal finishes, neither of which were ultimately real. Still, the overall design of the Town & Country's interior is very upscale, with chrome-ringed instruments (with Chrysler's trademark Indiglo backlighting), a logically-arranged centre stack topped by an analogue clock, power-assisted front seats and leather on the steering wheel and sprout-from-the-dash shift knob.

The overall level of quality is very impressive, which makes the flimsy modular centre console stand out all the more: can this rattly, ill-fitting contraption have been signed off on by the same people who demanded the solid, matte-finish dashboard?

Special mention here must go to Chrysler's excellent MyGig infotainment system, which combines navigation, audio, telephone and other functions into one easy-to-use touch screen installed at the top of the dashboard. Not only can you do the usual browsing of radio stations (including Sirius satellite frequencies), but an on-board hard drive allows you to record songs from discs or the radio.

There's a USB port to allow you to download photos to the hard drive, letting you display (presumably) family photos on the dashboard. Many of the functions are also available with voice commands; the hands-free phone system works particularly well.

The Town & Country is a surprisingly thirsty beast. While my test period did, admittedly, consist almost entirely of urban driving, the 14.4 L/100 km I averaged was still surprisingly high. Credit or blame, I guess, must go to the gutsy large-displacement engine.

Perhaps Chrysler should consider employing its Multi-Displacement System from its Hemi V8s here too; Honda offers a similar system called Variable Cylinder Management on the Odyssey that runs its V6 on three cylinders while cruising.

Chrysler does offer other powertrain combinations, depending on which model of minivan you choose (there's a Dodge version as well, remember); consider carefully if running costs are a major concern for you.

Is the new Chrysler van a revolution on the same scale as the original? Of course not. Despite the exit of several competitors – GM no longer does minivans, or does Ford – this is still a fiercely competitive and innovative market.

Interiors that can be rearranged in every which way and seats that fold into the floor are no longer the novelties they once were. Where the new Chrysler vans do stand out, though, is in the vast array of configurations available.

While import makes typically offer just one powertrain choice, you can get a 3.8 L V6 or a 4.0 L in the Town & Country, while the Dodge version also offers a flex-fuel 3.3 L with a four-speed automatic. Then there are all the trim combinations and options, which let you build exactly the family hauler you need and want.

The new Chrysler vans may not be revolutionary, but they're still right up there with the best.

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