1996 Chrysler Minivans Preview: Focus-Group Engineering

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1996 Chrysler Minivans Preview: Focus-Group Engineering
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For 10 years, the No. 3 automaker has ruled the minivan market. Now the company bets $2.3 billion it will stay there.

Generation Xers may be too young to recall Chrysler's roller­coaster ride through the Eighties. Especially now that the No. 3 Amer­ican automaker seems to be going from success to success and leads the Big Three in profits per vehicle. But at both ends of the decade, the company sat per­ilously on the brink.

But, as the high-rolling Jim Bakker was chagrined to discover, nothing lasts for­ever. Ever-better entries like the sleek Ford Windstar and the Mercury Villager/Nissan Quest and the new, the first ground-up redesign of the original. Taking no chance with this fam­ily jewel, Chrysler went straight to the world's foremost minivan experts—cur­rent Chrysler owners.

Beneath the skin of this new S-body , very few parts carry over from the current S-body van, the structure of which dates to the 1984 model year. Bumper and cooling requirements increase the overhangs, adding seven to eight inches in length, but weight gain was held to just 110 pounds for the short van and 175 pounds for the long van. The all-­new structure is 70 percent stiffer in tor­sional rigidity, despite being larger and offering a left-side door.

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