I’ll admit I feel a little bad ragging upon Chrysler, which barely seems to be hanging on. The once-iconic marque is now reduced to selling two cars, the absolute minimum possible number that allows the use of the plural form of the word “car.” One of those cars is the Chrysler 300, which is being discontinued next year, and last had a significant update a dozen years ago, and even then it wasn’t really that much of a change, with the LD platform it’s based on being pretty damn close to the old LX platform from 2005. The 300 is a handsome old grandpa. But I want to talk about the Pacifica, their minivan, which I like, but which seems to have gotten a really unfortunate facelift. Is this punching down? I’m not even sure anymore.
I feel like even the text that comes up when you Google Chrysler is sad, because it’s overly generous with the plurals. It’s not Cars and Minivans, it’s a car and a minivan, singular, though there is a hybrid version of that minivan. Chrysler is really the Chryslerian Remnant at this point.
Here’s the thing about the Pacifica: I like the Pacifica! I think it’s a pretty fantastic minivan. I drove one back when it came out in 2017, and found it to be absolutely practical and appealing. And one of the things I liked best about it was the elegant front-end treatment.
I mean, look at it: it doesn’t feel like everything else out there. It emphasizes the width of the vehicle and it combines the lights and grille into a coherent whole with those swooping chrome strips that figure-8 around the grille and lights, and that same motif is repeated in the lower air intake and foglamp area.
I think the hybrid version worked the best because the grille mesh itself consisted of horizontal slats that echoed the shapes of the surrounding loops, and the whole thing feels elegant and flowing and cohesive. There’s even a touch of Art Nouveau in there, which is very uncommon to see even hinted at in a modern car. It’s a great look, and I’m sorry I haven’t noted my admiration for it more emphatically before.
The look seems to have grown from the ill-fated second-generation Chrysler 200’s front-end treatment:
Say what you will about the 200, if you can even be bothered to come up with any words to say about it, but it had a handsome face! This was a good look!
Unfortunately, around 2021 Chrysler decided that the Pacifica needed an update. As you can see, I haven’t exactly had my finger on the pulse of Chrysler goings-on. Instead of doing anything, you know, good, they changed the front end to look like this:
Way, to go, Chrysler. You just made 50% of the vehicles you have for sale worse looking, and, even worse, more boring. This front end gives the whole van a sour, displeased look, like it just smelled something foul or watched you walk out in jorts and Crocs and is not having it. It looks like a jerk now. Gone is the elegance and unusual grace of the previous front end, and in its place is this sourpuss punim.
In fact, it feels like a step backwards for Chrysler design; if the earlier, pre-facelift Pacifica borrowed from the second-generation Chrysler 200, this update seems to look like the first-gen one from 2011, with the separate, oblong-ish grille and wide lamps:
It’s just worse. Chrysler took the best part of their Pacifca and flushed it down the crapper. Chrysler may be a shell of what it once was, but they still need to hear this. Consider it tough love, or whatever. I think the brand has a chance for re-birth and renewed relevance, possibly with a new electric Airflow that’s a re-bodied version of the Citroën Ë-C4, but they’re not going to make it unless honest people like us sit them down and tell them the hard truths like this: they fucked up the Pacifica’s face.
So there.
[Ed note: While I see Jason’s point, and agree that the Pacifica is a great vehicle, the redesign doesn’t bother me. It looks a little more upscale and less early 2010s to me. – MH]
It seems you can get the old front end on the 2022 Grand Caravan (Voyager in American-speak) but that may or may not be dead for 2023? Seems like the Voyager is gone on the American website, but the Caravan is hanging on here.
I, uh….I think I actually like the new design better?
We got a 2016 Grand Caravan SXT in June 2017 with about 30K miles on it for about $16k. It’s painful to see what the used Pacifica-derived Voyagers are going for now, let alone for the Pacifica itself.
I know that a lot has happened since 2016, but it doesn’t feel like THAT long ago…
looking at it, I think “prolapsed”
We recently purchased a 2021 Pacifica to replace our 2005 Yukon XL as the designated family hauler. While I agree the new front end is less interesting than the old one, I wouldn’t say it’s “worse”. I don’t want an interesting front end on my minivan. I want it to blend in and not make any promises of performance or excitement that is not there. I think the new design is simple and handsome enough, and the rear of it is incredibly improved and the best looking part of the car.
All of that said, the looks had absolutely zero to do with the purchase decision, as I imagine is the case with 99% of minivan purchases. The 2021 is better than the 2020 and earlier in every way that actually matters, and driving them back to back made that very obvious.
You can always move to Canada. The old style is still available on the Grand Caravan: https://www.chrysler.ca/en/grandcaravan/2022
The new grill looks okay to me. Looks a bit like the 3rd gen Chrysler Town & Country minivans now which I think was a nice looking design:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_minivans_(NS)
To me it looks a lot like Subaru’s effort years back to de-weird the Tribeca. Except in that case it was an improvement.
Yeah, new one looks stupidly aggressive for no reason, and you just KNOW that it’s at least half fake/non functional because the previous one was half the size.
Great, my brain saw that grill and immediately thought “that’s Quagmire’s chin!”, and now that’s the only thing I’ll be able to think about when I see one.
Giggity. (dammit)
The updated grille looks like what GM did in the 2000s to “normalize” some models that debuted with weird noses – namely 2005 ION and 2006 Malibu.
But as others said, the taillights are a big improvement to me more interesting than the the old ones that just looked like red blobs most of the time.
Similar to the reblanding exercise VW pulled on the ID Buzz between prototype and production.
so here’s the thing, the 200, pre-covid was priced low on the used market because of journalists poking fun at it. But those remarks were in my opinion incorrect. I bought one, a silver 200S with the NA 2.4 and 9 speed trans(actual transmission, not CVT). it fits 5 comfortably, gets 30 plus MPG regularly and has had 110,000 troublefree miles put on it. regular maintenance and a set of tires so far. I am grateful I got the deal i did, I just wish a 3.6 v6 AWD 200C had been available at the time for a similar price, because that little thing is the unicorn of the small chrysler car world.
Surprisingly, Chrysler never gave the 200 a chance. It came and went before non car nuts knew it existed. I thought it was handsome.
My wife and I are actively looking at a Pacifica for our family. She had no idea there was a refresh until I pointed it out to her. To her, the change was so minor, she literally just said “Meh, its no worse or better” and that’s about how I feel about it. I think the original matches the design language a little better, but I think the refresh is totally fine and does it’s job at changing things up visually, but barely.
Now the taillights are better and the infotainment and reliability are also much better, so I’ll only consider a refreshed car.
They look….. the same? As in I kind of don’t care. Its a freakin’ minivan and the only thing minivan buyers care about is will it seat their liter of kids and haul groceries.
Liter of kids? Good sir, I shall have you know this is ‘Murica! We use “gallon of kids” in these parts!
Wish we did that with engines, too. Instead of a 4 litre six, it would be a 1 gallon (or thereabout) engine. I take that back; that just sounds silly.
Crap. I left off an l. Meant to be litter of kids. Gallons works too though
Never underestimate the utility of a good minivan (or full-size van). Probably better than pickups for the majority of people buying full-size pickups (in the U.S., at least).
I can’t decide which design I prefer but it’s a pretty marginal difference. (and I’d sooner get a Sienna anyway)
username checks out
Meh. I don’t think anyone buying these will notice.
I guess the pictures doesn’t make any justice to it but it looks more elegant in person. And I would rather have this than the Toyota Sienna weird angles and shape.
I saw a mobility Toyota Sienna yesterday, it was so ugly and blob like I was flabbergasted.
Sienna buyers don’t care, it’s an AWD Hybrid and that’s all that matters.
As someone interested in a Sienna, that is pretty much it. Show me another van offering 35 mpg, AWD, and Toyota reliability….
It is ugly, and Toyota doesn’t want you to take the the middle row seats out, so it is not all upside.
Yeah, gotta disagree here. The pre facelift had the headlights dragged up on the fenders in a very 2000s Juke kind of way, and I don’t like it. This has the headlights actually on the front of the car instead of around the sides.
Styling trends lately seem to be going to squarer grilles, longer hoods, steeper windshields, and it’s the opposite of 90s and 2000s Stratus/Taurus/Camry bloated, blobby, obese styling and it’s a good thing.
Internally, (which I was, at the time, as the vehicle dynamics performance engineer on the Pacifica), it was tossed around that they were going for a more SUV-ish fascia to try to attract more of that crowd. They did add AWD, as well, but I am in agreement that the new face was less handsome or cohesive.
I have to ask, why is there no rear sway bar on the non-hybrid? That one change would make the thing so much more comfortable on anything but the straightest of highways. The only time my kids have ever gotten carsick was in our first road trip in the Pacifica. I quickly learned that there’s too much body roll to take corners the same as I was used to without causing severe queasiness from the back seats.
For reference, the kids never had any trouble with such driving in our previous vehicle, a 2005 Yukon XL, so it’s not like I’m comparing this to a sporty sedan or anything.
I couldn’t agree more with this. I loved the original face, and to be honest I thought the 200 was the best-looking car in its class. When I first saw the facelift, I was deeply bummed—they took some unique, effective, yet fairly subtle design moves and replaced them with utterly thoughtless, generic ones. I bet somebody thought this tied the Pacifica to the 300, but they were wrong—it just makes it look like a de-designed insurance ad car.
Which, to MH’s point, is kind of a thing now, but not a good thing—every time I see a Honda HR-V I’m agog that a car company actually released such an utterly generic-looking vehicle. The Ford Edge is similarly bland. I don’t know why Chrysler wanted in on the blandwagon, but Torch is right to scold them for it.
Your point about the Edge is spot-on. When it came out, I thought “1990s jellybean + fake offroad vehicle”, which might have intriguing if it weren’t the mid-2000s. It’s the kind of vehicle that a majority of its buyers describe as “fine”. Even its staid stablemate the Five Hundred looked better in comparison, if only b/c the sedanpocalypse made it mildly interesting.
The pre-refresh Pacifica is a really good-looking minivan. The random 1,500 or so that were built in 2020 with AWD (before the update came out with it) I think are the ones to get.
That was a step backwards in design. With the logo it looks like a squinty face with a mustache in mid-sneeze.
Holy crap am I for once in full agreement with Jason.
The Pacifica was actually good looking at its release.
Voyager and Pacifica both are just recycled names from the bin- Voyager a minivan from the defunct Plymouth and Pacifica a Chrysler – not a minivan but a sort of low Ute thing that might actually sell well these days. It’s a pity, but not surprising. I’ve owned 6 Chrysler family products (one a diamond-star collab), but never again.
OG Pacifica was an early CUV that was totally unafraid to look like a dumb, squashed minivan with less functionality.
I respect that honesty.
I agree. I have a 2018 and prefer the look of the front.
However, the update for the rear is better.
I have a 2019 and agree old front new back is the way to go. But the old back is not as bad as the new front.
I wonder if you could back date the front. If you had a 2023 and rear ended someone hard could you say give me the 2020 parts? The fender looks to have about the same headlight cuts and bumper joint with the hood looking same as well.