2017 Chrysler Pacifica

Meet the New Town & Country

 

Here it is: the all-new 2017 Chrysler Town & Country! Except it isn’t called the Town & Country—it’s now the Pacifica. Chrysler says it wants this vehicle to dramatically shift how people think about minivans, and the company no doubt felt that Town & Country was synonymous with mom jeans and regurgitated Cheerios. 

 

So the Pacifica badge was exhumed after a long dirt nap. You might recall that the name was attached to a three-row crossover a decade or so ago, one that could reasonably be considered as being ahead of its time—no snickering, now—as it was softer and more carlike when America was still obsessed with more-truckish SUVs. But that Pacifica suffered from disappointing sales, and we’d question the wisdom of using its name if anyone outside of Chrysler even cared it existed. As for the T&C badge, we don’t believe this means it’s dead for good; prior to being applied to a minivan in the 1990s, it appeared on all manner of vehicle types over a 75-year run. So we wouldn’t bet against Town & Country reappearing down the line as a trim level, special package, or perhaps a large crossover similar in philosophy to, uh, the original Pacifica.  

 

The Pacifica’s piles of technology can be split into two categories: safety and convenience. To keep occupants safe and sheetmetal unbent, the Pacifica now offers a 360-degree camera view, automatic parallel and perpendicular parking, forward-collision warning and mitigation, lane-departure warning and mitigation, rear backup sensing with automatic braking, adaptive cruise control that will bring the van to a complete stop and hold it there, and several other active and passive systems.