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I saw an ad for the 2009 Volkswagen Routan the other day on TV for the first time. VW has, for years, insisted it would bring the Vanagon back. It's unsettling that it came back (sort of) in the form it did - a dressed-up Chrysler Town & Country.
Some partnerships I can understand - Isuzu building the Pilot for Honda, which has proved itself incapable of building a true truck (vis-a-vis the Ridgeline), for example. Or Chevy turning to Toyota for the Geo Prizm. Or an Australian subsidiary of GM building a GTO for Pontiac (no kidding - it was a sick car while it lasted).
That said, I don't understand where VW gets off teaming up with Chrysler.
Here's the breakdown: Volkswagen Auto Group encompasses Volkswagen (duh), Skoda, Scania, Audi, Porsche, Bentley, Lamborghini, and Bugatti. That's two monster sellers (VW and Audi), a European knock-off (Skoda), a truck-maker (Scania), and four upscale brands (we're talking way, WAY the heck upscale).
And here's the kicker - per automobile, Porsche is the most profitable automaker on the planet.
Look it up. VW is, for all of these reasons, in a good place fiscally.
In 1998, Daimler merged with Chrysler (which includes Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and once upon a time, Plymouth), at that point suffering from nightmarish debt.
In 2006, Daimler put Chrysler, almost inexplicably in debt again and suffering from lagging sales, up for sale.
Cerberus Capital Management snapped it up, and lo and behold, now there's talk of pawning off the Viper marque.
The PT Cruiser, Pacifica, and Magnum are already dead, never to return.
I can't see this ending well for any of the involved parties. As a result of corporate mismanagement (prove me wrong, Cerberus), I see Chrysler ending up with a hackneyed, soulless fleet of cars and slow sales by about 2020, which will piss off Cerberus shareholders enough to sell their collective 80.1 percent share. Wait, where have I seen this all before?
In any case, the Routan is a bizarre piece of machinery. The interior has been upgraded significantly from the Town & Country, but not enough that you can't tell they began life as near-identical twins. The Volkswagen corporate "face," with Passat headlights and chrome grill, doesn't match the angle of the windshield or the boxy body at all.
And it must have been 3:45 p.m. on the Friday before Super Bowl XL when the designers got around to the rear of the clay model. There's something about Germanic features that just doesn't translate to a minivan.
This much I'm sure of - if I go into a VeeDub dealership and strike up a conversation with a sales rep, he'll try to convince me the Routan is nothing like the Chrysler Town & Country.
At day's end, aside from the optional light cream leather interior, there's really hardly any difference at all between the two.
Pop the hood and you'll see the same engines. Look underneath and you'll see the same frame. I bet the door panels are a direct swap. I know.
Until next week.
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