Here's Why Dodge Discontinued The Grand Caravan
Minivans were all the craze from the '80s to the early 2000s, and Dodge set the standard with its Grand Caravan. The first Dodge Grand Caravan hit the market in 1983 as an affordable option for families but doubled as a working man's vehicle, thanks to its excess storage space. It was a boxy people-mover that didn't receive its first significant cosmetic change until 1990 when it traded in those sharp edges for smooth, rounded corners.
The Grand Caravan was a reliable and popular vehicle for nearly four decades before Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA), now Stellantis, the parent company to Dodge, opted to put an end to it in 2020. It's not uncommon for major car manufacturers to discontinue production of a specific model. Car brands do this for many different reasons all the time.
For example, Ford discontinued the Focus in favor of focusing (no pun intended) on its line of electric vehicles. Besides shifting its focus to setting the bar for muscle car EVs, what prompted Dodge to discontinue its ever-popular people-mover that had been around for decades?
Rise of the SUV
In simple terms, consumer tastes shifted, and minivans stopped selling as well as they once did. FCA's decision to end the Grand Caravan's production was strictly economical, with its 2020 statement saying, "This decision comes as the company works to align volumes with demand."
Between 2018 and 2019, minivan sales dropped by 15%, accounting for only 2.4% of new car sales. That's a significant drop from 2000, when the market share for minivans was 7.2%. Despite this dip in sales, the Caravan was FCA's best-selling minivan, selling 122,000 models in 2019. However, that was a far cry from its best year in 1996, when it sold over 300,000 models. Meanwhile, the most popular SUV in 2019, Toyota's RAV4, sold 448,068 models because consumers favored SUVs over minivans.
The Dodge Grand Caravan falls into the category of the many vehicles Dodge shouldn't have discontinued, primarily because of the recent resurgence of minivans. The Chrysler Pacifica, Stellantis' primary people-mover brand now, sold 112,198 models in the first nine months of 2023, which is more than the 98,624 it sold in all of 2022. It still has a long way to go before it reaches the numbers 1996 put out, but it's trending in the right direction.
The Grand Caravan isn't completely gone
While FCA discontinued the Dodge Grand Caravan, the Grand Caravan name lives on in another of the Stellantis Group's brands: Chrysler. Shortly after the discontinuation announcement, FCA launched the Chrysler Grand Caravan. However, this new Chrysler minivan will be available only in the Canadian market.
The rebadging puts the Grand Caravan alongside the Chrysler Voyager and Pacifica, the manufacturer's best-selling minivan. It uses the same 3.6-liter V6 engine as the Voyager and has just as much space. With its popular "Stow 'n Go" fold-in-floor cargo space along and seating up to seven passengers, the Chrysler Grand Caravan is just as ideal for large families as its Dodge iteration was.
While it's not available to U.S. residents, Grand Caravan fans can rest assured that the model lives on. Perhaps if there's a new boom for minivans, the popular people-mover will make a return one day.