2008 Chrysler Town and Country

A shocking number of marriages end in divorce. Once inseparable, loving couples can drift apart with time and age. Such has been the case in Automobile Magazine's long-running but recently estranged partnership with the Chrysler minivan. Back in 1986, a first-generation Dodge Caravan served ably as one of our first Four Seasons vehicles, and for about ten years thereafter, Chrysler's minivan was one of our perennial favorites. It won nearly every comparison we threw at it and was sure to be mentioned any time we put together a list of cars we loved. In naming it to our first group of All-Stars, we concluded, "No one else, here or abroad, has built a minivan that looks, feels, behaves, or speaks to the prospective customer the way Chrysler's minivan does."

Times change. Only one full-time staff member from those days remains - editor-in-chief Jean Jennings - and Chrysler has long since gained stiff competition from both well-thought-out minivans and hip crossovers. As such, our relationship, once close and congenial, has grown increasingly distant. We haven't given the Chrysler minivans an All-Star award since their ninth in 1998 (the second-generation Honda Odyssey came out the next year and went on to become a repeat winner). Like many Americans, we've come to think of the Mopars as useful, but hardly charming, appliances.

Chrysler, seeing its minivan sales dwindling, thoroughly reworked its vans for the 2008 model year, adding a claimed thirty-five new or improved features. Eager to see if the vehicle had gotten back its mojo, we signed on for a year with a top-of-the-line Chrysler Town & Country Limited.

Four seasons later, we can confirm that the Town & Country is still the easy-to-load, easy-to-own, family-friendly ride we remember from the good ol' days, and it has even learned a few new tricks. But has it rekindled our lost love? Frankly, no.

The Town & Country arrived last spring and within minutes was on its way to northern Michigan with copy editor Rusty Blackwell and his posse. A year later, on the van's very last weekend, technical editor Don Sherman reserved it so he could pick up a small motorcycle in Tennessee. And so it went for most of the Town & Country's time in our fleet, with the minivan constantly on some adventure, be it to New York, Colorado, or circling the Great Lakes. The Chrysler racked up 32,880 miles - many of them loaded to the gills - and was often harder to reserve for a holiday than our Audi R8. "Once again, utility trumps curb appeal when it comes to our Four Seasons fleet," observed senior Web editor Phil Floraday.