VW Routan???
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Apparently this is what VW will call their version of the new Chrysler minivans.
If the picture is the real thing, it looks like they did quite a bit of changes .
But that name .Are you kidding me?
Say it out loud and it sounds like “crouton”
Are they for real? Extending that VW magic (read: crappy reliability, awful dealer experiences) to one of the fastest shrinking segments of the new car market?
What’s the point?
maybe it is Boca(mouth) Routan(Rat).
Maybe just call it Rataouville….
It’s about time that VW renovated the Sharan, their top-of-the-line minivan. Their current model is ancient, it dates back to 1994. They developed it together with Ford, and Ford launched their replacement over two years ago, but VW has kept the same old model in their line-up for far too long. And now this; this thing in the picture looks simply like a bigger version of the Touran, possibly the car with the most boring styling ever. Meanwhile, Ford won the European Car of the Year award last year with the S-Max, possibly the minivan with the most exciting styling ever. Different strokes indeed.
The market might be shrinking in the US but I believe consumers in other countries are more practical with their vehicles. Minivans are the most practical vehicles out there. Throwing AWD like the Sienna and you have the perfect vehicle for 7 and their stuff to the ski chalet in the Swiss Alps :).
From the blurred picture, it resembled too much like the 1st gen Odyssey but with sliding doors.
I don’t know if the minivan market is shrinking..maybe it is the ploy by Ford and GM so they can sell their SUVs or crossovers. Toyota, Honda, Kia, Huyndai and even Chrysler are selling their own version of the minivan pretty well.
Yes, the minivan market is shrinking, largely because they’re not sexy and people think they can get the same kind of utility from a three-row SUV (which of course they cannot – there’s hardly any luggage room behind almost every SUV’s 3rd row, not to mention that adults never fit back there).
Proof that this market’s shrinking in this country? Just look at Ford and GM’s latest entries – that’s right, they don’t have any – they’ve abandoned this segment. Furthermore, track sales figure at a site like vtec.net and you’ll see that even though the Odyssey is still one of the highest selling minivans, its numbers are significantly down from last year. In the early summer, the figure was something like -20%, year to date.
-BostonMike
I saw this picture a long time ago on the internet….
This thing looks smaller than the Grand Caravan/T&C…but is it?
whatever. whatever the case, vw knows how to style a car (with the exception of the touran and fox). this is going to look a million times better than whatever chrysler has come up with, especially in the rear-end styling
Why not be allied with the best selling minivan?
There was a guy who was on both the boards of VW and Daimler when Daimler and Chrysler were one. He had a buddy on VW’s board and the did this minivan deal before Daimler and Chrysler split. The deal was aleady in the works. So instead of scrapping the deal and wasting all the time and effort that went into it, they’re going ahead and building this thing. It just corporate back-scratching. No one needs another mini-van.
Just look at the UK site. This model has already been released in Europe. As usual, the US is way behind the automotive curve. )