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Chrysler's neat seats
Minivans up the ante with disappearing rear seats
By Bradley Horn
Thursday, December 18, 2003
AUBURN HILLS, Michigan - While it's still the perennial sales leader in the minivan market, the Chrysler Group has seen its share of the segment whittled away recently by innovative competitors like the Toyota Sienna, Honda Odyssey and even the Ford Freestar. Exceptional versatility, safety and adaptability have become must-have features for the minivan market. Well aware of these facts, Chrysler recently held a holiday gathering at its Michigan-based Design Dome to unwrap a new gift for the van market, the revised 2005 Dodge Caravan and Chrysler Town & Country.
Easily the biggest changes to the vans are the new "Stow 'n Go" seats. Thanks to storage bins in front of the second row and behind the third row, all rear seats can now be folded flat into the floor with the headrests in place. This trumps even Nissan's Quest, which has second- and third-row folding seats, but requires the headrests to be removed and stored.
The only flaw in Chrysler's system is the need for the front seats to be all the way forward when stowing the second row. Chrysler says the seats can be stowed in fewer than 30 seconds. As the automaker's chief operating officer Wolfgang Bernhard put it, "we measure minivan performance by how fast we can go from seven seats to zero."
Besides the new disappearing act, the second-row seats now feature 100 mm (four inches) of fore/aft travel, reclining backrests and breakaway, side-mounted cupholders. The third row also reclines, can split 60/40 like the Toyota Sienna's seats and flips back for tailgating. In all, the 2005 vans offer 256 seating configurations.
The 'Stow 'n Go' seats are made possible due to an all-new platform for the Chrysler Group minivans. President and CEO of the Chrysler Group, Dr. Dieter Zetsche, said the new underpinnings represent a $400 million U.S. investment and 18 months of work. Essentially, Chrysler added two wells to the floor pan to accommodate the disappearing seats. Because the second row folds forward, high strength lids were designed to cover the storage tubs. With all the seats up, 340 litres (12 cubic feet) of storage space is available in the wells.
The Stow 'n Go seats will be optional on base Dodge Caravans and standard on pricier Grand Caravans and the Chrysler Town & Country.
The trick seats are part of 14 major upgrades to the Chrysler Group's minivan family. Aside from refreshed styling, the vans will offer new curtain airbags to protect all three rows, a rear sonar parking assist and a minivan-first - a driver's side inflatable knee bag. The automaker has also worked to quiet the vans down inside, reducing interior noise by 16 per cent.
The 2005 Chrysler minivans will be in showrooms early next year.
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