Dodge to stop making the Grand Caravan even though it's their best selling vehicle

Chrysler is getting rid of the soccer mom staple Dodge Grand Caravan minivan, the company announced on Monday.

2013 will be the last year the Caravan is sold, despite the fact it is currently the best selling Dodge vehicle on the market.

The more upscale Chrysler Town and Country minivan will continue on as the only van the company offers.

Chrysler created the modern minivan in when they introduced the 1984 model year Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager models.

Chrysler will replace the Dodge Grand Caravan minivan and the Dodge Avenger mid-sized sedan with a single crossover in 2013, Chrysler Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne said in an interview with the publication in Turin, Italy.

Folks, please stop overreacting to this.

All this happens to be about is branding and marketing. They want Dodge to be seen as 1.) the performance brand (hence the Charger, Challenger, etc) and 2.) the truck brand (hence the Ram, etc).

A minivan doesn’t “fit” with those two “Dodge” images. So they’re going to consolidate the minivan line under Chrysler. Aren’t both brands produced on the same assembly lines anyways?

I’d guess that they’ll now offer more options for the minivans under the Chrysler brand to fill any “gaps” lost by taking the Dodge “brand” away.

I recall a few years back when people here were upset about how Ford was going to get rid of the “Excursion” (under the auspices of it not being “green” enough). Turns out all that Ford did was get rid of the Excursion name and start selling pretty much the same vehicle as the Ford “Expedition XL”.

reminds me of the brilliant marketing tactic used in the 80's when Coke came out with "New Coke".

What are you talking about? That was pure genius.

Despite the Pepsi Challenge demonstrating that most people can't tell the difference, it was assumed at the time, according to trends, that the population preferred a sweeter cola - this begat Coca Cola's change to "New Coke"

According to Malcomb Gladwell's book "Blink", there were factors other than taste that influenced choices, and when labels were added, preferences changed from one brand to the other. So basically, branding was everything.

When Coca Cola released "New Coke", it didn't matter if the drink tasted like an heavenly elixir or of vomit the point being is that it drummed up huge amounts of interest and free advertising. As they used to say in politics, "I don't care what you say about me as long as you spell my name right."

So many new customers bought New Coke to try it out, and there were New Coke Parties as the roll-out wasn't in all markets at once, and importing the drink made the host look hip and cool.

In the meantime, many people who were resistant to change bought up the old stock at whatever price it could be obtained and a black market and scalping took place as people were hoarding the original formula. This was great for Coca Cola as people were buying at full price the New Coke, and were quickly burning through the inventory of the original formula.

There is a shelf life to any cola soft drink, so those who were hoarding the product hoping to sell it years later like rare baseball cards discovered that unlike good wine, Coca Cola doesn't age well in storage - not that people were actually constructing the equivalent of wine coolers to store the vintage stuff....

Interestingly, just as the expiration date of the original formula cola was reached, it was discovered by marketing that New Coke just wasn't selling its taste equivalent Pepsi, and so they decided to restore the formula but added a bit of marketing genius - prefix the same old soda with the word "Classic".

They never could have done that without coming out with that dreck New Coke, but now they upgraded the name and made a hundred year old product appear both fresh and original by simply changing the packaging.

Like babies who have had their favorite toy, or addicts who have had their favorite drug taken from them, when the opportunity for getting it back appears, they grab as much as they can in the odd expectation that it might be taken away again. Again, the bottlers were working overtime to produce the "classic" version while a new batch of "scalpers" were planning on cashing in on profiting on selling the equivalent of the Inverted Jenny stamp.

During this whole "fiasco", Coca Cola was receiving all kinds of free publicity, news coverage and open debate. This is called a "Win".

Nope. The government would only be interested in K-cars from Chrysler.

Or, maybe L-cars.

I would have no interest in any Chrysler product. Once owned a 64 Dodge. What a pile of crap!

Had a strong engine, if you could get it started, but while my wife was driving it in city traffic in Wichita, KS, the steering box broke off the frame, and she could not control the car's direction. Was a rather traumatic crash for her.

If that happened today, perhaps I could acquire millions of y'all's tax dollars. Damn! Missed it by that much!

Drop your #1 selling item? Must be Obama University MBA people running that place. But it is just part of the stupid business decisions I’ve seen all over. Like Netflix deciding to change their name after 15 years and hundreds of millions in promotion and advertising. Or giving $500 million to a solar panel start up that made no new innovations in a market with over a dozen competitors already in the business losing money hand over fist.

What is going on out there? People who should know better are acting desperate when they need not be. It is nonsensical. There is a real fear out there making people crazy. Or else perhaps there are people in high places who simply rose up through the ranks up to their level of incompetence.

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