Volkswagen Routan: A big helping hand from little old Chrysler

Volkswagen has been offering a minivan since last fall, which is a little surprising considering that this market is disappearing before our eyes. But when the decision was made in 2005, little did we know what problems were on the way in 2009... For its new minivan, Volkswagen just looked to the Chrysler catalogue. Yes, the Routan is, in fact, a Chrysler Town & Country. By using the T&C, Volkswagen didn’t have to spend an arm and a leg developing a vehicle and Chrysler could throw some more work to its assembly plant in Windsor, Ontario.

The irony here is that Volkswagen practically created the minivan with its Microbus in 1950. Fifty-nine years later, it’s Chrysler, the very company whose minivan reinvented the category at the beginning of the 1980s, who’s coming to the German manufacturer’s rescue. However, Chrysler is flat broke and Volkswagen has turned into a giant!