The Luxury Breadbox: Chrysler’s 1990 Town and Country Mini-Van Was Woodgrain Lip Stick On A Pig


The Luxury Breadbox: Chrysler’s 1990 Town and Country Mini-Van Was Woodgrain Lip Stick On A Pig

While Detroit has gotten way better at this in recent years, for a long time when a model got long in the tooth and we nearing the end of its current generation, sales lagged and they had a standard solution.

“Let’s make a luxury model!”

Slap a new grill in it, some wheels, some chrome and maybe woodgrain and then dump leather versions of the seats inside, maybe step up the stereo a bit, and tune the engine for an extra few ponies and…boom. Luxury model born! In 1990, after selling about 64-billion mini-vans, the original version of the iconic people mover was getting ready for pasture and the competition had started carving into Chrysler’s once sole position in the space. Needing to appeal to more bucks up buyers that other makers were, the guys at Mopar went into the history books and dredged up the Town and Country name which had been part of the company’s legacy for 50 years at that point.

In a display of how much old school human horsepower still resided in Detroit and how much influence they still had, the town and country got woodgrain like so many other Town and Country models did over the years. When sleekly styled Japanese competition were luring buyers away from Chrysler in droves to more hip and modern looking things, Chrysler glued fake wood on the sides of the van. That’s old guy thinking and influence there. You can almost hear the meetings.

“Sir, we want to go monochromatic with the look of the new T&C.”

“So help me God that Town and Country will have wood on it like the 1948 model my father owned or you’ll be out of a job, Johnson!”

In 1991 the next generation of Chrysler Town and Country was released and it had many styling upgrades…and 100% less simulated woodgrain.

Press play to see this review of the 1990 Chrysler Town and Country


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