Dodge Caravan: 25 years-old

As Chrysler Corporation seeks a life-line today, it's most successful product innovation celebrates its 25th birthday.

When an industry or company is restructuring to survive in the global economy, executives are all driven by the fear of not surviving the transitional period and this fear can adversely affect their decision-making abilities.  The turnaround won’t be complete until the fear of failure is confronted in the minds of the executive survivors.  Thirty years ago, lead by Lee Iacocca, Chrysler's cultural transition began by instilling confidence in each employee's ability to meet and overcome workplace challenges...by having a clear vision of what the public wanted to buy. 

At that time, automobiles like my 1973 Ford station wagon (with a trailer towing package) were averaging about 7 mpg while gasoline prices were spiking upward.  The engineering challenge was how to get the weight out of new vehicles to comply with the public's desire to reduce their gasoline consumption and the federal government's higher mpg requirements on automobiles.

Chrysler teamed with the Institute of Social Research (ISR) at the University of Michigan, one of the largest and oldest academic survey and social research organizations in the world, to determine what American families were purchasing at retail.  The answer was they were buying trucks not cars (that were not required to comply with governmental mpg requirements); more specifically "van conversions" through both auto dealers and recreational vehicle dealers.  And this buying trend was headed north.

The product development engineers at Chrysler took this information and designed a "van-like" new automotive product, named the Dodge Caravan with front wheel drive (to reduce vehicle weight and thus raise average mpg ratings)...and...Chrysler prospered.