The Volkswagen Routan's "German Engineering" ad campaign has provided plenty of irony-laced comedic fodder for the Autoblog water-cooler, and VW's own press release doesn't help, heralding the Routan as "a stylish alternative to the minivan." An alternative to what? In a perfect world, VW would have revolutionized the moribund minivan segment with a production version of the 2001 Microbus concept, thereby capitalizing on V-Dub's cheeky heritage in the same way the new Beetle did in the late '90s, and perpetuated by other vehicles like the MINI Cooper and Fiat 500 today. Thankfully, all ... Read More

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Mommies on Minivans: Practical, but where's the style? 1295650860

Toyota can call the Sienna a swagger wagon all it wants, but the slogan isn't going to make moms any happier about hopping behind the wheel. According to The Detroit Free Press, most mothers aren't fooled by gimmicky marketing or the latest attempts to redesign the minivan as a stylish piece of transportation. Reporter Krista Jahnke followed a group of ...
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Autoblog Podcast #87 1203186660

The Chicago Auto Show wasn't that eventful, but that's what we lead off Autoblog Podcast episode #87 with. The Challenger was the biggest deal, followed by the Denali XT, and then a bunch of inconsequential things. We did find ourselves talking about the Suzuki Equator and the Ford Transit Connect, too. We give you our first up close and personal ...
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Chicago 2008: Volkswagen unveils the newish Routan minivan 1202325180

click above to view more high-res pics of the VW Routan Fumbling out of the "why bother" category here at the Chicago Auto Show is the 2009 Volkswagen Routan, which is their new minivan based on the Chrysler Town and Country and Dodge Caravan platform. Oddly, Volkswagen opened up its presentation by showing pics and videos of its classic vehicles, such as ...
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Chicago 2008 preview: Volkswagen Routan leaks out 1202243280

Click above for high-res gallery of the Volkswagen Routan. var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/autos/Volkswagen_unveils_new_minivan_Snoozing_ensues'; Well, thanks to the German pub Autobild you can now see the collaborative efforts of Chrysler and Volkswagen in the form of the VW Routan. Unfortunately, the V-Dub van hardly harkens back to the time of the ...
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Spy Shots: Volkswagen Routan vannin' around 1201874280

Priddy and Company stumbled across a dolled up VW Routan and managed to capture a shot. Earth shattering revelation here: it looks like a Grand Caravan. It'd be natural to assume some similarities, there's only so much you can do to the basic body shell when badge engineering, but when the spy photogs almost pass it right by, that says something. The boys ...

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Volkswagen's Chrysler-based minivan to be called Routan 1200494400

Volkswagen has announced that it will unveils its version of the Chrysler LLC minivan at the Chicago Auto Show in early February, and that its name will be Routan. As with most of the names that VW chooses for its vehicles, we had to look up the meaning of the word. We didn't find anything because VW made up the word "Routan" by combining the words "route" ...