By Ryan Felton
This past week, the auto industry descended on New York to unveil its latest models. Nearly half a million people were expected to pass through the sprawling Javits Convention Center, from industry bigwigs to families just coming to ogle hundreds of new vehicles on display.
One auto chief executive, Matt McAlear, took the stage at the New York International Auto Show to make a bold declaration: "We're here to make things people didn't see coming."
Behind that CEO was a pair of Chrysler Pacifica minivans -- slightly altered with new headlamps and updated features, or what the auto industry calls a "refresh." At most brands, such an update wouldn't merit much fanfare.
For Chrysler, however, a marginal refresh of the only model it sells was a welcome pulse check.
The brand that invented the minivan in the 1980s, and with it a style that became shorthand for American suburban family life, is fighting for survival. Chrysler is one of 14 big car brands owned by the European-American conglomerate Stellantis, a big portfolio compared to General Motors's four or Ford's two. And Chrysler is the only major brand to sell just one model.
McAlear said he's one of the people fighting for Chrysler's future. Stellantis's upcoming investor day in May will shed additional light on the future direction of the brand, he said.
"We're here to make the Chrysler brand feel unexpected again, sharper, unapologetic and, yeah, a lot more attitude than people expect from a minivan brand," he said. "A minivan brand for now."
A turnaround will be expensive and difficult. Stellantis will either need to invest a lot more. Or it may need to consider the unthinkable.
For much of its existence, the Chrysler name has been intrinsically tied to Detroit's Big Three automakers. Crosstown rivals General Motors and Ford Motor have generally always sold more cars, and Chrysler was affectionately called the "little brother" of the car triumvirate. This often made it scrappy and innovative, however, often pioneering technologies like better automatic transmissions, cruise control and four-wheel anti-lock brakes.
A seemingly endless string of corporate mergers, over time, starved the Chrysler name of resources and different models to sell. Ten years ago, it sold two sedans in addition to its minivan. Twenty years ago, Chrysler's sprawling lineup included midsize and large sedans, an SUV, the quirky PT Cruiser wagon, a sports car and multiple convertibles.
The Pacifica is all that's left today. Chrysler's sales last year were down 80% compared to two decades ago. Last year, it sold about 126,000 cars.
Stellantis also owns Jeep, Maserati, Peugeot, Fiat and Alfa Romeo. It was created in a 2021 merger to give those brands the capital to take on the industry's new challenges like electrification and autonomous driving.
But Stellantis posted a $25 billion loss in 2025, much of which it blamed on a pivot away from electric vehicles in the U.S. Meanwhile, the whole industry is threatened by upstart, high-tech Chinese carmakers that are making lower-cost vehicles.
Big car brand names have died before, like General Motors' Pontiac and Oldsmobile, or even Chrysler's onetime family member Plymouth. While GM, Ford and Chrysler together once overwhelmingly dominated American sales, they are now heavily eclipsed by foreign automakers, including ones that make cars in the U.S.
McAlear, 48, was running the Dodge brand when the company tapped him several weeks ago to oversee Chrysler as well. McAlear's father retired from a career at Chrysler, he said in an interview on the sidelines of the auto show this week. He rode in Chrysler cars from the time he was born.
"It's my responsibility to be a steward of the brand and set it up for the next person," McAlear said. The company owes it to its dealers to position Chrysler to be successful and "sell in volume beyond just one nameplate," he added.
Few car brands carry the kind of name recognition of Chrysler, which alone could drive sales, dealers say. The Pacifica has been America's top-selling minivan for years. Chrysler just needs an actual portfolio of vehicles to sell, they say.
"Nobody knows Stellantis in this country," said Jeff Dyke, president of Sonic Automotive, one of the largest car retailers in the U.S. "They sure as hell know Chrysler."
The brand delivered aerodynamically groundbreaking cars in the 1930s and luxurious land yachts in the '60s and '70s with " Fine Corinthian Leather." Generations of American families grew up in Chrysler minivans such as the Town & Country in the '80s and '90s. The Chrysler 300C sedan of the 2000s became a mainstay in hip-hop videos.
In 2005, nearly 650,000 Chrysler brand vehicles were sold in the U.S., or one out of every four cars for then-parent company DaimlerChrysler.
Then came Chrysler's sale to a private-equity company in 2007, followed by its bankruptcy, bailout and takeover by Italy's Fiat, creating Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. In 2021, that company merged with France's PSA Group to form Stellantis. Highly profitable brands Jeep and Ram took priority.
"They've let Chrysler go on the backshelf for a while," said Steven Wolf, a Texas dealer who started out in the 1970s as a Chrysler dealer.
Today, Wolf sells Stellantis's other core American brands as well, including Jeep, Ram and Dodge. He's championed the idea of having a Chrysler model to sell that's not a minivan.
Around the end of the 1930s, Randy Bierlein's grandfather first started selling Chrysler vehicles out of his family's dealership in northern Michigan. The dealership, Schaefer & Bierlein, lays claim to being the country's oldest.
A fifth-generation owner, Bierlein had ambitions to work for the Chrysler corporation when he got out of college in the early 1970s. Everyone told him he was crazy. He was lucky to sell Chrysler's cars, he said. So he stayed put.
"Chrysler was always at the top of the food chain in our world," Bierlein said.
The Schaefer & Bierlein shop in Frankenmuth, Mich., exudes Chrysler. The company's Pentastar logo is fashioned into the tile on the dealership's floor. Bierlein's son, Kyle, is currently CEO of the dealership. When Kyle and his brother acquired some Ford and Chevrolet dealerships two years ago, Randy refused to wear the new family-branded pullover that also bore the logos of Chrysler's longtime rivals.
"It sat here for a year," Kyle said. "That's the loyalty, that's what he had his whole life."
Dealers typically retain buyers by selling them one car in a line and then upgrading them to another model a few years later. But Chrysler dealers, Kyle says, are at a disadvantage because there's only the Pacifica minivan. Some buyers who want an SUV recoil at the thought of owning a Jeep, but there isn't a Chrysler SUV to offer them.
"Chrysler doesn't need to come out with a competitor for the Corvette or a Viper or anything like that," Kyle said. "That's not what we're looking for. We need small, midsize SUVs, maybe a sedan, something that we can pump out to people who want them."
Randy remembers selling Chryslers in the 1970s when the brand was in the midst of its first modern existential threat: the oil crisis.
Sales of Chrysler's gas-guzzling coupes and sedans were tanking. Lee Iacocca, an iconoclastic ex-Ford executive, was brought in to rescue the company from near-bankruptcy. Iacocca secured a U.S. government loan and revamped the lineup to save the day.
Iacocca's turnaround worked, bolstered by the launch of a successful minivan line under sister brands Dodge and Plymouth. A new Chrysler LeBaron brought convertibles back to America after a years-long absence. Iacocca also expanded the Chrysler brand to include less-premium, more affordable models.
But the late 1990s merger between Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler and Chrysler hardly led to a turnaround for the namesake brand. Cultures clashed, synergies failed to materialize and profits sank.
Dealers loved the Chrysler 300, which had a good amount of Mercedes hardware under the skin, but the brand struggled to adapt to a world where SUVs began to rule American roads.
The brand's lineup has only dwindled since. Today, the Chrysler nameplate is often sandwiched in at Jeep, Dodge and Ram dealerships.
The 2021 creation of Stellantis was supposed to be a reversal of fortunes for the Chrysler name. Carlos Tavares, the merged automaker's first CEO, had ambitions of shepherding Chrysler along with the company's other brands into an all-electric future.
"We are now preparing for the rebound of this brand," Tavares said of Chrysler in mid-2021.
But at the end of 2024, with Jeep and Ram dealers in revolt over high sticker prices, Tavares and the company's board agreed to part ways. Tavares declined to comment.
The company brought in Fiat and Jeep veteran Antonio Filosa as CEO, and he is emphasizing the importance of the U.S. market and the need to regain lost market share.
The then-CEO of Chrysler, Chris Feuell, said a compact car priced below $30,000 was underway. The brand also started selling a cheaper version of the Pacifica, called the Voyager. She pinned high hopes on the new Pacifica minivan.
Last month, Feuell left the company, citing personal reasons. Feuell didn't respond to requests for comment. New products, like a long-teased crossover SUV or electric vehicles, never materialized.
In New York, McAlear said things are changing. "We're going to have a lot more fun in the coming months," he said in front of the updated minivan. He touted familiar features like Stow 'n Go seats, which fold into the floor to maximize storage space, and a camera that lets parents see what their kids are doing in the back seats.
"Could you resurrect a brand? Yes, you could," said Larry Dominique, a former Stellantis senior vice president who left the company in 2024 after decades in executive and product planning roles. "It's going to take time, a lot of resources, and focus. It's not impossible, but it's definitely challenging."
Write to Ryan Felton at ryan.felton@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 03, 2026 21:00 ET (01:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Comments