2008 Chrysler Pacifica in Thousand Oaks, California

The Chrysler Pacifica helped launch a trend known in the industry as crossover vehicles. Crossovers are designed to combine the best attributes of sport-utility vehicles, sedans, and minivans. The Pacifica drives more like a minivan than an SUV or sedan, but doesn’t have the sliding doors or uncool stigma of a minivan.

Pacifica has four sedan-like doors and the wide rear liftgate you'd expect on a sport-utility vehicle. Inside it's roomy and comfortable, whether upholstered in fabric or leather. Getting in and out is easy. It rides like a sedan and handles well for a vehicle of its heft, and it's more enjoyable to drive through suburbia than just about any truck-based SUV. On the highway, it's smooth and quiet.

The Pacifica line offers a range of models, from well-equipped to luxury-class with all the bells and whistles, and it's available with two or three rows of seating. The five-passenger base model has two bucket seats in front with a split folding bench in the second row that seats up to three. Six-passenger models swap the middle-row bench for two folding bucket seats, and add a 50/50 split bench in the rear. Either changes from people mover to cargo hauler in a matter of seconds, and in both cases maximum cargo capacity exceeds that of the typical mid-size SUV.