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Cavernous. That’s the only way to describe the fifth generation of minivans from Chrysler.

The company introduced the modern minivan in 1984 with the Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager, followed by the Chrysler Town & Country. Those earlier models and these new ones can be considered bookends for the market segment. Other books have been taken from the shelf — Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. have abandoned the minivan market. Although Asian manufacturers are still making minivans, the 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan and Chrysler Town & Country are the only US models still on the racks. They will hit showrooms in the fall. Chrysler, which sold more than 1.3 million minivans worldwide last year, believes it is a market that has leveled off, but will remain lucrative.

“This is a market that many say is dying. It’s been dying since 1993,” said Rick Kukucka, director of front-wheel-drive product marketing.

“While others are getting out of the segment, we’re raising the bar,” added Mike Accavitti, director of brand marketing for Chrysler.

And the bar has indeed been raised.

The upright, wider, and aggressive lines of newer minivans are meant “to get away from the ‘jellybean’ look” that came to define them for years, said Mark Trostle, chief designer of Chrysler’s interior-exterior design studio. While both have sharper lines, up front the differences between the Grand Caravan and Town & Country are clear.

The more aggressive Grand Caravan features a slatted grille with a chrome cross chopping it into quadrants. The Dodge Ram’s head is at center cross. The headlights wrap around the front fenders.

The Town & Country grille features a “tonier” face, with the horizontally-slatted grille left clean, topped by the familiar Chrysler winged badge, and sporting sculpted quad headlamps. It’s all evocative of the Chrysler 300 series.

At 78.7 inches, this new generation is 6 inches wider than last year’s model and, at 202.5 inches, 2 inches longer than the last. That’s where the “cavernous” description comes in, and,with a minivan, it truly is what’s inside that counts. Depending on options, this one can be turned from rolling stock model to a dining room to a movie theater to something best suited for hauling sheets of plywood.

Last time around, Chrysler gave us what it calls its “Stow ‘N Go” seating system, with second- and third-row seats that fold flat into storage bins. Now, the center seats will swivel to face the rear seats (while parked) and a table can be placed between them — for roadside dining or relaxing face-to-face during a highway rest stop. If you would like to catch some sun and air, the powered rear seat flops back to the tailgate to face out.

If the kids are playing Texas Hold’ em on the table during a break, parents can watch a movie on the optional navigation screen up front. Also, second-row passengers can watch one movie on their DVD screen while those in the back can watch a different movie. That should cut down on arguments during long trips.

In addition to MP3 capability, there’s a remarkable — and easy to use — system available called MyGig. It includes navigation technology, has a USB digital input, and can store thousands of songs in a 20-gigabyte hard drive.

There are three powertrain options for this rolling romper room — a base 3.3-liter V-6 with 175 horsepower (estimated 17/24 fuel economy), a 3.8-liter V-6 with 197 horsepower, and a 4.0-liter V-6 with 251 horsepower. Chrysler says the latter two engines will deliver 17/23 miles per gallon. We drove the heftier 3.8 and found it plenty powerful. It was smooth in passing, used its 230 lb.-ft. of torque to easily climb out of farming valleys and down to the sea.

The ride was surprisingly quiet for a minivan and only when pushed extra hard did the engine emit a distinctly audible sound.

Adding a lot of the goodies mentioned above can easily tack on $5,000 or more to the price, but base prices for the five models of the two minivans are: Grand Caravan SE, $22,470; SXT, $27,535; Town & Country LX, $23,190; Touring, $28,430; and Limited, $37,335. Those prices include more content than last year, Chrysler says, but are still $2,000 less than the jump-off point for 2007 models.

Honda, Toyota, Nissan, and Kia will have to scramble to catch these packages, while other American builders will have to hope their new lines of “crossovers” fill the gap they have created in their lineups by dumping their minivans.

Royal Ford can be reached at ford@globe.com.