Road Test: Chrysler Grand Voyager 3.3 Limited 5dr Auto

Oh dear. In saying that I'd enjoyed driving his new car, I managed to upset the Chrysler chap. I said it was 'surprisingly good'. He inferred I was saying that Chrysler usually turned out mutts.

But let's face it, given Voyager's history, I had every right. The old model was useful enough for carting people and clobber. And doing so in varying proportion, because of its super-clever seat-fold mechanism. But, oh my, it was a drudge to drive.

No more. The all-new Grand Voyager has more power, two more gears and multi-link rear suspension, instead of leaf springs. But it's not the mechanical spec that has really gone up a notch, it's the fine-tuning.

The steering is confident and well-weighted. The damping decently controls body motions. The brake travel is properly calibrated. The ride is decently supple, and it doesn't clang or creak over bumps.

In short, this feels like a car. OK, it's a heavy and slow car, but the old one felt like a commercial vehicle. And the people carrier stuff is even better. The conjuror's ease with which the seats appear from the floor is a crowd-pleaser, and the vacant storage bins they leave behind can swallow huge amounts.

The only issue is that if there are seven people on board, there might be arguments about who goes where: instead of the traditional 2:3:2 formation, it's 2:2:3, and the three are on a cramped bench.

There are storage bins and little lamps all over the place. You can choose to have a £2,000 three-screen entertainment system that lets you pipe different video to all three rows. Navigation in front, movie behind, PlayStation behind that, say.

Space, room, comfort, versatility, facilities - these are the things by which we ought to judge a people carrier. The Grand Voyager is ruddy expensive for a slow car that can't manage German fit'n'finish.

It won't win plaudits from design mavens who get all steamed up about texture and surfacing. But it has more than ever to please six real-life human passengers. And much more now for the seventh, who has to drive them.