First drive: Chrysler Grand Voyager – on sale now

But despite the rising popularity of compact all-purpose transport, size still matters for large families and chauffeur service firms – so the latest version boasts even more space.

Not that it appears that way from the outside. Sporting fresh clean-cut lines, the fifth-generation people carrier seems smaller.

But thoughtful design ensures that the opposite appertains inside, where widening the roof by just 152mm has allowed a square shape to provide even more stretching room for seven as well as an unrivalled cargo area.

With a tasteful combination of satin and wood on the instrument panel and door trim, the Voyager interior is grand indeed, particularly at night when soft green lighting spreads out from the aircraft-style overhead console to create a calm, restful ambience.

As before, excellent engineering allows second and third row seats to be stowed under the floor to create a huge cargo deck in under 30 seconds.

Additional power windows and faster and quieter sliding doors add up to sophisticated packaging indeed.

Pitched at the high end of the luxury MPV market, this all-auto range uses a new six-speed trans- mission with small steps between ratios to improve performance in intermediate gears and higher top gearing for quieter and more economical cruising.

Pitched as a lot of car for the money when it was introduced here 11 years ago, the big Chrysler has achieved more than 51,000 registrations.

With power doors and a remote power tailgate now standard across the line-up and no price increase on the lead-in car despite around 30 upgraded features over the previous model, the Chrysler is clearly continuing this approach to the full-house luxury sector.