ORIGINAL: Yankee
I dunno if I'd read a whole lot into this. Automotive mergers have been going on for decades, and they don't show any signs of abating anytime soon. Nissan and Ford merged for awhile (I remember people wondering if this would eventually spell doom for Ford - unfortunately that didn't happen lol), they even had a minivan together back in the early 90s - remember the original Nissan Quest and Mercury Villager? And of course you already mentioned VW, who, of all people, is now using a version of the Dodge Grand Caravan - guess Chrysler still has a thing for German car companies.
Even Toyota and Honda have relied on other divisions - Toyota and Pontiac have a version of the Corolla (the Matrix), and for years Honda relied on Isuzu for an SUV (remember the Passport? A rebadged Isuzu). While I'm certainly not for any type of Chrysler/Nissan merger, I guess I'm willing to take a "wait and see" approach if it in fact does happen.
Yes, I unfortunately remember those things. You'd thing that Ford would eventually figure out the minivan (in fairness they did somewhat with the Windstar, they just messed it all up by giving it an engine that still had head gasket issues that were unresolved in the early years and a transmission that could not hold up no matter how well it was maintained). I actually believe that was either a partnership or a joint venture and not necessarily a merger. What I meant was that Toyota and Honda did not purchase other companies like GM or Ford has done. GM owns so many different Japanese and European companies, while Ford owned many European car companies.
Although you are correct about the joint venture that happened between GM and Toyota, they were still pretty much using Toyota's technology and platforms and these operations still haven't been extremely successful on GM's part. The Prizm didn't sell half as well as the Corolla. The Vibe has kind of been successful. The Passport was pretty much a failure in the case of Honda, they learned their lesson pretty quickly.
The fact of the matter is this sometimes works decently, but it is normally better to DIY when it comes to building cars.