# 3 What an invention
So the first thing you notice in the back of the Pacifica is the hole. A massive sinkhole, more like. When the third row of seats are erect, you have this span of emptiness in behind that’s great for piling in more luggage. However, if you need to remove those seats, into the sinkhole they go, and there goes your extra space. This is the automaker’s famous Stow’n Go system, born in 2005 in the Town & Country - the ancestor of course of the Pacifica.
To work it, you grab the strap with the number 1 on it (elementary, my dear Watson!) to fold down the head rests. Next up is the strap number 2, on pulling of which you see the whole seat disappear into the hole. Simple as all get out, and truly ingenious. So ingenious, in fact, that today the Honda Odyssey, Toyota Sienna and Kia Sedona all use a similar system (Toyota brazenly calls its system the Split-n-Stow).
For a more refined level of stowing and going, get the option to make the system electric-powered. Just press a button, then stand back and marvel at the mechanical choreography!
# 4 One exception
Speaking of electricity, the Pacifica has become renowned for its PHEV version. In that variant, the same 3.6L Pentastar V6 as found in my tester (but an Atkinson Cycle version) works together with a 16-kWh battery to allow the hybrid Pacifica to be driven up to 50 km in fully electric mode. Note that the new 2021 Sienna will be hybrid, but not of the plug-in variety. Good news, the deepest seats of the PHEV also get the Stow'n Go treatment.
