10 Comments

So, at 57 and clearly no small children in the house, I just regressed and bought a minivan. Mainly because now that I have eight grandchildren, and I have my own business, I found I was constantly needing to take the car seats of the grandkids out of my hybrid Ford Escape for more room. Then I would still need my husband’s explorer from time to time in addition. I love cars. I am fascinated by all the features and such and my husband says I am obsessed with mileage (it does fascinate me as well) but getting the van felt like a relief this time. It solved some problems and I do like sitting higher up. However, I sometimes feel like singing “Wheels on the Bus” as I turn a corner….

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From the old John Boy and Billy radio show, to the tune of Spider Man:

Married man, married man

drives around in a mini van

got a wife, and some kids

his whole life, is in the skids

hey there, the goes the married man

hanging on, by a thread

quart of milk, loaf of bread

look out, the goes the married man

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Having been involved in the Ford Windstart program way back when as a father of three, and a former Scoutmaster

The minvan is the car you hate to love

Our last minivan was a Chrysler with the stow & go seats, and it was endlessly adaptable. I did carry the gear for 20 camping Scouts to the camp site, empty the van and depart with 7 passengers 5 minutes later many times.

I do miss her, but after 13 years and 200k miles it was time to downsize.

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I would have loved to get a Ford Windstar, it was the best car mechanically I had ever owned. It had almost 200k miles with no repairs just maintenance. Back in the day I had Two Dodge Caravans and both had to get new transmissions.

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really enjoyed the WSJ article about Russian spies. Reminds me of the tv series "The Americans", but obviously more serious.

again, comment about the pagers, perhaps someone will get the, uh, joke, of where not to buy a pager... from Bangkok (hint, say it outloud). Aside from that, imo, Israel is one to have on our side

When 3rd son was born, bought my 1st new car, a Dodge Caravan. It really wasn't a well made car, but I repeated my habit of driving cars for 10+ yrs, & later traded that in for a Chevy Suburban. Drove that for over 250,000 miles, the odometer broke, so really more than that. I kept it for a few yrs after taking the middle seat out to make runs for recycling, & bought a Mini. I had donated 2 other used teens' cars to Habitat for Humanity & one day was going to call them to donate the Suburban. The trash collector stopped to ask if it ran & I assured him it was great - he gave me $1,000. for it. LOVED that car!!

I've personally known several people who have adopted internationally, but not from China. Several from Russia.

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As a family of 2 we need a minivan. We loved our Windstar, complete with a real spare tire and a lower cargo area. But alas, at 20+years and 285000 miles it became clear it needed replacing. The results were nightmarish which thus amounted picking the lesser of the 3, ultimately 2 evils as we were insisting that we have some sort of tire in case of a flat. The stow and go seats make the cargo space higher and very uneven to roll a wheelchair into!

We must have explained 100 times that without sliding side doors we lost easy access to the back seat. And that without a flat cargo area neither was designed to carry what the van part of mini van meant!

I still claim that minivans are being rejected because of poorer and poorer design. As the still get better gas mileage than an SUV why anyone chooses the latter is simply because of marketing not utilitarian use.

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There's no question the minivan has been replaced by the SUV or crossover. There's also no question that the minivan is markedly better than an SUV in every measurable aspect except coolness. Not too many years ago when multiple manufacturers still made minivans several car magazines did comparison tests. There were a few minivans and SUVs that were built on the same platform and the minivan versions had more cargo space, visibility, better performance, and better gas mileage than their SUV counterparts with the same chassis and engine. But this is one of those areas where image means more than practicality or usability. The family station wagon suffered the same fate. How many of those are there now? No American car maker offers one, even though they originated here. The only "real" station wagons today are offered by Audi, Mercedes, and Volvo. Some classify the Mini Clubman and the Subaru Outback as station wagons, but they are not real wagons.

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SUVs are basically station wagons. Crossovers are small station wagons.

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The Volkswagen Minibus of the 1960s was to me a minivan and it predates the others by two decades. It had its own kind of cool.

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I bought a used VW Karman Ghia, drove it a little over a year until I needed to move across country so traded it in for a used VW van. My trade in value for the Ghia was more than what I paid for it 'cause it was during the gas crisis. I drove my VW van for about 15 yrs, all over the US. It was great. Sometimes I'd drive by myself, w/ my dog. I had removed the middle seat, put a mattress there, made curtains for the windows as well as one to pull across behind the 2 front seats. I'd pull into motel parking lots at night, shut the curtains & stay the night. That obviously couldn't be done these days.

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