My family has owned 5 mini vans. An 89, a 90, 91, 94, and an 03 which we currently still have. 2 of those vans saw over 200,000 miles, and all of them saw over 150,000 (03 has about 80,000. Dodge Caravans are simple to work on, parts are reddily available, and I can haul just about anything in one. 4×8 sheets fit and it has 1/2 ton rated springs.

As far as performance, go to youtube and type in worlds fastest minivan and just see what a minivan is capable of.

The minivan is the modern Beetle.

I have to admit I was against buying a mini van when we bought our in 1998. I wanted the new Durango. My wife wanted the mini van. I’m glad we got the van. The Durango looked cool but the gas hand looked like the second hand on a clock. The van gave us great mileage and comfort. It was the best purchase we ever made apart from our home. Finger prints don’t look as good on a Durango as they do on a mini van!

1. Cheaper than a SUV.
2. Better gas mileage than a SUV
3. Can haul more with sto-n=go
4. Not as big and easier to get around.

My parents had a Caravan years ago and it was a piece of junk, but that’s not the reason I hate mini-vans. I drive a SUV and my previous cars have always been sports cars. There is nothing I hate more than getting stuck behind some soccer parent in their mini-van. I’ve found over the years most of these drivers are poor drivers in general. They go the rate of speed they want to go on the highway and if they want to take up two lanes, they’ll do that too. God forbid you honk your horn because they’re going to slow, sitting at a green light or any other reasonable driving offense. I’ve had some of these people flip me off, roll their window down and scream profanities, or just stop dead in the road. Can anyone guess why? Because they allegedly had their kids in the van and they were trying to be safe. With model behavior like that, who needs TV to teach a child how to be less than an upstanding citizen? I don’t care if you have your kids in the car and no one else does either. If they’re so fragile that you have to drive 15 mph under the posted speed limit, and sit 10 seconds longer at a green light then you should leave them at home.

Anyone that wouldn’t own a minivan has never owned one to know the versatility.

I love my Dodge Grand Caravan minivan. I’ve had it for 10 years and it has 150000 plus miles and is still going strong. It’s very comfortable on long trips and it doesn’t take any more parking space than the big SUV’s! I would get another one in a heart beat. The only thing I don’t like is filling it with gas! My minivan gets marginally less gas mileage than some smaller vehicles.

The Olds Silhouette mini-van was featured in the movie ‘Get Shorty’ and was labled the ‘Cadillac of mini-vans’. Since I owned one at the time, I thought that was pretty cool.

I’ve always wondered why there were no sporty mini-vans. I sent a letter to GM in the late 90’s about making a sport version of the Silhouette and got a ‘thanks for your interest’ return letter. They had the supercharged 3.8L motor in a sedan, which would have dropped right in. That along with a larger wheel, tire and brakes package, one-inch lowered and stiffened suspension, some sport seats and gages and some go fast stripes on the outside with a rear spoiler would have, I think, sold a lot of vehicles to families where the guy was interested in more than a plain vanilla mini-van.

Mini-vans, or something comparable will be around a long time, but will not be as popular with the fickle new car buying consumer. Now if Chrysler would only make an SRT8 Hemi version of their Town & Country, I’d be interested, even with high fuel prices. That would get the the little league games on time. A muscle car mini-van - what a concept!!

I don’t have one myself but I have driven my niece’s and I enjoyed driving it. She has a Chrysler. It was easy to handle and I had no trouble seeing out the windows for oncoming traffic. I could move it in and out of places very well. I liked it but I am single and don’t see a need for me to have one.

Minivans are always the ones driving to SLOW in the wrong lane and screwing up traffic. When traffic is screwed up it’s ALWAYS a Minivan. Or it’s in the way somehow. They are driven my people who apparently can’t figure out how to drive them due to there size??? They need to go back to a car. Minivan drivers apparently all have the same screwed up way of driving in common since all the drivers do the same dumb thing over and over and over again. It’s a minivan, hate them on the road!!

I remember when there were no minivans and vans were cool. Especially short-wheel base vans. When the minivans came out everyone thought they were cool.

Then the manufacturers forgot that these are trucks and they tried to make them look more like cars. The styling became mushy really quick and only a mother could love them after that. If they start giving them edgier styling and revive some of the custom features from the old days - like the porthole on each side, we might see a renaissance in interest.