Long live the people… carriers!
If a minivan is a sure sign of impending doom (per Jeremy Clarkson), then I must be on death’s door in my 12 passenger full-size van. But there are unexpected design benefits to a really big vehicle…
We graduated to the van upon the birth of our seventh child (yes, seventh), and our Ford Expedition no longer had enough seats. (We now lovingly refer to it as “the little car.”) So we went shopping for something with 9 seats.
Unfortunately, you can’t easily find a car with 9 seats. You can get 8, 12, or 15 without much effort, but finding a 9-seater is… Well, it’s like George Banks in Father of the Bride—frustrated that his hotdogs come in packs of 8 while the bun company only sells packs of 12, he is convinced that there’s a conspiracy to force him to buy 4 more buns he doesn’t need! Clearly, the auto industry, in a conspiracy against large families, has made the next step up from 8 seats a gargantuan leap of 50% to 12 seats. (And the first dealer we went to actually tried to talk us into a 15 seater because they didn’t have a 12 seater on the lot! I honestly don’t think it would have fit into my garage…)
So now I have 3 empty seats. But you know what? It’s one of those “bugs” that ends up being a design feature. Three seats means there is space between children. Always a good thing. Three empty seats means enough room to put your books or games next to you on a long road trip. Three empty seats means less feet getting stomped as the clan clambers into position. All in all, three empty seats has been a good thing.
The surprising thing—the full-size van gets very close to the same gas mileage as “the little car”. Go figure!
In closing, hail to the intrepid parents who refuse to be daunted by the car industry’s flagrant attempts to limit family size to 8 or less! Hail to empty seats! Hail to the people movers!