Long ago, someone in Wisconsin made a very practical choice and bought a minivan with a 4cyl and manual trans that held 7, got 27mpg avg, and was reliable and easy to work on. Many years and 220k of successful vanning later, another owner on the other end of the country finally hit a stumbling block when they blew the headgasket and let the engine sit with water in it, seizing it.
Then a ~22 year old kid with no kids of his own bought it because it was cheap and weird with the manual trans. He put an engine in it and fell in love with it's incredible combination of virtues
9 years and ~6 other vans later, said kid is not a kid anymore but still doesn't have kids, still loves the van anyway, tore 5 seats out of it, TURBOCHARGED it, drag races it, drove it to work yesterday, is staring at it in his yard now, and has become one of the biggest minivan proponents on the internet. You don't even NEED kids to love these things.
