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High gas prices will cause fewer births in future for the US, as cars won’t be made to carry families of five or six.

I don’t know what my family of five will do when the van is put out to pasture someday.

I don’t know what my family of five will do when the van is put out to pasture someday.

Buy your choice of any used SUV for a nickel a pound. Some dealers are not even taking them as trade-ins because the values are dropping so quickly. There are four on front lawns on my street.

I think it's silly, because if people buy a new "fuel saver" and actually run the numbers and consider newer excise taxes, insurnces, and finance charges, etc., if someone has a short commute, they'd lose on the deal. I saw the same thing in the so-called '70's "Crisis" and actually fell for it myself...I traded a Cadillac in for two Toyotas. I probably left the dealershop with the same tonnage, they were great little cars, and one lasted over 200,000 miles, but really, I lost money on the deal. Gas prices fell back down, and there I was with new tax and insurance bills and two payment books.

But as long as no one expects this to happen, you can get great deals on some of the big vehicles. I may buy one myself for local hardware trips.

High gas prices will cause fewer births in future for the US, as cars won’t be made to carry families of five or six.

In Europe, GM sells a minivan-version of the Saturn Astra. It's called the Zafira, seats 7, and if you pay a bit for the upgrade, also runs on natural gas.

Looks like this:

Yeah, it's a bit smallish, Mazda 5 - territory. But there's also the full-size Ford Galaxy:

Americans will probably consider it underpowered with its ~150 hp diesel engines, but hey, it gets great mileage, too.

When I was growing up with five kids in my family, we had a Volkswagen Beetle and a Triumph TR6. Between the two cars, we did not have enough seatbelts for all seven of us.

But, back in those days you just packed them in. I remember one trip we had five in the Triumph.

I wouldn’t bet on that, Minivans are going nowhere... if you like crusing in style however the full size van is in most risk of disappearing as I know Ford and GM are debating bringing in their EURO van type vehicles similar to the dodge sprinter and killing the standard van as we know it.