As I said dweller – you’re welcome to try mine.

South Hants 😆

Bought a caddy maxi life a few years ago – yeah – probably a bit boomer than a car but size, seating flexibility ( rear bench removable, middle 2+1 tip/remove) and a very comfy driving position more than make up for it. Lots of storage cubby holes (annoyingly not for the jack!), lashing points ..not quite as big as a t4/t5 but a fair bit cheaper. And not with some of the reported t5 foibles afaia. 1.6 surprisingly nippy (tho diesel emissions fix awaited), prob easier to find than the 2.0. (or was 2 yrs ago).
Hyundai i800 was another I considered – nearer a lwb t5 and used for camper conversions, but the rear bench is bolted in and the middle row slides only I think…really needs some enterprising company to do a flexible seat conversion (unless one exists already).r

Oh, and there’s a very active caddy forum , caddy2k.com .

one of things with the ‘van types’ is that you can have insurance complications and sometime VAT implications on purchase.

I was looking at an MPV which is also available as a van version and the insurance company said that they didn’t insure vans even thought the guy selling it was insured by the same company as an MPV… weird. might just require persistence.

Good luck.

The jack has its own cubby in the boot and the other parts sits in their own section on the massive tray above the front seats.
Dweller – I’m up and down the A3 a lot at the moment so no probs catching up at any point.
Message me and can sort something.

I reckon an sMax would be fine, you should get a folded wheelchair in the boot with the third row of seats up.

I’m on my second s-max and they are great cars.

I used to have a Chrysler grand voyager that would suit all your needs ,it drove really well and felt like a mobile board room masses of space even with all the seats in place and the stowand go seats were fantastic and folded into the floor to create a massive space.
I drove a caddy recently and thought it was terrible it felt like it had a solid rear end and was very industrial

Random thing I spotted earlier that may fit van sized but refined to drive was Mercedes R Class. 6 seats, part car, part mini bus, part van, part private jet, part weird. But it is large and most likely a comfy, if not involving drive.

I have no desire for one myself, but popped up in an eBay search for something with a V8, pretty sure the usual diesel options will be available.

The rear rear seats don’t slide , the middle row does as you know.

I have a baby seat on both sides of my galaxy middle row and my wife can squeeze past them to sit in the middle seat in comfort.

I can recommend a VW Sharan (or Seat Alhambra) as an incredibly practical family wagon. It’s a proper 7-seater i.e. the rear 2 seats are proper adult seats and it’s plenty wide enough for child seats in all the seats if you want. Sliding doors too. The passenger seat folds flat for a HUGE flat load space if you need it. It’s like a van but with comfort.

Not remotely engaging to drive of course 😆

Nope you’re right which is why I didn’t chip in with my usual S Max answer (run what you’ve brung :-)) – I’d say the second row are only for the under 13s too for any distance, although curiously they solved my middle ones car sickness. That, or he can hide it under the other seats 😯

The Sharan/Alhambra isn’t bad in this respect. We can fit a pushchair and various coats/bags in ours, but granted it’s not going to fit 7 people on a camping holiday!

I’d suggest as safe as the rear passengers in a Toyota Aygo or any of those other tiny city cars. Presumably they wouldn’t even be on the market if they didn’t pass all the various safety tests.

The new (2016) Touran is worth a look if you can find one – the demonstrators come up on Autotrader now and again but the “new” stock is very limited.

The new model has 3 rows of seats (the back rows fold flat) and a massive boot that’s almost as big as a Galaxy or C4 Picasso when the middle row of seats are slid forward a bit.

MPG is mid 50s to mid 60s on a good run (diesel version) and it’s pretty comfortable drive.

The one caveat is that new VWs do seem to have buggy software so some of the “extras” don’t work as reliably as you might expect e.g. city parking brake, radar collision detection, park assist etc. The sat nav on ours sometimes gets stuck “calculating” to the route and the only way to fix it is to stop the car, turn the engine off and lock the doors.

It goes without saying that VW dealers per the parent brand appear to be complete shysters and getting them to fix these problems is only marginally less difficult than pushing water uphill with only your nose or a sieve as the available choices.

Dweller – let me know where you are as I am out and about over the next few days so most likely driving past you in mine!
As a hint to the size of the boot – I picked my gas BBQ back up on sunday from a friends and put it in the boot.
With the rear bench seats in.
Without having to take the side gas ring or table off.