ive seen minivans of all sorts hauling larger items, but all of em have the back door open and stuff.

this weekend I hauled home some 2"x10"x8' boards, and a full sheet of plywood, inside the van with the rear door shut and the seats still in, not even folded down. then today I hauled a chest freezer home behind the rear seat with the door shut.

all this hauling with a slightly blown head gasket, leaking exhaust into the water system, belching out some water from the radiator every now and then. a true dedicated family van the aero is. but since we got the "winny" (windstar) my wife has orphaned the aerostar to me. YAY! now look what I do with it. lol.

 

I've hauled kids in mine lately. 5 of them, 17yr-girl, 15yr-girl, 12yr-boy and 10yr-2 girls. I want to put up a double paned plexi glass between the front seats and back seats so that I can't hear all of their cd players blasting in their little heads. I usually tell them to keep their mouths shut so the music don't come out. LOL Anyway, I 've hauled a full sheet of particle board in mine with door open (shorty) with no problems. I've had the van totally stuffed with camping stuff (back window completely blocked) and still got 24mpg highway on way to Oregon coast (got a great pic of the back when opened).

I love the van. I drive it more than our 2000 Yukon, the van drives better (not as squirrly) but needs double the space to turn around compared to the Yukon but hey, it's a mini van, and oh yeah.....the van is paid off, the Yukon....not yet.

L8R

Aaron

 

One 44" wide Snap-On Four Drawer Top tool chest full of tools. Ten Foot sticks of EMT pipe.

 

I just hauled a new refridgerater to my house from Lowes in my 89 aero 3.0 liter. The rear seats are usually never in it. Its a fancy carpeted cargo van to me I sometimes haul riding mowers around in it too. Mines extended, don't know how a shortie would work out.

 

ok, dont kill me or flame me for aerostar abuse. but once I got called to substitute for a guy hauling bundles of thanksgiving newspapers to a city about 19 miles down the freeway. quick $75 bux I thought, so I agreed.

well he told me to take out the seats in my shorty aero, cause id need the room. no biggy. I get to the dock and they start loading it up. it was full wall to wall floor to ceiling, and had bundles stacked in the passenger seat too. the total bundle weight was 3700 pounds! i was nervous as heck and crept down the freeway going 45mph the whole way. it was rocking and rolling really badly, very top heavy it seemed, and very bouncy as it was riding on the bumpstops on all four corners.

well i made it and could almost hear the van sigh in relief as it was unloaded. the next day a rear tire blew out. the tire shop looked at it and said "oh man, the tire weight on the inside of the rim rubbed the sidewall and dug a hole through the tire!" they replaced the tire for free, but i felt guilty cause it probably happened with all the weight the night before, and was my fault.

nothing else on the van broke.

later on I took the job on a regular basis, but usually only hauled 2000 to 2500 pounds, with no effort or bad handling. still thats alot to ask of any minivan, stuff a ton and a quarter in it and go, with no suspension mods at all! tough rigs they are.

do ya think thats why they quit making em?

 

My '87 XLT Aerostar has not had the two row seats for quite some time as well. My kids are all big now, but I have the seats available, if needed. With the price of gasoline, making an Aerostar lighter, is the best weight saving issue, if you don't need a seat. In the winter, I haul 8-10 40lbs bags of wood pellets, for our pellet stove. The Aerostar hauls it easily. Also, has anyone considered with nearly all of Ford, GM & Chrysler Corp. returning to RWD, you would think their would be a small niche market for a RWD mini-van like the Aerostar II? Or does that bring back too many memories of what happened to the Mustang, from 1974-1978? Ed (whose Aerostar loves clean, crisp, fresh Chevron, with Techron, gasoline).

 

I sell apples @ a local Farmer's Market, so I use my '93 AWD extended to haul 12bu apples(40lbs*12=480lbs), 32 gals cider=250Lbs, plus honey and syrup.

It's got 226K miles and still going strong!

 

Ford and GM are not bringing out any RWD models, only Chrysler is doing that. This year is the last for the Crown vic/towncar, so the only RWD car made by fomoco will be the Mustang. GM is the GTO. I would love to get my hands on an Aussie RWD v8 Falcon mated to a six speed, but I doubt Ford would import it. (Even though it would be a Charger killer.)

As for the Aerostar II, the name would not bother me, I always liked the Bronco II and it does not have bad connentations like the Mustang II. Just don't make it a baby Aerostar.

 

i think if we all get our heads together on it, we'd probably end up with an aerostar that was like Homers car he designed on the simpsons. but that car was too expensive to produce and sell. I think our ultimate aeros would cost in the 60,000 range if our dreams came true.

 

I haul our tandem bicycle inside. Mostly we haul gear back and forth to the boat when we plan to stay over on it. Ice chests, clothes, sailing gear etc.

 

Don't leave out the Ford GT F40 it's RWD as well as all there Trucks.

 

Sorry, forgot the GT40, but there is no back seat, and most of us could not afford it.

I was not counting trucks sense the majority of them are RWD. Maybe that is why the American public for the past decade and half have been buying trucks instead of FWD econo boxs.

 

hey guys I hauled 4 kids my wife my dog our family turtle and a u haul trailer 3000 kms across canada although the van is still recovering alot of people back home were in shock

 

I heard the GT will go for around 70k, I would buy one before I bought a Viper or a Corvette, Which is in the same price range.

I think your right, Truck sales went up when FWD started taken over the Car market.

 

That would be nice, the ones i have seen so far have been in the $175-225k range, way out of my budget.