@gman1023: My opinion hasn't changed all along: give me one with the roof sawn off behind the B-pillar, a hardtop I can leave in the garage, and waterproof everything behind the front seats. I'll worry about the tarp and bungee cords myself if it's supposed to rain.

@modisch: Keep in mind that the rear end was a stock Dana 30 - as used in countless cars, Jeeps, and light trucks, including my daily driver, with half the power of that V8. It had a good run.

@87CapriceEstate: That's pretty much the exact van we had as a delivery/cargo van at my old school - formerly a 15-passenger, but with all but two seats removed. The roof wasn't Sawzalled off, of course, and it was two-tone grey with reddish pinstripes, but it DID have flames painted on the inside of the left rear…

@Maymar: Oh, I forgot you had a Civic now. The Cavalier indeed.

@$kaycog*5000*: I. Blame. Charles.

@87CapriceEstate: I'd want a second row, and only a first and second row, of both. Alll cargo behind there, and the seat'd be unbolted on occasion.

@Paul Y. thought he was a man, but he was a muffin: Critical, that. Also critical: photos as updates occur.

@Maymar: Show up at a LeMons event and beg Phil and Jonny to use the Bob Ross penalty... but do it on your Hyundai!

@Boxer_4: Indeed it was! And the wagon's admittedly even prettier, but hey - I didn't have that one.

@gman1023: They also turned the minivan-style window treatment on the LWB models into God-awful Durangoesque thick pillars - especially nasty when, as half of them seemed to be, the van was white and used as a school bus.

@500wishes: Well, it's huge, it's not much to look at, and you don't really want to be in it.

@gman1023: Yeah, they may be a bit safer than the (not-so-great-by-1997-standards) older models, but... well, I'll say that the Uplander looks like a mentally-handicapped bulldog, and not in the usual cute way.

I swore the first time I watched it that he said "...and neat stuff to keep your parents from bugging you while Mom trips!"

@MushyHeirloom: (Keep in mind that as a child, my car posters covered two walls and were in fact large fold-out car adverts, many of them for thoroughly unexceptional cars - '93 Prizm and Achieva 'Polo Edition', '95 Cirrus, Cavalier, and (twice) Lumina, and - though I was about old enough to know better - '97 Malibu.…

The styling. The sound. The white-on-dark-blue paint scheme, somehow simultaneously brash and classy.

@zyodei: Ahh, I figured the story involved using them as furniture and selling them on eBay! Didn't assume your landlord was involved.

@Novaload: The dash, vents and gauges - not so much the door panels, of course, but the dash - would look strangely at home in a retro-modern car sold today.

@Polk High All City 1966: A Ford engine's one thing, but putting an SBC in any car gets old rather quickly.

@TowMe: Sure puts a huge grin on my face! The vibrations (the exhaust currently ends at the rear seatback and isn't totally well-fastened) mightn't hurt either...

@someoneelse2010: The Passat is just plain bloated these days - I don't understand, honestly, why someone even here would want to commute in anything larger than a Jetta (Golf) wagon (preferably a TDI, with a stick - if I was forced at gunpoint to buy a new car, it'd be that or a similar Golf).