Ready to move on to a mommy car?

My family and I are preparing for the end of a ten year relationship with a well-loved station wagon. In replacing it we are saying goodbye to the vehicle that carried us through our twenties and are embracing a new type of family adventure vehicle for our thirties, which we hope will facilitate carpools, daycare field trips — 5 carseats (ack!) — and an evolved version of the road trips of past years.

Like many others out there, we are trying to do the impossible: minimize the price and fuel usage and maximize the passenger capacity and durability of the vehicle. We also want to make sure we have space inside for dogs and room on top for boats, skis and large pieces of furniture bought via craigslist. In a perfect world, maybe we could even find a way to not give up the all-wheel drive…. It goes without saying that we require a safe and dependable vehicle.

I googled and googled and couldn’t find a great online solution to appease our obsessive need to analyze and research without pressure from a salesperson. When I didn’t find what I wanted I went to the wise women of the local moms clubs and was given a list of useful websites. The one that seemed to be exactly what I could not find on my own was motherproof.com. It is an excellent resource for researching a mommy car that combines the raw numbers with readable narrative from actual moms.

I would still like to find a database or spreadsheet listing what carseat combinations fit in what vehicles…. if anyone knows of one I would appreciate a tip. Until I find one I would love to use the comments feature on this post to collect your impressive carseat combinations. Please include make, model, year, order of carseats, and any tips you have for fitting them in there.