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Comment by wlesieutre | Hacker News Reader

Fifth row? That sounds closer to a bus than a car.

Not sure if serious.

The title/registration stuff does in fact say "bus", but I wouldn't call it that. It's just an extended body van. I get mildly accusatory questions when registering it for non-commercial use and when I go places that have per car or per family payment.

I got the E350. It holds 15 people including the driver, which leaves me just one empty seat when I drive my whole family. Seating is 2-3-3-3-4 from front to back, with an aisle along the right side.

Mine looks just like this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ford_E-Series_wagon.jpg

You have a 14 person family? Good lord my man.

Fun fact, my mom was the 15th child of 16. My only sister and I worked it out, our grandma was basically pregnant 12 years of her life if it would have been back to back and exactly 9 months each child.

So far nobody has been able to beat my late grandma for children count. Also soup, she made the best soup around.

Just thought I’d throw that one out there. They were spaced out a fair amount though so not like she needed to bus all 16 around at the same time. By the time 16 was not in the oven the first few were already out of the house.

I will add that these things do wicked powerslides on gravel roads. It's awesome, especially when all the seats are full.

In Europe you would in fact have to have a bus driving license (D or D1) for that kind of vehicle since it can transport more than 8+1 [passengers+driver] (and it most likely also goes beyond the maximum authorized mass of 3500 kg for the B license).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_driving_licence#Categ...

I meant that's cool, but I'd argue that's the nichest of niche uses I've ever seen. And as someone else already said, in Europe you would actually need a full D class licence to drive this in the first place, so you might as well get something like a modified Mercedes Sprinter with 12-15 seats.

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