I've had a run of old vans that I bought for next to nothing to do the job.

First was a 1977 Chevy 3/4 ton work van that had been converted (love that '70s shag carpet) that I bought for $75 and ran it for 10 years. Towed the Hobie-14 and 18 with that, had a lot of road trips to Indy and Summit Point as well, it ultimately rusted into a pile of dust - but that 350 v8 still had enough torque to pull down a house at 200k+ miles.

Pic is of my second old van - $400 from the Goddard Space Flight Center excess property auction. Bare bones vehicle if ever there was one.

Can be summed up this way - 1980 Dodge van, $400, 1979 Hobie-18, $1500, Blowing by racing yachts whose jib cost more than my whole rig, priceless!

My current vehicle is a 2000 Chevy Astro LT, $5000. I certainly went over my usual budget on this one! But, I needed something that would take a car seat now, and could work out for family road trips. 4.3 liter v6, pulls the cats with no problem, Pulls the F-27 pretty well, gets around 20 mpg highway (not towing).

Still have the old Dodge, great work van - anybody want to buy it? Good price...