My spouse and I always said that we would never buy a minivan, but we recently purchased a 2009 Dodge Caravan cargo van (obviously, we don't have children because there aren't any back seats).  We actually bought this vehicle to carry stuff around for work and recreation, and it works great.  For a somewhat smaller vehicle (compared to other minivans on the market), the minivan is roomy and has a huge amount of space.  The regular passenger van would also have the same amount of room because its seats are "stow and go" -- which means they fold down into the floor completely. 

We purchased a "no frills" version of this vehicle, and it has no fancy gadgets such as sunroof, dvd player (or even back seats).  But even the base model of the cargo van works fine.  The driver and passenger seats are comfortable (we just got back from a very long road trip, so I can say this with certainty).  There is lots of headroom, as well as space for feet and other stuff on the floor.  There are also lots of cup holders (a total of ten) in the minivan (two in the front, one on both driver and passenger door, one on both sliding doors and four in the back).  There are two glove compartments, which is nice for stowing random stuff.  The base model also has three power ports (for example, for charging cell phones) -- there are two in the front, and one in the back of the van. 

The car handles very well for regular travel, although we haven't yet had an opportunity to use it in the winter.  We pulled a 2100 pound pop-up camper during our road trip, and it worked great.  The car has a V6 engine, and while it wasn't the fastest vehicle on the road when driving up big hills with the camper, we managed just fine.

Overall, it gets about 22-23 miles per gallon (about 24 on highway).  The only negative comment about the car is that the exhaust can be somewhat noisy when driving (although that is a comment from my spouse -- I actually haven't noticed). 

Overall, this is a great vehicle for the cost.  We shopped around using cars.com, which allowed us to compare prices on new vehicles in the New England area.  We paid $15,600 for a new cargo van with 0% interest for 36 months, and it also came with a full lifetime powertrain warranty.  We definitely didn't splurge for any fancy gadgets/upgrades, but for the price, the base model works great. 

One last note is that the minivan is actually kind of cool looking because the back of the van is boxy. 
Amount Paid (US$): 15,600
Condition: New
Model Year: 2009
Model and Options: Cargo Van