My own family never really had any minivans, so I can't reminisce in the same way, but I do have a couple Astro/Safari stories.
When I met Mrs.Firm in HS her dad had an Astro, one of the final ones (2001-ish), fully loaded deal with leather and all the gadgets, it was two toned blue/pewter. This was 2006/7, so it wasn't that old yet, but it was seriously falling apart and drove terribly. I remember borrowing it one time to pickup a big plasma TV (our first, when they were super heavy) and the shocks were so bad trying to drive gingerly back home was an exercise in frustration, the van just refused to settle on the road at all. Another time, near the end of it's tenure, Mrs.Firm drove it to the local grocery store and came out to the van surrounded by firefighters and a fire truck. Apparently the caliper had seized, heated up and generated enough heat to catch something on fire. Her dad botched it back together and drove it a few more months, eventually trading it in for $500 on an F150 in 2009.
Around the same time, I worked in a shop and the owner/boss had purchased one of the final, 2005 I think, Safari cargo vans and used it for shop runs and for hauling his motorcycles around. It was also blue and well optioned (for a cargo van). By 2009-2010 it only had like 30,000kms and looked/drove like brand new...We would get people asking to buy it weekly and he eventually let it go for almost what he paid for it new! Pretty crazy how strong a following those things had (and still have).
There are still two, nearly identical, Astro passenger vans, again the final versions with the extra cladding and such in my neighborhood. Both two-tone rusty red/pewter and look to be in decent shape and are daily drivers. The drivelines are solid, it was the brakes and suspension that went quick on them if you didn't keep up on repairs.
