..in wanting a non-ugly, non-minibus like car for a family of five...??

[harrowgreen]

DC#3 is due in January. DD1 will be 4yr but she is tiny (currently about 30lbs) and DS1 will be 22m (he's only 22lbs). We currently have a Vectra which will not fit in the three car sears we need (two 'proper' high-backed style seats and a baby carseat). Based on the sizes of our existing children, they will not be graduating to basic booster cushions any time soon.

All the googling I'm doing is telling me that I have to buy a huge 7-seater style car to transport everyone. I really really do not want to drive such a beast.

Please - is there no decent looking smaller car we could get??

My old style picasso. 3 proper seats and 3 proper seat belts. We had looked at the C4 Picasso as a replacement for Piccie our Picasso.

We've bought a VW Touran. I love it. Spacious and not bad looking IMO.

Smax here as well I was the same as you very small 4 and 2 year olds when number 3 came along so for a while all in big seats, it was the only car that we felt was big enough, the boot is a godsend, we can fit all their bikes in no problem, it is big but manageable, even though the are older now 3,5,7 we will have another smax next time we change the car.

Have a Galaxy now which fits the bill, but had a Mondeo for the first three years or so of dc3's life with other 2 in the up-to-4 seats to start with. Guess it depends on how much paraphanelia you will have. Mondeo boot quite big though. Only struggled with going on holiday. Have to say I took car seats to the showroom to double check before getting dh into to test drive the car once I'd found the one I wanted.

What about that special car seat that you can put 3 in? A friend of mine has one and a fancy smallish car - kids are 8, 5 and 2 and it seems to work well as they've had it since DC3 was tiny.

We have a Skoda Octavia, it's massive inside and the boot is huge.

I test drove a Dacia Duster and it is a great car, and could easily fit 2 high back seats and a baby seat and have boot room.

Ive just googled it, is it called the multimac 3 or 4 child carseat

Have a look at a Volvo v70. Enormous estate, cheap ish and lovely to drive. Difficult to park as terrible turning circle though.

Mondeo, BMW 5 series and Merc E class are the biggest for internal width. Mondeo has best ride - BMW for power, E class for easy drive.
BMW and Mondeo have far better handling & fuel economy than any of the people carriers mentioned.

I have a zafira and you cam easily get 3 car seats across the middle bench - i regularly have 2 on boosters and the cabriofix in the back and dd has just gone up to a britax first class plus and still loads of room also had the britax, a cabriofix and a mama's and papas version of the cabriofix across it too

We have an Octavia and definitely can't fit 3 car seats/hbb across the back - we've tried, hard, before!!

Have you looked at the Fiat Multipla? 6 seats. 3 at the front, 3 at the back, all a proper size. They are only a few inches wider than a standard car but feel very roomy.