... and I’ll start off with referencing the post that went up on the FP about a rare thing known as a manual diesel minivan.
Being the owner of an ‘06 Town & Country, I see the appeal of these vans. I like them quite a lot, actually. They’re reasonably well designed, they drive about as well as you expect for a van, and more importantly, they actually move when you demand power from them. My family hasn’t had many V6-powered cars, and I almost want to say that the Duratec 3.0 V6 in the Montego was actually slightly less snappy than this pushrod 3.3L V6 (then again, the Aisin 6-speed auto in that car was delightful).
But I’m getting off track here.
Given the bargain basement prices of these vans, you could feasibly import one into the US. More importantly, if you were willing to go through the arduous process of a swap, I think you could get away with having a diesel manual Caravan in the US in any generation that had the diesel motor, allowing you to skirt the 25 year rule on these diesel vans. (Or just harvest them for the manual transmissions.)
I think I know what my optimal configuration would be. While I like the AS minivans, I’d have to pick the RS platform van, post-facelift, in Inferno Red Pearl. Extended wheelbase, stow & go, Sport trim package. Combined with the manual and a diesel... hooo boy. I’d be all over it.