Fear on Wheels: Why the Astro Van is the scariest car on the road

Freeway, surface street, I don't care. If I see an Chevy Astro Van (or GMC Safari for that matter) I'm running like hell. Here's 5 fantastic reasons why:

1. They stopped making them in 1996, which makes the average price of one now days somewhere around $800. I inherently don't like or trust anyone who wants a seven passenger vehicle that costs this little. It's not that I don't trust broke folks. I AM broke folks. It's just that there's a whole lot of you in there and this brings me to my next point.
2. The Astro and Safari ONLY came with tinted windows. You could be alone, you could be with a dozen of your buddies. I don't know and I don't trust that I don't know.
3. A 25 year old American vehicle will have some mechanic problems. No, scratch that, it will have constant mechanical problems. Not to mention that if you spent 800 bucks on a truck, you're unlikely to be Mr. Maintenance. If this big lunch box on wheels breaks down in front of me on the freeway, I don't like my odds.
4. It's fricken shady looking. End of. There's way more chance that, at this point in its life, the Astro has turned into the older son's shaggin' wagon or mobile stonatorium rather than shuttling kids around soccer practice. Together with all the pieces above, we can be sure that the driver of an Astro Van is up to no good.
5. For all its crappiness, these vans are actually built on an S10 pickup chassis. That means 4.3L V6 made of indestructibleness, rear-wheel drive and enough heavy metal to drive through a wall. Compared to today's flimsy, plastic, cup-holder laden front-wheel drive vans - the Astro is an urban assault vehicle ready to flee from crime scenes or haul stolen goods across the country.

More than any old van, the Astro now represents sheer, people-carrying menace. If you see one, don't get close. There's nothing good going on inside.