Today's growing number of 7 seater cars have to be the way to go when you need enough room to comfortably carry a growing family. Gone are the days when you would get squished in the back seat with your 2 or 3 brothers or sisters, even sharing seatbelts to make room. Today's MPV, SUVs and CUVs make it easy to carry a lot of passengers.

Once you start looking for one though, you'll realize that there are so many to choose from... when I did a quick search I found a total of 204 in the United States! Which one is going to meet your family's needs best?

I think the best way to start your search is to determine the type of car that you need regardless of the number of seats. Let's take a look at the type of cars that are available in today's car market.

One of the best known types of vehicles is the traditional family sedan which is usually a 4 door vehicle that carries usually 4 or more passengers. In 2009, the most passenger room that I could find in a sedan was 5. So today's fuel economical sedan isn't going to fit the bill with our need for 7 seats. In the past that need was filled with the station wagon but today's station wagon is the MPV (multi-passenger vehicle) better known as the mini van.

If you're needs consist of a light duty MPV that is going to cart the family around to after school activities the mini van makes a good choice. Most vans will get decent fuel mileage of 20 to 25 MPG. There are even some new hybrid models that combine gas and electricity to get mileage into the 30 and 40 miles per gallon category. However if you're going to be driving the family around in rough weather, like snow, you may be better suited to drive a SUV or sports utility vehicle.

SUVs have gotten a bad rap as gas guzzling wrecking machines but in reality there is a need for the 4 wheel drive models in cold weather areas. You can carry 7 passengers with ease with the addition of a "way back" seat and if it starts to snow you just flip the switch to 4 wheel drive. The drawback is that they do swill some fuel. Mileage varies but you're generally in the 15 to 18 mpg range. Ford as a pretty cool hybrid SUV out there but it's smaller and will only accommodate 5 passengers.

Which brings us to the newest addition of passenger vehicles; the crossover utility vehicle. As you might expect from the name, the crossover combines attributes of multiple vehicles. A great example is the Ford Edge. In looking at it, you wonder is it a big station wagon, a van... an SUV? It's all of the above and usually a great choice for the larger family. When you look at the new crossovers you'll find 3 rows of well appointed comfort keeping everyone happy on a long trip. The downside to a crossover is like a SUV, they don't get great gas mileage. Look out in 2010 for some new hybrid cars that seat 7 to show up on dealers showrooms though.

Now that you know the differences between the types of 7 passenger vehicles, hopefully you'll be able to go to your area showroom knowing exactly what to look at in 7 seater cars.