When the first Caravan was laid to rest, we went right out to purchase a truck. But at the last minute (so “last” that we’d actually ordered the new truck but the one we wanted was not available for a few weeks and prompted us to rethink our decision) we realized that another Caravan, albeit considerably more spacious, would suit our needs better. It could carry our family and visitors or our dive gear or youngest son Adam’s drum set for his frequent “gigs”, and still be useful for yard and garden purchases.

Apart from its larger size and (slightly) sleeker look and the usual advances in electronic gizmos, the van was not much different from the first. As the years passed it became quite the conversation piece with:

• A bungie cord holding the back gate shut after its latch completely rusted out – a bit inconvenient having to crawl through the side door and over any stored items to unhook it so that we could load and unload.

• A passenger door that could only be opened from the outside by lifting it up and out over its broken hinge following a forest run-in with a low-lying water pump. (From the inside, you simply slipped around the back of your seat to the sliding side door.)

• A front-to-back crumpling crease from scraping along the driveway gate when heading out for a 3am snack pickup. It rusted over the winter, prompting one of Adam’s driver ed instructors to comment on his arrival for class, “I sure hope those are flames I see painted on the side of your car”.

As with all Schnurr vehicles, it met its end when there was nothing that could be done to fix it. I took it in for its every-other-year regulatory emissions test and had barely gotten settled in the waiting room when I saw it backing out of the service gate. Uh-oh. Its undercarriage was too rusted out to allow testing of any sort. No emissions test: no licence renewal.

It had been only days earlier when a friendly neighbour had commented on the sad state of the car, to which I answered, “It’s a conversation piece!”. His response? “No, my orange and green truck is a conversation piece. Your car is a hunk of junk.”