[Marc Montgomery]

I expect hitting a camel is much like hitting a Canadian moose...lots of weight sitting on a few spindly legs..with the weight at windsheild height on cars (which is why there are occasional deaths in Canada)

for 300,000km I had a 1994 mercury villager van (rebadged nissan quest) pretty good, but while parked some (drunk? stoned? stupid?) fellow in a contractor van (Cheve Express) knocked the front end off it while pulling into his driveway..(normal speed about 5km/h) and ripped the sheet metal on his own van from stem to stern

Then to replace that, a 2001 totally ubiquitous ford windstar for $2K..seems ok, Had 176,000km (alleged) upon purchase.....it has a fair amount of road noise, but has made many 600km trips without incident this year..

i like a van coz it has lots of junk storage space..and all of it stays out of the elements unlike a "ute"

. i miss the advantage of the opening back window of the Mercury/Nissan..at the time, I thought all van rear windows opened...now realize thats not the case..somewhat harder to carry long pieces of lumber now.

(oh and there is another vehicle...a very fast/expensive thing, but thats just too much fun and it never goes out in rain or winter anyway)

For a particulary work purpose, the company rented me a new dodge journey for a day.. only spent a couple hours in it to this point ...very quiet on the road, but so far do not like it much...a bit clumsy to get into and out of due to high sills....it so far feels like a bit of a pig.