The mini-van that stole my heart

So you know I like cars. All kinds of cars, and not necessarily the same ones that everybody else likes.

No, when my friends in elementary school were all dreaming about Camaros and Mustangs, I was already working on a VW Beetle my parents had bought me as a 10th birthday present. In high school the motorheads would all wait in the parking lot to see what I was going to show up in that day. American iron circa 1940s, weird English cars and VW models that were never directly imported to the U.S. were just some examples of what I drove to school.

When my friends were all talking about the work they'd done on a Chevy 350, I was getting teased for liking the Dodge 225 slant-6, the Ford 300 straight-6, and the VW 1500cc. I liked the weird stuff. Not much has changed since then. When Glenny graduates from school and I finally beat my medical issues, I have every intention of getting a few "toys" to play with and will probably be tinkering in the garage throughout my retirement. Another vintage Bug, an MGB-GT, an original Mini, a Model-A or a Plymouth Valiant are all the cars I think I may try to track down. Heck, I've already got a station wagon sitting in storage (more on that later). But the one rig I promised myself I would never - ever, under any circumstances - own was a mini-van.

Ugh.

Ever since mini-vans catapulted to popularity in the mid-1980s, I have detested them. Yes, I know, the VW bus predates the mini-van by a few decades, but that's different! For one, mini-vans are horribly ugly. There was a day when cars were built to be rolling works of art. Mini-vans have all the beauty of a doorstop. Take a rectangle, cut a corner off and voila - a mini-van! They were built for practicality, utilitarian every-day use, and that's it. No attempt at adding any flair to liven up the appearance. They serve a purpose, but make you wonder if it's worth it to be seen in one. They're the pocket-protector of the car world. In a world of blue jeans, tennis shoes and leather jackets, mini-vans would be the polyester pants hiked up to your chest and held there with a pair of clip-on suspenders.

So when my family started to grow and it was obvious I needed something with more room, I stood firm against a mini-van. Glenny actually liked them (and owned one before I came along) and tried in vain to get me to buy one.

"They're comfortable, easy to get in and out of," she said. Yes, and so are sweatpants, but you don't see me wearing those in public. So we ended up with a brand-new, gas-guzzling Suburban. And this was in Washington state, where the mere sight of a Suburban or other large SUV makes the greenies faint where they stand. Add a Christmas tree to the top and they're in therapy for months. (I liked to place a fake spotted owl in the tree for that added touch.)

When we had to re-adjust our finances and the Suburban (more specifically, the monthly payments for the Suburban) had to go, my wife felt I finally had no choice but to see reason and get a mini-van. But it just so happened that an elderly uncle had too many cars and gave us his 1989 Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser. It had almost no miles on it and looked brand new. Big, blue with fake-wood on the sides, wire-basket hubcaps and whitewalls. Nerdy? Maybe, but anything was better than a mini-van. My uncle passed away shortly thereafter and we've had it ever since. Glenny accidentally over-heated the engine going up and over Snoqualmie Pass a few years ago and the wagon has become a hanger-queen, waiting for the time I can have the engine rebuilt. Friends and family looked at us strangely when I paid the money to have it shipped to Alaska.

Fast-forward to about two years ago. Within the span of two weeks our family rig had major mechanical problems, somebody hit and totaled my Buick and Glenny's car wasn't running right. And of course, this all happened when we were very short on money (doesn't it always) so we were using a friend's spare car to get by. Hard to do with a family of eight that has to be here, there and everywhere each day.

One day this same friend who was loaning us his Ford Expedition called me up and said, "You know, it never even occurred to me that I have this van sitting out back that we haven't used in two years. It was running when I parked it there, but when we got our new cars we didn't need it anymore so it's just been sitting there ever since. I'm too busy to clean it up and sell it, so tell you what; if you come over and help me unload it (he'd been using it as a storage shed) and can get it started, you can have it."

Wow. What a cool friend. He was actually going to give me a car! So after work I ran over, walked around back and there it was - a white minivan. Specifically, a Chevrolet Astro. Hey, we were in dire straits and there was no way I was going to look a gift-horse in the mouth. At that point, I didn't care what it was, I was happy to have it.

We cleaned it inside and out and she fired right up. It had 240K miles on it and so I was amazed at how great it ran. Didn't burn oil, didn't leak anything and had plenty of power. But I still planned on using it just long enough for us to replace it. Our friend was adamant he didn't want it back and wasn't concerned about the money, so I thought I'd pass it along to somebody else needing wheels once I had purchased an SUV.

But then something started to change. I started to like that ugly thing. Time went by and we kept it. I resisted it at first, but I'll be darned if that AWD van wasn't the most amazing rig I'd ever had in the snow. It went everywhere. It never broke. I started to justify liking it because Astros sit on a truck chassis and handle more like a truck than a mini-van. So, hey, it was really a truck and not a mini-van, right? Yeah my friends didn't buy that either.

We ended up keeping it until last summer when we came across another soul who had lived in Alaska for two years and had never been able to save up enough money to get a car. By now we had three cars, it was summer and most of the kids were in Washington so we wouldn't need a big family rig for a few more months. So for just a little bit of money to cover some of the expenses we had put into it (snow tires, etc.) we passed it along. Much to my surprise (and my wife's), I was sad to see it pull out of our driveway and head down the road.

So, I'd owned a mini-van. Well, the kids would be returning from Washington in about a month and we'd have to have something to carry them all around in again. Seven days later I found a great deal on a GMC Safari AWD (GMC version of an Astro). It's still in the driveway and I don't plan on ever selling it.

Ben Compton is a Palmer resident and publishes his column as "Compton's Corner," the same title used by his grandmother, Phyllis Compton, a longtime Frontiersman columnist.