Delica Dreaming - the End of an Era
Mitsubishi Delica Space Gear 2.8 Intercooler Turbo 1995 - 2021.
As most of you probably know, our van met an abrupt end a couple of weeks ago. Thankfully and fortunately, no one was hurt but we were shocked, shaken and sad to see our Delica get hauled away on a trailer bound for the scrap yard. To make matters worse, we had only two weeks previous finished giving it a new paint job and fixing an engine issue so we were all set for summer! I don’t think either of us had any idea what we were getting into when we naively bought this beast 4 years ago, but to us the van represented the idea of adventure and potential for us as a small family and we were sold.
We certainly didn’t expect to get so attached to big chunk of metal but I guess the amount of time and energy we poured into converting and fixing the van transformed it into something more than that. As well as fixing cosmetic blemishes and building the camper conversion, in the end we had almost rebuilt the engine and replaced many other parts, spending countless oily, knuckle-smashing hours outside in the cold, bringing the van back to life.
I couldn’t have done any of that without the help of my Dad. As a retired mechanic he usually goes to great length to avoid having anything to do with cars but he has been out there with me in the cold making sure I do it right, cracking stubborn nuts and bolts, sharing knowledge and giving me the confidence to give things a go. In some ways it would have been nice to have had a van that didn’t need fixing so often, but I’m grateful for those times working together with my Dad and for the insights into what it must have been like being a mechanic and father when I was growing up.
And so in the end, although we perhaps didn’t go on as many far flung trips in the Delica as we planned, we had adventures (and misadventures) aplenty and the van brought us joy in many small ways. From cozy van evenings with Benji, to successfully driving it all the way to Holland and back, to replacing cylinder heads and turbos and to summer camping in the roof top tent it’s been a fun journey and we already have plans for the next one…
Thanks to everyone who has ever sent us a message about the van, be it words of encouragement when it was busted, or questions on the conversion. It's been fun sharing the journey.
You can read our series of Delica Dreaming posts which document the work we did on building the camper and rebuilding the engine here: Part One, Two, Three and Four