2017.03.11 Metris Van

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An alien breed of vehicle has arrived in the Castle fleet - a minivan.

Calm down 20-year-old me, it's not like that. At least, it's mostly not like that. I'm suspecting that there are ways in which it is exactly like that, but they're good ways.

It's an employee lease Mercedes, so perfect for flogging and disregarding, and also rather economical. It also has a certain cachet that other minivans don't usually have, which is ironically totally unfounded. The reason for that is that despite the first exterior impression (mostly carried by the badge) is of a sophisticated luxury hauler, it is actually a utilitarian work vehicle.

Which brings me to my core vision for this vehicle: it's going to be my new mountain bike hauler. The bike rack on the Subie is satisfactory, but not a great experience. I've really missed the ease of just throwing my bike in the back of my old pickup truck. So, I'm hoping it'll be like that - except lockable by default and a bazillion times safer for running up the mountain highways.

Plus the van can also act as a general hauling vehicle, for largish awkward items. Though it won't be able to haul gross things to the dump the way the pickup could...

Oh, and it can also be a minivan. It's currently set up with the middle row of seats removed to make room for the bike. So for road trips, the little Spawns will be seated way the hell back and away from being able to kick the back of my seat. Also epic for road trips will be not having to tetris all our stuff into a trunk and roof box. And with the middle row of seats installed, the van can haul 8 adults comfortably (as it did for lunch on Friday). This general sense of utilitarian ease is exactly the kind of lazy appreciation my younger self was unable to admit was a thing. You have to keep in mind that my younger self had an MGB as an only vehicle - including multiple moves - and was kind of an idiot.

DRIVING IMPRESSIONS

It's a boat. No getting around it - it's long and wide and tall. It has tons of body roll, and rubbery brake feel. You sit way up high and can't see hardly anything behind you - unless you're backing up and the reverse camera is un-mucked.

And it's way better to drive than the C-class we exchanged it for.

But how is that possible? It's so much slower, and less nimble, and generally boat-y! Well, let me tell you a little something about machine empathy - this vehicle engages in what is known as honest signaling.

Mein SCHLEPPENWAGEN feels like slow clumsy boat because that is exactly what it is. Even in that state, it still manages to have accurate steering and sufficient thrust. It's very boaty-ness actually makes navigating it an interesting challenge in some environments. It engages my driver sense and does so linearly and accurately - as much as is possible for an automotive pig-cow.

The C-class muttered about being a sporty vehicle, and it just fucking wasn't. It could eke out some considerable performance, but it made an awful lot of fuss about it, and didn't like explaining how or why it was doing things. And it certainly never admitted where its limits were, which is unpleasant for the likes of me. Worse than that, it also smugly suggested that it was luxurious. It was plenty nice, don't get me wrong, but I've piloted an E-class, bitch. I know what kind-of-luxurious is supposed to feel like.

The worst part about the C-class, though, was that it blithely assumed that it could be both sporty and luxurious. While that might seem superficially possible, it's just the kind of infuriating lie fundamentally that I hate hearing repeatedly.

Richthofen, my beloved Porsche, was a sports car. It said, "I vill let you go very, very fast." And it did. It also allowed there to be luxurious elements - inasmuch as they did not interfere with the fundamental mission of being sporty. The Zeppelin, the aforementioned E-class, was primarily about comfort, and it said "Relax. This is a comfortable space." And it was. It was also capable of going rather quickly - but not to the extent that it compromised any of its fundamental comfy-ness.

So it is welcome to hear ein Schleppenwagen saying, "I'm here to haul yer scheiße. If you try to go very fast, you better be paying fucking attention."