Delica Canada | Mitsubishi Van Club

Finally,

This great misadventure took place Dec.29th, 2007 en route to Yuma, Arizona and New Years in Vegas. Our planned stop was meant to be Boise where we were destined to spend the night "couchsurfing" , a new activity we just started out on, it's great for travelling on the cheap plus you get to meet some really cool likeminded people.

Anyway, on with the story....


Snoqualmie was beautiful and clear.


Started getting colder and the wipers began icing up every 10 minutes.


Visibility really started to get dismal to say the least...


Alright we'll be in Boise in about an hour!


uhhh...maybe not.


this is different!

Strong like....uh...Delica.


The locals were impressed!

Rescuing the princess!


Unforgettable!


Mike from Art's Towing in Ontario and Carl the mechanic set us right, thanks guys! The paramedics were awesome and the police even threw in a few extra flares!

This took place outside Huntington, Oregon at about 6:30 pm, black ice sucks, say no more!


Back on all fours and ready to ...uh...roll ....again....not.



Dry roads have never made me happier!

Love the desert



High Anxiety!


Another fine campsite!

California sunsets...ah...traffic sucks though, just East of LA...

Ventura is a great town if you've never been, great surf!

Big Sur is amazing!

Birthing seals and their Elephant male counterparts.

This was fun!

Just enough room!

Wind power, the valley outside Palm Springs, impressive!

Ferndale, California en route to Eureka. Home of the coolest Cemetary we've ever seen.

One of our sponsors, sadly unavailable in Canada.

Thanks for checking this out, it was a great trip, these vans are solid, nay, bulletproof, we clocked
thousands of miles after our tumble in the mountains, didn't lose one drop of oil, I could go on about
how great these vans are, but hey...you already know that don't ya?

Take it easy gang!

All the best,

Great trip and photos, glad you two weren't hurt!

Amazing how well the side held up after being straightened up. That underside photo is going to be great for the forum and various tech things; eg, that gizmo is located here on Monkeymans bottom.

Cheers

hey Monkeyman
I was sad for you, till I saw the rest of your trip pictures. Here's hoping your lady wsn't too badly shaken up. Sounds like you survived okay. We had memorable trips like that years ago too, in a motorcycle and car.

Okay I must nominate you for the "best picture of the underside of a Delica" award." There can't be many contestants! Time to show off those spill pictures. Anyone???

Take care
thelazybr.....

Yes, it was quite miraculous.

In fact it ended up being quite a soft roll over. Everything went in slow motion as I'm sure anyone out there who has ever rolled can attest.

We were quite fortunate that the snow plough had pushed the snow to the centre median and not off to the side.

These vans are formidable, the local paramedics were quite taken by Yoko's solid structure.

Thanks for the nomination, anytime you need a good look at an undercarriage be sure and check out Monkeyman's bottom! lol

My lady, GingerBender and I are quite happy to be here to tell the tale, somewhere in mid-spin I looked over at her very calm face and said, " we're going to be alright"...next thing you knew we bumped, stopped ...and damnit if we didn't roll!

3 hours later we made it to Boise, very late for dinner, thank goodness we had a very understanding host who immediately showed us to his garage whereupon he opened his fridge and invited us to partake of his beer, which turned out to be a very tasty microbrew...oh and I must mention to you that it was a keg, now that's what I call HOSPITALITY!!!!Nirvana...we're gonna like this guy I said to myself!

Love to travel and have adventures...where to next? perhaps to Pennsylvania to pick up my Gramma's organ...I'll keep y'all posted!

Adios amigos, vaya con dios!

I have to ask after looking at the pictures... how much damage was there? because it looks like none... not even the mirror, which my mind is having trouble believing...

I'm glad you're allright!

Well, that will definitely be a trip you're not likely to forget any time soon. Rollover or not!

Good to read that you're okay, and the van too. Incredible. I would echo Green1's query: not even the mirror was damaged?

I have to stress that it was a miraculously "soft" landing. The mirror simply folded over, I'm amazed that the window rain/wind deflector thingamajig didn't get damaged, now that's amazing!

Here are a few pix I took in Yuma once we arrived plus one of Mike from Art's in Ontario.













Some scratches, a few dents ...miraculous!

That is absolutely astounding! Incredible to see there was little more than a couple of scratches to the paint. Hell, I got more paint blemishes and rust spots on the rear gate of the Moon Machine than you got rolling your wheels over onto its side.

MonkeyMan = HERO!!!

Dude - you have to be congratulated! To have an 'off' like that, then pick yourself up, dust yourself down and carry on is just the stuff of legends. You, the other half and the car are just awesome! The trip itself looks like one of those 'lifetime trips' anyway, but to come away from it unhurt, alive and with minimal damage (VERY minimal!)....that is a story in itself.

Most people here in the UK would have cried game over and headed home with their tail between their legs....but you proudly continue and even more proudly tell the tale for us all to enjoy. I say it again - HERO!

You and all the other L300 owners over there in Canada just go to prove that I am in the wrong place and I need to be over there with you like minded people. This country (and the mentality of its residents) sucks big time compared to the attitude you guys show to life (and living that life)

Keep doing what you do and many thanks for the photos and the story - you've made my week....nay....my month (and it's only just begun!)

Thanks for reading, glad to make your day...

If I recall, you've had your own Heroic exploits yourself involving rescuiing some old folks in a flood isn'nt that right?

We're not heroes. We're CANADIANS!!!! LOL!

I have to give credit to my lady , I asked her if she wanted to continue down by air and she said no, she was up for the adventure (by the way, she's FRENCH CANADIAN, even tougher) so off we went, life is for living my friends!

adios

Hey MonkeyMan,

Good to see You and your Lady intact after this roll over! It could be much worse.
Looking at your pictures and seeing the vehicle in an abnormal position with all the lights on and people wandering around I have a couple of instinctive thoughts from the past. I had a similar (but worse) accident in 1995 not long before I left Ukraine. I was giving the friend of mine a ride out of town and we ended in a ditch up side down hanging on the seat belts. The road conditions were similar to what you witnessed but the car was nothing in comparison to Delica. The first thing I did just before we landed on the roof was the ignition key which I took out and put into my pocket. Right after we managed to get out of the car we pushed it from the side to put it back on the wheels. After we were pulled off the ditch with the help of a truck driver I removed the air filter as it was oiled and we continued our trip. The lesson I have learned: if you are rolling over turn the ignition off to prevent the fire and if you are OK after everything stopped moving put your motor back on the wheels to prevent all parts from being oiled etc.
I hope my experience will help somebody else in a critical situation.

Sergiy.

I am impressed you fit through the tree down in oregon. I couldn't squeeze through (although i did try, and got slightly wedged) it must have been my 31" mudterrains. Anyhow, I am pretty impressed that your Delica held up so good when you slid it over. Must have been a panic. Are you keeping the battle scars on the vehicle, or getting it fixed? (I would keep the scrapes, but I am a hick!)

Josh

Great story of adventure! Must have been scary waiting to find out if the Deli was going to work OK after getting righted! You two and the deli deserve each other - tough and adventurous!

I didn't mind the scrapes as much as the wind whistling in through the top of the drivers side door frame. Needed to be realigned to keep the rain out also.

Reece at Eagle Collision here in PoCo did an A+ job of fixing her up.

Not so much a panic when it happened either, slo-mo and very gentle really.

As far as waiting for her to start again, that was a little nerve wracking to say the least , the battery was very low as I'd neglected to turn off the lights after the flip, so we charged her for gave her 2 tries, she sparked up on the third.

No oil seepage or loss at all, I had the alignment adjusted and that's about it...we scraped the tree a little too, not much though.

Good times all around!