So, had a crash a few weeks ago. Very steep cobbled street, more snow and ice than I thought. Things went..... downhill very quickly. Crashed into a parked car at the bottom. Could have been way way worse. Thankfully no injuries to my girlfriend or myself.

It went off to the scrap yard in the sky on Friday.

I guess one positive is that I managed to negotiate a good payout from the insurance which will go towards a bigger van. Problem is, van prices are a bit silly at the moment and nearly all listings that I've contacted have already been sold. Remove the bloody listing then!! :@

 

OH NOs! All that work. I imagine you managed to rescue some of the insides, but obviously not all the custom carpentry etc.?

Rescued the custom carpentry. Whether it'll be much use in a new van I'm not so sure, but some parts could possibly be cannibalised.

Tried to remove the solar panel, but turns out I used too much (too strong) adhesive and it started peeling the roof paint off. So that has been sacrificed.

Otherwise it's just the insulation and carpet lining that has been left. Stripped all my other electronics.

Maybe put a crash bar on the front next time. Or not.

Yeah, late 90s I was that rare beast, a trade union rep inside a huge international IT company, EDS (EDS had an HR director who was a rich-list billionaire, so well in touch with the needs of his staff). I circulated a note to all members suggesting they lose their "bull bars" as they were totally useless other than to fuck people they hit. Since the whole management team at the site where I worked had bull-bars, even on their sad corporate Vauxhall Cavaliers (really), this did not go down well.

EDS. I remember that name in connection with some far-right USian nutjob, which narrows it down to ~70-million.

The outsourcing/consultancy bit that I worked for ended up being bought by HP although I think it's fragmented into various bits now. The original EDS was started by Ross Perot if that's the chap you're thinking of. The Board was a typical smug bunch of Ivy League, entitled, rich people and we were blessed with vanity published hardcover books of their wise thoughts about business and life in general every few months. Worth a laugh after the cringe had worn off. That said, they weren't a bad company to work for.

Ross Perot, that be him. From the few media appearances I took in, he had the charisma of a turnip.

He was a MAN OF ACTION. When a couple of EDS bigwigs were locked up in Iran after the revolution he organised a private rescue operation led by former Green Beret Arthur "Bull" Simons. GM took over the company in 84, although it continued as EDS, and he eventually stepped aside in favour of Les Alberthal who was CEO when I worked for them. Alberthal had an eye-wateringly vast retirement fund. When he stepped down in caused a drop in the share price.