A 10-year Van-iversary – August 2025

August 2025 coincided with the 10 year anniversary of owning the Tall Black Van (TBV). To celebrate this milestone, we invited a bunch of friends over for a party at our place. It was the epitome of ‘any excuse for a party’, but we all had fun and it’s good that my friends support my craziness (or at least pretend to).

Rosie and Ollie even made a cake for the occasion.

My sister-in-law made another magnificent cake as well. Long time readers will remember that we got a TBV cake in 2017 from her.

The van-iversary went very well. The van got a card and a present, and I may have even bought a pair of Vans shoes for the occasion. I parked the van in the backyard and decorated it with fairy lights so it was included as part of the celebration. (I acknowledge that this is not considered normal behaviour and I’ll consider speaking to someone about it!)

Since it’s been 10 years, and because I’ve been tracking expenses, fuel and costs associated with the van since we got it like a weirdo, I thought I’d share some basics and figures here:

• The initial purchase price was $13,500, bought sight unseen from an Adelaide dealership that had imported it from Japan. The van has actually appreciated in value since then, with most Delicas in similar conditions going for around $15,000 or higher, depending on mods.
• I bought it with 75,000km on the odometer.
• The van is a 2001 L400 Series 2 20^th Anniversary Edition short wheel base 7-seater. It originally came with a 3L 6G72 V6 petrol engine, but that was swapped out a few years ago for the more powerful 3.8L 6G75 V6 engine.
• I agree that I should have left the original retro decals on the side of the van. At the time I couldn’t wait to get rid of them, but now I wish I could put them back.
• I was looking for a black or white model Delica for about 6 months prior to purchase. I had commissioned an Australian importer to look through the Japanese auctions for them, but we didn’t find a good enough example in the time I was looking
• Ideally I was hoping for a diesel version, but ultimately I’m happy I got the petrol instead just from a cost/maintenance point of view. There’s pros and cons for both petrol and diesel L400 Delicas.
• At the time of writing, the van has just ticked over 174,500km on the odometer. That’s 100,000km since I bought it, averaging 10,000km a year. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reports an average of around 12,000km per year for a passenger vehicle.
• The van has been used as a daily driver since we got it, and kept in a garage for at least 6 of these years.
• I think I’ve washed the van less than 7 times since I’ve owned it.
• A total of 352 petrol fillups since ownership, using a total of 15,898L of mostly 91RON petrol at a total cost of $26,998.
• Average fuel consumption over all 10 years is 15.76l/100km. That’s 14.9MPG(US), 17.0MPG(UK) or 6.35km per litre. Best fuel consumption was 10.73l/100km, worst was 24.2l/100km.
• Best fuel price we ever paid was $0.87 a litre. Highest was $2.379 per litre.
• Average fuel cost is $0.263 per kilometre.
• Maintenance, servicing, parts, a new upgraded engine and other bits and pieces for the van total $29,318. Excluding the engine upgrade which was a completely optional purchase, costs are around $16,818.
• All in, with purchase price, fuel and costs combined, we’ve paid $69,817 total. That’s $0.69 per kilometre driven.
• Note that I haven’t kept track of rego, insurance or other costs that would be necessary for any vehicle.

As a bit of a comparison, I checked out the figures for our 2017 Kia Sportage diesel to see how it compares with the van. We’ve bought the Kia as an ex-demo with 3,273km on the odometer for around $38,000 in September 2018, and it’s currently at 90,909km (~12,500km a year). After 144 fillups, the Kia averages 7.86l/100km at an average fuel cost of $0.14 per kilometre ($12,940 total fuel costs). $38000 (purchase) + $12940 (fuel) + $7000 (estimated servicing/tyres/maintenance costs) = $57,940 total costs for the Kia. That’s $0.66 per kilometre driven, very close to the Delica.

A big thanks to everyone that came over and helped celebrate this ultimately tiny and achievement. I’m not sure we’ll see another 10 years out of the van, but I’ve no plans to give it up any time soon.