The Ford Commercial Vehicle development team, based at the company's Dunton Technical Centre in the UK, is celebrating the Ford Transit's status as International Van of the Year 2007, by creating an unusual one-off special – the Transit XXL.

Transit XXL literally stretches the Transit Tourneo passenger vehicle to new lengths, and could well be the longest Ford Transit in the world!

The inspiration for this week's (first) blog is a rather unfortunate incident involving the Commercial Motor long-term Ford Transit, South London and a tin of spray paint. If you haven't guessed what this particular incident is yet then maybe the word 'youth' might help to clear up any confusion.

After happily parking up for the evening last Saturday (admittedly not in my usual space) I left my trusty stead in peace overnight, only to return in the morning to find that some little swine (though on further inspection this turned out to be swines) had spray painted the drivers side of the Transit in what is known in certain circles as 'street tags' - and pretty poor ones at that!

People with alternative names such as 'Tempa', 'Rover' and Kams' had designated this year's European Van of the Year a perfect spot to practice for their GCSE English or maybe it was frustration at not having earned an ASBO yet.

However it's at times like this that you turn to one group of people who can make sense of this gentle slide into Armageddon: the police. Or so I thought.

"You need vehicle documentation to report the crime sir," the policewoman said at the counter. "Erm, it's not actually my vehicle, can I just get a crime number for the insurance?" "Sorry sir, we need some documentation."

So off I went. Upon returning with newfound knowledge that Ford holds all insurance paperwork and copies of vehicle registration of its press vehicles at Brentwood police station in Essex, the same lady was still unable to help. So off I went again.

Come today a five minute phone call to same police station achieved what seemed the unachievable on two previous visits - a crime number. And without any ruddy paperwork or faffing around either. God help me if anything serious ever happens.