The 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan SXT is a bland, blend-into-traffic ovoid. Despite ten years of mechanical innovation and evolution, the Dodge (and its sibling the Chrysler Town & Country) is still a dead ringer for the very first minivan. It still has about as much road presence as a Budget rental car.

Even so, the Grand Caravan has a message for all those NASCAR dads and soccer moms who left ten-foot-pole marks on the genre, opting for the go-anywhere machismo of towering, gas-guzzling sport-utes: come back, all is forgiven. If you can get over your image issues, the SXT is by the better beast for real-world parenting. Let's start with soccer…

Here's a question: why would anyone want a pickup truck that accelerates from 0 to 60 in 5.2 seconds? Don't most people prefer a flatbed that's comfortable or practical or reliable or fuel efficient or… something other than monstrously quick? What's the point of a Porsche-killing pickup?

Bragging rights. Drivers of the Dodge Ram SRT-10 bask in the knowledge that they're behind the wheel of the world's fastest pickup truck. And by God, they want everyone to know it. And by God, they will. Anyone who stands eyeball-to-eyeball with an SRT-10 will be in no doubt that The Dodge Boys' uber-pickup is in a league of its own.