I couldn’t pass this shot posted at the Cohort by Simon White. You don’t see short wheelbase Dodge vans so much anymore, and the same applies to barber shops like Stan’s. A worthy pairing.
Cohort Outtake: Down At Stan’s
– Posted on December 21, 2017
The wait at Stan’s looks a lot shorter than the wait at Floyd’s, in whose waiting room I am currently sitting waiting for a trim. In fact the wait at Stan’s looks almost as short as that Dodge. My wait is more like the extended wheelbase model and is approaching the length of the 15-passenger version with the extra end cap.
Nice shot.
My barber is young (at least younger than me at 40) and he (along with 2 compatriots) cut hair in a former local bar – “Cowboys” is now “Tha Barbershop” (their spelling.)
All I care about is that they do a good job and that the environment is such that professional master’s degree possessing me is just as welcome as the high school kids, hoods, thugs, and even sheriff deputies that share the chairs.
No real CCs in the parking lot unless I choose to drive my Mustang that day.
A friend of my dad’s bought an ex-physics lab fleet ’94 “shorty” window’d passenger variant in the late 2000s for $375 at a silent auction. Terminally rotten but with decent tires and working heat and A/C. I borrowed it once to retrieve a craigslist motorycycle out in scenic winery country near Seneca lake, it was actually great fun to drive. This one had the 3.9L V6, it honestly didn’t feel too underpowered, especially because the amount of steering slop and worn shocks made anything over 45mph feel really fast. I liked how the transmission kickdown had a very distinct detent that you could feel in the accelerator pedal.
The new FWD/euro based vans are more space efficient, fuel efficient, etc. But I will miss the novelty of the classic American van.
I think this last-ever facelift on these vans was unfortunate. The aero headlamps were junk even compared to the previous sealed beams, and if I’m not mistaken they deleted the wraparound quarter glass (photo) that had given the Dodge driver a better-looking van with a pretty big sightline advantage versus the GM and Ford offerings. Also the coarse, blatting 3.9 V6, even (especially) with its decent power output in ’92-up Magnum form, is a constant reminder that Chrysler had neglected the Slant-6 to death by strangulation.
I have to disagree with you, Daniel. I much prefer the earlier (pre-78?) version of the maxi with the blind quarters. The proportions looked better. This one one with those curved rear quarter windows always looked way too long in the back..
I’d have to agree with JP, the quarter windows looks odd and tacked on. something that Ford did great on the extended Econolines where you could see the graft seam and filled in marker light holes.
I think the Dodge vans in the 70s were the best looking of the bunch.
That’s because they were actually a fair bit longer. The 15 passenger market was growing, and the original Maxivan was a bit too short. As to that rear-most windows, the folks (kids, mostly) that rode in that last row of seats undoubtedly appreciated more than you did. 🙂
They didn’t delete the rear glass; the just stopped making the Maxivan at some point, because of all the lawsuits about these 15 passenger vans flipping at the hands of drivers that didn’t understand their dynamics.
I do remember the motor pool manager being extremely pointed and strident during 15-passenger van driver training at the University of Michigan. I was in the training class because I was on the Solar Car Team and our lead and chase vehicles were both 15-passenger vans.
I’m kind of baffled why they wouldn’t have put the wraparound quarter glass on the shorter vans; it seems like such an obvious improvement over the other way. But they didn’t, as it seems.
The subject on top is the next-to-last facelift. At that point, the slight tuck-in just above the bumper was turned outward, the bumper itself lengthened and a thicker new dashboard added, shifting the driver’s seat backwards, all to create a bit more of a crumple zone without a full redesign.
I’m fairly sure the 15-passenger was available to the end of this generation. The take rate might well have plummeted, though.
One of the first vans my church (Leesville United Methodist Church in Batesburg-Leesville, SC) had for a church vehicle was a VW Microbus (seems crazy now, obviously!), but it was long gone before I was even born, so I hardly know anything about it. It eventually got replaced by a beige/tan 1st-or-2nd-generation Dodge Maxiwagon which probably looked similar to the one in JPC’s comment & undoubtedly had one of the larger V8 engine choices available at the time. Again, I hardly know anything else about it. A newer Dodge van replaced it sometime in the 1980s or early 90s, & this one I do remember: it was styled just like the one in Daniel Stern’s comment except it was gray with an interior somewhere between magenta & red-violet and had no missing hubcaps. Because we had (& STILL have) very experienced drivers in our congregation, I don’t recall a single time we ever wrecked with any of these vans due to a rollover risk. The last van got replaced a decade ago with a Ford Econoline 450 cutaway bus (still in use) for obvious safety reasons.
The gray Dodge would have had either the 5.2 or 5.9L V8 by default (it was a 1-ton 350), and the way I recall the front end would make it a 1986-93 model like the one below. Being a Ford person by default, I know our bus has the 6.8L Triton V10 in 2 ways: 1) the engine emblems on the front fenders and 2) how quickly it gets up to highway speed for such a large vehicle if you’re not careful on the accelerator.
This van looks like it could have been styled by Stan. “Trim the the front and cut it short in the back.”
CC effect, I just saw one of these in a parking lot this morning. White, of course.
I saw a mint SWB in bright red not too long ago, I couldn’t imagine anyone preserving one but there it was. I was never in love with the Aero lights but the unchanged fuselage era body shell always looked the best out of the big three vans and it aged seamlessly into the jellybean 90s with this update.
Just saw one of these at the library not even 10 minutes ago!
I hope that Stan’s tonsorial skills are better than his property maintainence skills.
The original A100 deserves recognition for being the smallest American car of the ’60s. Its overall length was beaten by the Pinto and Vega, but its wheelbase remained the shortest for several more years.
Also, (IMO) one of the best looking (I could be biased, this is mine!); I also think the Chevy looked good, but I never cared for the Ford-especially when they added the extra length! 🙂