The Angel, one of Mexico City’s iconic monuments on the Avenida Reforma.
(first posted 9/2/2012)
In 1979, my good friend Bob Frerck asked me to accompany him on a four-month photography job in Mexico and Guatemala. Although we had worked together earlier, in Spain, he didn’t speak Spanish. I did. He would even pay me this time, and so I signed on as second camera and quit my job at Amtrak, where I was head of the Equipment Design Department. It would be a trip of a lifetime.
Bob and I had spent a similar four-month stint in 1974, in Spain and Morocco. We had picked up a brand new ’74 VW Westfalia camper at the Westfalia works in Germany–an orange one, like many of its ilk at the time. Since its gearshift was refusing 1-2 upshifts, we took it to a German VW dealership, where a technician who drove the vehicle (which of course shifted perfectly) told us we were out of our minds. Apparently, VW dealers in Germany aren’t all that much different than those in the US and Canada. Still, I couldn’t shift the damn thing. I can’t remember how we solved the shifter problem, but eventually we did. Paying homage to Don Quixote’s nag, I dubbed our VW camper Rocinante.
Melchor de Menco, Guatemala. Probably on CA 13 en route to Rte 3 to Tikal.
Our steed (and our home) for the Mexico/Guatemala trip was a 1977 Dodge 200 Tradesman van that Bob had bought new. She was dubbed “Rocinante II”. No shifting problems here, thanks to its 318 (about 5200 cc) V8 and Torqueflite automatic. Before the trip, Bob had taken the van to a converter in Huntington, Indiana who installed a pop-up roof, an upper bunk and screened windows. The pop-top was very compact, allowing us to park in garages where most camper vans couldn’t. Bob had also built out the interior, so we had a very comfortable long-term home-away-from-home–and a great hiding place for illegal colonial-era Guatemalan artifacts.
Bob guides Rocinante through the soup, now just mud.
The roads in Mexico were all paved, and posed no challenge for Rocinante. That changed when we got to Central America. The roads we drove on in Belize were paved, but in Guatemala things were a bit different. Guatemala’s monsoon rains and unpaved roads were a mudder’s dream–but not so much for us, with our 6,500 pound (3,000 kg) van. We carefully observed other vehicles traversing the muddy bits before we attempted doing the same.
Rocinante II in Tikal .
Working in Guatemala was a dream compared with Mexico. In Mexico the attitude was “Give me a minute to think of a reason why you can’t.” In Guatemala, it’s “I can’t see any reason why not”. We were free to roam where we wanted to in the park-like setting of Tikal.
Rocinante in camping mode.
Our Westfalia experience had taught Bob and me a thing or two about designing a camper van. For example, our Dodge had bi-parting side and rear doors; when open, they offered easy access to storage areas we’d built into them–something the VW’s sliding doors didn’t allow. The rear doors also were bi-parting as well. We chose a camper roof that rose vertically in order to make the upper bunk more pleasant than the Westfalia’s clamshell affair. In addition, the absence of a rear engine provided a tremendous amount of storage space for cameras, film and contraband.
Tikal was beautiful, but some of the roads on the property took care to drive over.
Without sump guards or skid plates, we had no alternative but to drive slowly and carefully.
On Rte 3 from Tikal to CA 13, the road to Guatemala City.
Bob had asked me for recommendations regarding beefing up the suspension. I specified heavy-duty American Racing wheels, uprated radial tires, front and rear sway bars, and rear Sears air shocks. This shot gives a good view of the monster Quickor front sway bar. As it turned out, the front springs and shocks were woefully inadequate.
The upgrades made the van marginally off-roadable. Unfortunately, Guatemala’s record rainfall had turned Route 3 into craterville. The going was slow: The 90-mile trip from Tikal to the road to Guatemala City took over seven hours. Bob and I each stuck to a strict one-hour stint behind the wheel, not so much for the driver as for the guy riding shotgun. Without a passenger-side grab bar, bracing oneself was a tiring exercise.
Mud and ruts weren’t the only problems. The heavy rains had also created challenges in other areas, such as this river crossing with no bridge.
Whatever river this was wasn’t very deep. The drivers of the yellow flatbed and the orange van were taking advantage of the flood to wash their vehicles.
On the road in Poptun, Guatemala.
Our strategy for getting through these mud wallows was to nibble the vertical wall on the driver’s side while keeping the right tires on the high areas created by other trucks. It worked, but the going was tedious.
On Rte 3 to CA 13.
The roads in this part of Guatemala were pretty basic–in fact, red dirt. A day or two earlier we couldn’t have made this run.
6th Avenue in Guatemala City.
Contrast the road from hell with 6th Avenue in downtown Guatemala City. I have no idea what the cars in the photo are. I took the shot because I loved the visual cacophony created by the signage. Screw planned urbanization…long live graphic anarchy!
Rocinante allowed us the flexibility to explore downtown Guatemala City, as well as the freedom to camp out in areas that got us morning views such as this.
The Dodge never let us down–remarkable, considering that after we got back to Chicago we found the timing had been set at 15 degrees AFTER top dead center! No wonder it didn’t like to get going in Mexico City’s chilly mornings at 7,500 feet (2280 m) altitude!
Great story! You were mighty brave taking those mud-bog roads in a van, even one with a beefed-up suspension.
Not brave, just young and dumb.
I see a Toyota Corolla wagon and a Mitsubishi Galant in the ‘graphic anarchy’ photo…and possibly a big Dodge off to the left.
And better you than me in a van that low on roads like that! 🙂
I think the car off to the left is a ’67 Pontiac.
The stuff dripping off my fingers and onto the keyboard is envy. Also some shared memories of that part of the world (almost) as in Panama and Costa Rica with some Cuba (really doesn’t count-base only) thrown in for good measure. I don’t want to be young again but reliving some of the experiences would be fun.
Actually just having that van would be fun. Plenty to do in the lower 48.
No locking differential to at least keep the two rear tires spinning together?
That’s an upgrade I’ve long wanted for my 2wd F150…
I’d agree, Dan – I did a lot of backwoods driving with my 68 Chevy short narrow box truck that had a 6, 4-speed, and Positraction, and found that I could go a lot of places with it – didn’t really need 4wd.
Awesome road trip ironicly the central American tracks would be easy in a VW Van those things go nearly anywhere
In 1974 we met an Aussie (Australian for us Yanks) couple in Spain. They were having some routine maintenance done on their 1974 Westphalia. Same color as our VW (like that makes a diff!) They had ordered the heavy-duty suspension with their VDub. The dampers were about twice the diameter of ours. This suspension was not an option on campers ordered in the US. We blew out three shocks in the Moroccan Sahara.
Plus, without an LSD or locking diff, these things became damn near inert in muddy or snowy situations. Just sayin’. You guys have snow in Kiwiland?
Why did you change your screen name? As the saying goes, “we know where you live”.
New name because of Yahoo hacking yes we have snow, too much sometimes, VW vans will go almost anywhere on a formed track even on the black cracking clay of outback Aussie.
I love the old Dodge B vans. My car-mentor Howard bought a new Royal Sportsman in 1973 when this design was really fresh. He kept it most of the way through my high school years. With the 360, that one really moved and I really loved driving it.
Huntington, Indiana is about 30 miles southwest of my hometown of Fort Wayne. I went there occasionally in those years, so maybe we passed each other on the street.
Although the front springs and shocks turned out to be overmatched for your trip, I think that you also proved that the basic IFS design on the Dodge B series turned out to be a good durable design.
An enjoyable piece, and I look forward to the next installment.
Kevin, What a trip! Fantastic photos put the reader right alongside the road, or what passes for road. I’m feeling the heat and humidity just reading this story. Looking forward to your next installment.
Great stuff and good to see you writing COAL! I look forward to more like this. I should mention that some friends of mine lived in a 70’s era Tradesman in Alaska that they drove there from LA. The van never gave them any problems.
I can attest to the basic ruggedness of a ’77 Dodge van, as we’ve taken our Chinook on some Jeep roads about as bad as those, but at least we have dual rear tires, which really do help quite a bit: “poor man’s “four wheel drive”.
Got in it yesterday for the first time since last September’s trip to Glacier; it fired right up, as it does every time after sitting for a year.
The Martin Chronicles are great in every way, except that they make my own adventures seem so damn dull! 🙂
Great story on a great van.
Had some personal experience with these.
The first was at a church camp I attended while a kid. Late 1970’s, up in the North Cascades in Washington state. The campground would rent vans to haul the campers and their gear around, they also had I think a 70’s era blue GM truck, perhaps the Chevy to haul the canoes and I think they owned one of the vans, a 2 tone green, I want to say, 72 or 73 Dodge or Plymouth Maxi van, and one year, they had a blue and white Maxi van they rented that was perhaps a ’77 or so. These vans went up into the mountains to the various area lakes on outings and such.
The last time I rode in the green van, was in 1983 when heading to a church weekend conference that spring that was up in Friday Harbor, on San Juan Island in the north Puget Sound. The campground is located just north of the Snohomish/King County line in the Cascade foothills. The gent, Bruce who managed the campground drove the van to either Seattle, or Tacoma, I forget now and drove a gaggle of us kids to Anacortes to the ferry that would take us onto the island. I can’t recall now if he drove it on and was part of the conference or not but I DO recall he even drove us back to civilization. The trip to Anacortes was roughly 60 miles north of Seattle via I-5, and if it indeed was driven to Tacoma, then an hour south of Seattle and it takes about 45 minutes to an hour to get to the campground from Seattle, so plenty of miles driven that weekend.
What I recall on that trip was the alternator was on its way out and the lights, and the ammeter were flickering as we drove back from the islands and laughing about it as it drove and drove and drove. By this point, the van was about a decade old (no rust in Puget Sound so that’s never an issue).
I got to drive an early 80’s version of this very van when in school in the late 1980’s. It was part of the tech college I was attending, and was for the TV/radio station. I remember loading it up and taking it to the location where we were to do a production, live to tape that we’d edit/clean up and then air about a week later.
These obviously were great vehicles for the times and showed that Chrysler could build a durable vehicle if they wanted to.
I remember beating a ’76 Maxivan like a rented mule on a trip from Oklahoma City to Orange City, Iowa. It belonged to a church and we were ostensibly going to visit a little college affiliated with the church. All I remember is drinking beer. Don’t remember the trip back. Those Dodge vans were everywhere in the ’70s and ’80s. Still see them around in Seattle in pretty decent shape.
I worked my way through college working for a family run grocery store chain. At that time, they had their own fleet of over the road trucks, to stock the grocery stores. One of my jobs as a ‘helper” (of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America) was to work in the maintenance garage as necessary. We would work on the fleet, and go on road repairs as needed. Our range was about a 100 mile radius of Youngstown, Ohio and this was when it was thought that performing these repairs with our own crew made sense. That function was eventually farmed out to tire vendors and the like.
We had a small fleet of 1-ton Dodge Maxivans (in the late 70’s/early 80’s) that were mobile repair shops. Unless the guys totally f-ed up the truck, we could get it going again. All of these Maxis (as we called them) were equipped with 360’s, TorqueFlites, posi rear ends and air conditioning. The A/C was wonderful to have, especially when you were on the side of the road fixing a tire or some other repair; you could go into the van and cool off. It was an unusual thing to have on a ‘working man’s’ van at that time. I will attest to the capability of a posi equipped van, with enough weight over the rear wheels and proper snow tires, even our Maxis were virtually unstoppable. When these things were unladen, the power of the 4 bbl 360’s became apparent; those motors had a ton of torque, even in the smog strangled malaise era. Although, as equipped, you could watch the fuel gauge drop as the miles rolled by. We were friends of OPEC…
I later drove courier service in Cleveland, Ohio and we also had a fleet of Dodge vans, but the lighter duty 1/2 ton ones. These came with the Slant Six and an autobox, but open diffs. This was well into the 80’s by then, and Chrysler had cheaped out (as if this type of van was ever anything else). The cardboard door panels were even thinner, and I swear all of the latches and handles all fell apart. The only thing that was worse were the Ford vans of the same time period, but only slightly. The brown-nosers got the few Chevy vans (with V8s), but even those were being phased out for the Fords. The company got bought up by another courier service, who several buyouts later, became part of Fed Ex.
The only good thing about the Cleveland courier vans, was the slant six, but even then, with the emissions regulations and the general lack of care/maintenance by the courier service’s mechanics, they were horrible to drive. The Maxis were looked after by the truck mechanics we already had in the shop. A few of them were weekend warriors who were allowed to ‘play’ with the Maxis in order to give us more power and ostensibly better mileage.
I left the courier service after a short time, and ended up driving a van and a 6 ton straight truck for a while. Then, I got back to being a warehouseman and finished my college career. It was fun while it lasted, and I have great memories of those Maxivans!
I’m sorry but the Econoline was far and away the best van going from the introduction of the Nantucket platform until the Chevy Express was introduced and it was still the best just not by a mile like it had been for the previous 20+ years. The only plus the Mopars had was the slant 6 but since the vans fell apart the little amount they lasted longer than the 300 wasn’t an advantage.
Cleveland’s roads back at that time were just horrible. No van that was driven 8+ hours a day was going to survive more than 200K miles on them. If the potholes and craters didn’t beat them to death (literally), the copious amounts of salt used in the wintertime made the vans corrode at prodigious rates. The only real advantage the Chevy vans had was the V8’s but even those were the last they were apparently going to buy. GM’s rustproofing was only marginally better than anyone else’s, but the V8 gas mileage was hurting the bottom line. The Dodges were cheap to buy from what I understood; but the then-owner got a really good deal from a local Ford fleet guy and the conversion was under way.
I left that business almost 30 years ago, but the Dodge vans I was driving then never left me stranded. The Fords (some of which were brand new) did; there was one unit that had done it to me several times. No start(s), broken rad hose, blown out spark plug to name a few incidents. Truly, it could have been the half-ass*d maintenance department, as they were demonstrably morons.
It might have been my bad fortune to have Ford vans display these issues. But it’s awfully hard to forget which ones you’ve been stuck at the side of the road in.
four wheel drive? we don’t need no stinkin’ four wheel drive!
great story. i showed my wife the picture of your van parked in front of the pyramid as part of my endless campaign to convince her to try rv camping.
Great post, I hadn’t read that one before.
I miss that guy, almost two years..
Friend had a ’77 318 torqueflite 1/2 ton panel van bought new. It was black and without windows or interior it was a oven in the SoCal summer. He put some mag wheels and an aftermarket steering wheel on it, along with a stereo and some padding/carpet in the back. We had a “drag race” with my ’70 C10 3 on tree, the Chevy moved out a little better but we were pretty close. Had a lot of fun in that van, sadly he passed at a way too young 43. Really miss Kevin Martin’s contributions.
Dad bought a new ’75 Dodge 1/2 ton panel van, am radio, ps, torqueflite and 225 slant 6.
It had decent pick up, at least when not loaded up too heavily. But the cheap tires the factory equipped it with could not take a short drive over a rocky trail to a party spot that others in passenger cars were easily crossing. One tire was cut driving over a rock going in, I put on the spare. A second tire did the same driving out, this is on a brand new empty van with about 600 miles on it. After getting a ride for a used tire to get home, I got new proper quality tires for it and drove the road dozens of times without trouble after this.
Neither of these vans had AC, but the ’75 was a lighter color yellowish beige that was a little cooler. They were pretty much both trouble free over the time we had them, the ’77 was driven to over 130k miles without major problems. Good vans.
We had a ’71 19ft Winnebago Brave Class A motorhome on a Dodge chassis with 318 torqueflite, it had dual wheels, along with an Onan Generator and roof AC, but no dash AC. The roof unit and the generator worked pretty well while driving down the road. The family went coast to coast and it ran well, it was slow going up steep hills though. I think it would average around 11 MPG in the 55 MPH days. He once towed a ’65 C10 pickup with it from SoCal to Portland and ran into some pretty snowy conditions, he made it but said it was scary at times going downhill, the close to 4000 lb towbar equipped wheels on the ground flat towed pickup was trying to push the little motorhome right off the slippery road. That must have been a slow climb up the Grapevine and Siskiyou’s. Despite this abuse, the engine and transmission never missed a beat and it had around 70k miles on it when he sold it, still running well.
Chrysler did make good engines and automatic transmissions back in the day.
I miss Kevin’s articles
A friend of mine bought a used 1981 Dodge 3/4 ton long wheelbase panel van……It had either a 318 or 360 with the 3 speed auto….The van must have had 3.90 or 4.10 rear axle gearing because the engine was screaming at 60-65 mph due to the lack of an overdrive…..He eventually sold it and bought a late 90’s Ford Econoline with the 300 six and overdrive…..That Ford van was easier on gas and easier on the ears with the overdrive bringing engine RPM’s down….