The universal appeal of vans is obvious: as an empty box on wheels, they offer more scope for utility and the imagination than any other vehicle, period. Although the van’s heyday is in the past, peaking in popularity as a huge social phenomena in the seventies, there will undoubtedly always be vans. Maybe they’ll even have a resurgence one day; imagine this one as the ultimate autonomous car. Throughout this week CC will look at the full spectrum of vans.
That starts with humble 1949 VW Transporter, truly the mother of all vans, then Detroit’s response to it in the sixties, the glorious custom van culture of the seventies, conversion vans of the eighties (and up), a more modern conversion van, and….whatever else appears on these pages this week that’s a box on wheels. As usual, we don’t plan these theme weeks out in detail. We throw it out there and see what everyone comes up with; pot luck style. Happy vannin’
There’s a whole lot of “imagination” going on in that top picture… “If it’s a rockin’, don’t come a knockin'”
As I remember…
This was me..back in the day….340 c.i. 727 transmission…a nice ‘Q’ ship!!! Maybe one of these days I’ll get it restored!! 🙂
What, no drapes, no waterbed?
Nah! Just the potential for really surprising those who thought it was just a 225 c.i. six cylinder!! It DID, however have paneling and carpeting inside!! LOL!! 🙂
Wow; that’s quite an A100! I bet it scooted with a 340. I had a non-window ’68 A100, with the 225 /6 and stick, and paneling in the back.
So you still have it?
Yes, I do. It is suffering from “benign neglect”. All I need is a BIG pile of pictures of dead presidents…Franklin, Jefferson, & Grant to start the restoration!! 🙂
WANT IT!! I’d never think whitewalls with those wheels on this van would look good if someone described it to me, but they do. The whole thing looks awesome. Was it lowered a bit?
No, I did nothing to the suspension. The only additions from stock were the aforementioned 340, headers, transmission cooler, Magnum wheels, station wagon roof rack, and the custom touches..70 Dodge Charger side marker lights & flip top gas cap.:-)
My best friend in HS had this… Oh, the stories 😉
When I was a kid in the 70s, there was a Saturday morning science fiction show on CBS called ‘Ark II’. This program featured an exploration van called the ‘Arc Roamer’. This ‘van’ was based upon the Brubaker Box van. A kit car/van based upon the VW Beetle chassis.
I loved the look of it at the time, and hoped someone would bring it to mass production.
Wow, until you posted that pic I’d forgotten all about Ark II! I remember liking that on TV in NZ when I was a kid in the early 80s. Thanks for the memory jog Daniel!
Here is the original ‘Brubaker Box’ van…
Very cool, which reminds me of my favorite sci-fi van….
I love that top picture. IIRC it was a real life version of a Hot Wheels car?
I didn’t have the toy version, but I did build a model like this. The inside was pretty shagadelic…
The first picture is the Supervan done by George Barris. It started life as a Dodge van. It had some movie roles, including a background appearance in Back To The Future 2. It was recently restored.
It’s the star of the movie SuperVan, which I link to in a comment further down this page. In the movie they call it “Vandora.”
Here’s a link to info on the Super Van and the restoration.
http://www.guildclassiccars.com/projects/50to60/1966supervangeorgebarriscustom-theguildofautomotiverestorers.html
There were two plastic scale model kits made of the van, one when it was called “Love Machine” (as pictured in this article) and an updated reissue in 1977 after it was renamed Super Van.
That last photo of the Dodge Van was taken in Vancouver BC at Stanley Park…Scary!!!
Where’s Terry David Mulligan?
I have a mild soft spot for vans, I remember being shuttled around in a summer camp at one point in my youth in a tow tone blue and white Dodge Adventurer 12 seat van, I thought that is was cool how the engine was inside the car, I kept imagining all the whrilly bits going around and around just behind that cover.
They had a similarly schemed Beauville 20, I really remember liking all the “Western Themed” Chevrolet emblems of the era, and the butch looks dog dish wheelcovers.
I also remember a local car dealership would display a loaded up Chevrolet “Mark III” in the nearby mall, a full on pimptastic hightop custom van with velour swivel buckets, it was a like a mobile porno apartment, with the full limo disco lights on the inside, that left a memory.
I’ll also give points to the Dodge van as being the van of choice for serial killers in the Hanibal Lecter movie series.
We had a van scene in the UK,usually a knackered Bedford CF or Ford Transit badly made into a shagging wagon.A mate of my brothers built one of the nicest vans from a RWD Ford Escort with bubble windows,crushed blue velvet interior and a pale blue paint job with sword wielding warrior woman based on my drawing.He had some adventures in that, one involving a Joan Jett look a like and her girlfriend.he picked up hitching from a Stranglers concert
Was the top picture also made as a die cast or construction kit?It seems familiar from my local model shop in the late 60s/early 70s
I have posted a few Bedford CF vans to the flickr Cohort, most of them pretty extensively customised
I love how you mentioned the VW Bus. I get balked at when I say that sometimes.
This past weekend, a buddy of mine and I took my ’63 Bus on a little roadtrip up in some mountains (don’t laugh, you get to enjoy the scenery more when you have to climb the hills in 1st gear) .We pulled into one of those scenic pull offs beside a Chrysler minivan, and I did my best Darth Vader voice “I am your father.” My buddy (a fellow VW guy) just rolled his eyes and shook his head at me.
We mostly did Holden and Ford Falcon panel vans here, but there was a sub group of Ford Escorts (Eskies, in your best nasal screech ) as well as a few Bedfords.
They were collectivley known as Shaggin’ Wagons, or Fingerbowls….
I do fantasize about having a van much like these shaggin’ wagons for weekend trips.
It would have to have shag carpeting, a porthole, shag dash, mini-bar, waterbed in the back and shag on the roof. No wood accents though. Ick.
If you had a waterbed inside, why would you need to shag on the roof?
Related: Sammy Johns’ soft-rock hit, “Chevy Van”, a bit of unintentional product-placement which, beginning in 1973, probably helped sell an untold number of Beauvilles and Sport Vans to libidinous young males:
Yes… I have a itch for 2nd gen econolines as well as early 3rd gens. My grandfather had a white 73 window van and later a 81 that he converted to a camper van with all the goodies including dixie horn and vhs betamax vcr’s and a 19″ color t.v. My earliest memories are of sitting on grandpas lap and driving up the driveway, as I have mentioned before.
Eventually, I wanna put together a “Vans of New York City” collection like Dave Skinner did with El Caminos. Old Chevy/GMC G- and Dodge B-series vans are wildly popular here as utilitarian beaters and occasional domiciles. I’m always hesitant to take pictures of them while I’m at work for that very reason (people living in them), and if I’m gonna have a confrontation with a van-dweller I’d rather it be while I’m off the clock… so one weekend I gotta go make the rounds with a real camera. I passed on a real tasty one two weeks ago that I’m hoping I can track down again – a ’77 Chevy SWB cargo van in rotted shit brown with the 292 six (checked the VIN) and 3-speed manual tranny.
You may have noticed that I didn’t mention Econolines. I have no clue why they’ve become unpopular, but there seems to be only one of them for every 10 GM or Dodge on the streets. Any guesses?
I wish I had actually done this already so I could have contributed to van week!
“You may have noticed that I didn’t mention Econolines. I have no clue why they’ve become unpopular, but there seems to be only one of them for every 10 GM or Dodge on the streets. Any guesses?”
Good question, all I can say is you went to Ford for a truck and to GM or Chrysler for a van. Chrysler, IMHO, made the best vans
And yet since about 1980 the Econoline has continuously been the best selling full size van in the US, with 50% or greater market share in many of the years. Fact is for the people who rely on a van as a tool for their work the Econoline is the van of choice though the Express and Savanna did put GM’s market share back on the up swing.
I realize this is a family-friendly site, so I hope the following isn’t too inappropriate. I’ll keep it as clean as I can. Paul, please feel free to edit (or even delete) as you see fit.
All this talk of Shag Wagons reminds me of an “only-in-LA” sight I once witnessed in the rolling hills of Elysian Park, on the east side of the city, adjacent Dodgers Stadium. I was motoring pleasantly through this enormous, under-used and largely vacant greenspace one fine afternoon when, on a strip of flat roadway in the hills, I passed a line of cars parked on the right shoulder. The owners — all single men not talking to one another — were hanging around outside their respective vehicles, sitting on the hoods, smoking cigs, drinking sodas, etc. Every one of them took a good, long look at me as I drove by. What was this, I wondered, some kind of “cruise-in” for guys who owned boring, ordinary cars? Well yes, it was a “cruise-in”, of sorts — but not the kind you find at Bob’s Big Boy in the Valley.
I didn’t understand what all these dudes were all doing in this one, not-particularly-scenic part of an otherwise empty park until I passed a full-size van near the end of the line-up. Its pudgy, bespectacled, middle-aged pilot was leaning against the driver’s side of his rig, peering intently through my Cressida’s dust-covered greenhouse in an attempt to make eye-contact with me. For a fraction of a second, my peripheral vision happened to catch through the grimy glass his hand-lettered sign that read “MATTRESS ON BOARD.”
Then it all made sense. Van Man’s sign was what advertising and marketing people call a USP (Unique Selling Proposition); the one special asset that sets your product apart from your competition’s. Presumably unable to compete on his physical attributes, Van Man was giving himself an advantage in the sexual marketplace by offering his potential partners the comfort and the privacy they wouldn’t get if they chose to hook up with the younger, better-looking guy in the Corolla. Access to a roomy rolling bedroom was Fatso’s way of leveling the playing field.
Shag Wagons: They’re not just for heteros anymore.
Sounds more like a lucky escape from a serial killer,vans are a favourite vehicle for them.
Sounds like a lucky escape, even if he wasn’t a serial killer! At least he wasn’t offering moustache rides, for the full tacky 70s effect…
Further viewing for vanners:
“Faster than a speeding Econoline, more powerful than a Corvair Breenbrier, and able to leap tall Westfalia Kampers in a single bound, it’s… SuperVan!”
WARNING: Although this mostly-forgotten Vansploitation epic from the drive-in circuit of ’77 offers fun malaise-era CC-spotting, it is otherwise painfully, unwatchably bad.
My brother used my father’s 1960 VW van, a rare one with a camper setup inside and double doors on both sides, as his college ride one year. He said it was a great party van – park it in a wheat field somewhere, open all the doors to get a nice breeze, open a beer….
Late to the party but here is a Holden panel van (approx. 1970 model give or take a year) done up in the late 70’s as a show car. It lives at the National Motor Museum in Birdwood, South Australia which is in the Adelaide Hills.
And from the front
** Vans SUCK !! . . Only GEEKS drive Vans ! √