This very nice outwardly stock Chevy Sportvan has been appearing at this spot in my neighborhood from time to time lately, and I finally got a chance to get some pictures. It strikes me as a particularly clean machine, a box on wheels of the VW Microbus philosophy, but front engine, rear drive and bigger, Detroit style. Even though I’ve never been interested in vans, mini or otherwise, I’m quite taken by this one, mainly because of its clarity of design. Pinning down the exact year is an interesting and unfinished problem, and leads us to that front bowtie badge, which is a bit mysterious.
See what I mean, it’s a simple box on wheels, nicely proportioned with some creases just where you’d expect them. Lots of window glass all around for great vision from inside. This could be a three-row people mover for eight with plenty of luggage space.
Over here we get a look at the double curbside doors, which open into a big space for stuff if the back seats are gone. It’s tall enough for a flat floor too, which has to be a good thing for loading.
The previous generation of these Chevy vans replaced the Corvair-based rear-engined Greenbriar van, which was a true echo of the VW Microbus. From 1964 to 1966 Chevy II based front-engine rear-drive Chevy-Vans competed with the Falcon-based Ford Econoline and Valiant-based Dodge A100 vans. Like the Chevy II they had 4 or 6 cylinder inline engines. This generation followed in 1967, easily spotted by the flat front with headlights in the grille. They had just a little more room in the engine house to fit a small V8. They were available with a 90-inch wheelbase like the first-gen vans, or a 108-inch wheelbase, like this example, the Sportvan 108. Drum brakes, I-beam front axle, leafs out back. No power steering available, but you could get power brakes.
Sorry for the reflections in this shot, but it shows you the whole interior, which evidently started out as all cargo space, but is now shared by a big cushy sofa at the back. Talk about a living room on wheels, this is the real thing! The front seats appear to have been replaced by more modern automotive seats with headrests, flanking the large central engine compartment.
This very inviting couch is fitted with seat belts for proper motoring safety. With cushions from home. Who needs a brougham when you can have a genuine living room? It has a good six feet of legroom next to those double doors. There’s another two feet behind the couch for stowing stuff…
…which you can get to through these other double doors. Not much of a lift-up distance to that flat floor.
Up front it’s a plain sixties van, with a large and nearly horizontal wheel for piloting this living room down the highway, a full set of gauges, and handy controls. You’re sitting next to a 130 hp 230 cu. in. inline six, a 155 hp 250 six, a 200 hp 307 V8, or just maybe (says Wikipedia) a 255 hp 350 V8. That shift quadrant is PRND-D2-D1, indicating the three-speed Turbo Hydra-Matic transmission, not the available Powerglide, manual four-speed or standard three-on-the-tree. I’m guessing the THM has a V8 to match. Who knows what the mileage was.
What year is this van? They made these from ’67 through ’70. The side marker lights appeared in 1968 according to Wikipedia, and in ’69 the TH-350 Turbo Hydra-Matic became an option. No visible distinctions that I’m aware of between the ’69 and the ’70, so I’m just guessing and calling this a ’69. The front bowtie badge had a red insert in ’67 and ’68, and a blue insert in ’69 and ’70, confirmed by a look at the ’69 and ’70 brochures on gearheadwiki.com. And that’s our little mystery, where did this red, white and blue badge come from? The paint looks original, with a clean edge on the chrome surround, not hand-painted, but I’ve found no badges like it on the web. Think you know every last little factoid about Chevies? Then is this a ’69 or a ’70? And is this badge original?
Finally here’s a shot including the minivan parked behind it, which looks smaller than it is due to perspective. A clean design in a nice bright color. Maximum utilization of space. The modern minivan is obviously much safer, more comfortable and more efficient. As it should be fifty years after the Sportvan. But I know which one has more character. A true living room on wheels!
I think it was just masked and sprayed. Look over on the left…looks like the masking tape was a little out of place. Great looking van.
A buddy had one of these in high school. It didn’t have all the windows though and had been ‘customized’ on the inside with ultra cheap paneling fastened with bottle caps as washers and a mattress thrown in back. It was well used (up) when he got it and I don’t think I’ve ever driven anything with steering as sloppy since then. He later got some bucket seats to replace the originals in front and bolted them in with U-bolts through the front fender wells on each side. Thereafter he mysteriously began having a series of flat (front) tires. He asked me if I had any idea what was going on and I looked under the wheel wells to see the far too long U-bolt threads poking down into the fender well. They were bent from hitting the tire… Another day he was rolling down the road and the fuel tank fell off which was probably held up with hanger wire… Fun times…
These days you can hold up the gas tank with cheap nylon ratchet straps, much better…..
Sofa with seatbelts! Nice idea. Makes the back compartment more like a ’40s sedan.
I just hope those seat belts are attached to the van’s structure and not to the sofa frame. I have seen a couple of teenage boys do real damage to a sofa frame, and they are surely less potent than crash forces. Though it is not like anyone in one of these is going to fare all that well in an accident.
A most excellent find. As a guy who loves vans, I am all over this one. I have to say that I have found these Chevrolets the most homely of the era’s vans. None of them is beautiful, but there is something extra awkward about these. Or maybe I just have not looked at them long enough.
I am not sure if I would go so far as to call this a separate generation from the 1964-66 van – the external sheetmetal changes look minimal and there is no change to the window shapes or door hinge setup. I don’t doubt that Chevrolet made upgrades as their crosstown rivals were upping their games on vans in those years. The changes to accept the V8 and THM were probably the main drivers for updates.
If this is an original paint color I am going to call 1969. Chevrolet did not offer a turquoise like this in 1970, so far as I have been able to find. On the badge, I am also going to vote “homemade”. Though I kind of like the idea. I have long thought that Chevrolet should revert to either blue or red on its bow tie emblem, but nicely done red-white-blue insert could work for the modern emblem.
If you’re right about the paint colors then you get the prize for nailing down the year.
I suspect the red, white, and blue emblem was owner-motivated by either one of Chevy’s slogans… See the USA in a Chevrolet…. Baseball, Hotdogs, Apple Pie, and Chevrolet.
Sofa with seatbelts? Hell, yes! The middle seats came out of our Sedona the day it came home and went into the storage barn. They’ll go back in the day it goes for trade-in appraisal.
And the meantime we’ve got a foldaway back seat, perfect for NASCAR and MotoAmerica trackside tailgating. Drop it into the seat well and it’s basic RV for hauling. Which is how it’s kept 99% of the time.
My good friend bought a very original ’67 90” wheelbase cargo Handi-van a few years ago. It was very dry for Iowa, they galvanized the lowers on these from the factory, too. He’s done some light mods with it in the ’70’s vanner style, mostly with the wheels but left the exterior stock, original faded paint and he’s got it dialed mechanically.
It’s had Keystones, appliance mags, Cragers, even some wacky rare G-body mags on it at one point. Fun stuff! The 250 with the Powerglide is actually quite the ripper when it’s only pushing a small, unloaded cargo van!
Just a guess, but I’d say that someone was feeling the spirit back in 76 and they painted their emblem for the bicentennial. Forty plus years of weathering give it an original appearance.
The overall proportions are indeed a little awkward; particularly the ratio of front and rear overhangs to each other and to the wheelbase. But in these pictures, the surface details of edges and corner radii look perfect to me. Ditto the window shapes. At its best, 1960’s GM styling was pretty darn good. And those overall proportions are certainly practical.
I was thinking the real mystery is what kind of van is the mystery machine? You see different kinds of sixties vans painted up for the Scooby Doo show, but I think it’s one of these.
Nice van, great sofa. How many times do we get to say that??
By the way the Sportvan 108 Custom that I posted back in December,
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-outtakes/cc-outtakes-quick-get-some-shots-before-the-ice-cream-melts/
similar vintage with side markers, had a white bow tie badge.
That’s a nice one too, with an interesting two-tone around the windows. The brochure didn’t cover paint choices but did show one like that on its cover.
I don’t know either whether it’s truly a different “generation” than its immediate predecessor but the curved windshield vs the earlier flat face would go a ways toward that conclusion.
Re the bowtie I tend to agree with those who vote homemade. Wasn’t there a period, much later, say early 00’s, when Chevy color keyed the background of the bowtie to the various models? IIRC, Red for sporty Vette and Camaro, blue for bread and butter Malibus and Corsicii, gold for trucks and vans. Or has the house arrest of the virus clouded my memories?
It’s interesting that GM found it worthwhile to change the front end of their van in the middle of its run, unlike Ford and Dodge.But then the original front end styling was rather a bit odd, with that flat windshield.
The really odd thing was that Dodge used a two-piece windshield. Ford got it right, from the start, with what must have been a pretty expensive big curved piece of glass.
I suppose this qualified as a truck, but were trucks exempted from the column mounted starter switch? If so, this would be a 68. But I really have no clue about that. It’s interesting how the dash is taken directly from the early Chevy II
Yes, trucks were exempt from the column ignition requirement and a lot of others for several years. Even the first few years of the 1975+ E series Ford van still used a dashboard ignition key (mounted on the left side of the dash in classic Ford fashion). I don’t recall them getting a column ignition until maybe 78-79. I know it had one by 1981.
I’m going to guess 1969, and it’s based entirely on the side marker reflectors. For 1968, manufacturers had the option of using lights ‘or’ reflectors. Chrysler thought they’d have to use lights so that’s what they used in 1968. They wised-up and used reflectors for 1969 but the following year, lights were mandatory.
So, based on the Mopar side marker lights/reflector history, I’m going to say this Chevy is a 1969.
Good spotting.
Well, there is one potential caveat, and that’s that the requirements between car and truck side marker lights might have been different. JP has already pointed out how trucks weren’t required to have a locking steering column until many years after cars. A similar exemption might have been in place for side marker lights, too.
The picture shows at least two tiny paint drips below the badge. To my knowledge, Chevy has never had a red white and blue badge with the colors divided at an angle. I think it was hand painted a very long time ago.
I wonder how the couch would perform in a crash test. I’d hate to go through the windshield with a couch attached to my butt.
Nice van/cool find.
I too am pretty sure the badge was hand-painted, mainly due to the lack of any such examples on other cars. Even the ’74 Spirit of America Nova with all its red, white and blue striping had a gold bowtie.
But there are still a few things that make me wonder. Any drips you see might be raindrops refracting light. Given that the original ’69-’70 badge was blue throughout, you’d think the flaking on the white area would show some blue, not just grey primer. That white blotch over the red is hard to explain though.
Could this be the original “Colonnade”?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonnade
Not only do we have an A, B, C and D pillar, but this one spots an E and an F pillar as well!
Besides a Bus or a Pullman Car, have there ever been that many?
Fascinated by the sofa. It looks to me like it might be a sleeper sofa with a pull out bed. If so, it would be a teenage dream at the drive-in theater.
yep, it converts to a surprisingly comfortable bed. Also has two captains chairs that slide in or out along with a table. Got the full conversion treatment including the high-back bucket seats by the previous owner who got it from his dad.
My best friend’s parents had one of these, solid blue with white two-tone. The TH-350 for some reason lasted a week, then the dealer had it for over a month waiting for a replacement. Anyway, they only kept it a few years and traded for an Econoline Club Wagon. There must have been more problems with the Chevy, because that family normally kept vehicles a long time.
My brother had a 1969 Dodge A-108 Sportsman with the 318/Loadflite Dad gave him for his first car. I was driving a ’66 A-100 cargo van, 273/Loadflite. Dodge was the first to offer a V-8.
In auto restoration re-did emblem colors all the time, the color transitions look spray can, I did some on a chevy pickup in red/white/blue, but had crisp straight definition between colors and equal 1/3rd division’s, nice van though
Heyo, that’s my van and I’m happy to tell you anything about it you’d like to know. It’s a 69. And it does have a V-8 & a TH350
I have a 1969 ChevyVan 90. The emblem on the front is original, mine has one too. Mine was painted gold though so I don’t know the original color although I suspect it was chrome.