This big blue box is an interesting mix of firsts and lasts. It’s one of the first B-vans (B is for Bigger than the previous A-vans), and one of the last Fargo-branded vehicles to be sold new in North America.
F-A-R-G-O, Fargo. Same letter count as D-O-D-G-E, which was convenient for callouts like this. I mean no shade towards Dodge, but name me a better brand than far-go for a vehicle intended to work for its keep, eh!
White grilles and bumpers like this used to be a thing on vehicles specced and priced for utility rather than chrome-and-anodised flash. From what I’ve read, the engine options in ’71 were the 198 (surely not on the MaxiVan) or 225 Slant-Six, or the 318 V8. No 360 until ’72. I thought I’d clear up the mysteries with a glance at the VIN plate visible through the lower left corner of the windshield, but there is no such plate. No evidence there ever was, either, –which is weird because that requirement took effect for all new vehicles from 1 January 1969—at least in the States. Perhaps Canada didn’t adopt a similar requirement until awhile later– because this new-for-1969 requirement applied only to passener cars until some later year.
I’ll confess I didn’t notice the two-tone paint until this picture. Dodge or Fargo, it’s all the same to this Tradesman.
Chrysler did kind of a slapdash job extending the body to make the extra-long Maxivan. On the 18-inch-shorter regular body, the rear side marker light was—as the regulation required—on each side as close to the rear as practicable. They didn’t bother moving it on the Maxivan…
…but at least it’s in the same place on the other side. We also see a tiny little tailpipe snaking out past and abaft of the main one. I guess it’s for a cookstove or heat stove or something like that.
Back over to the right side, where there’s a lot of camper conversion to see. The spliced-in side windows say this was originally a cargo van, not a passenger one. We’ve got a single weathercovered electrical socket (117v house current, or…?); a black plastic elbow that looks like a drain; an assortment of white fittings I don’t recognise, and a modern LED work light.
The dealer placard suggests this is a lifelong Van van.
Bit of a paint-and-bodywork issue there in the wheel arch. And hey, remember that fastidiously-restored green one, whereon I exclaimed over the side marker lights not being faded like they always are? That was the exception proving the rule we see here.
…See? And while you’re seeing, see the Pentastar there on the passenger-side fender. Chrysler did that from 1963 until 1971, possibly into the ’72 model year on some vehicles. That’s why I’m calling this van a probable ’71. It’s not just tacked on, either; there’s a pentagonal recess for the emblem stamped into the fender. What do we guess the emblem cost Chrysler? I doubt it exceeded a penny apiece. In order to save money, Chrysler deleted the Pentastar emblem, which in this case meant making another fender tool; then stocking, distributing, and keeping track of another fender. New math, I guess.
Fargo borrowed the Fratzog from its Dodge brother, as we see on the hubcap here. Rumour has it Chrysler are resurrecting the Fratzog for electric vehicles. This is a reputable-brand tire, looking reasonably new and with good tread. I didn’t look closely at the other three…
…but the spare also appears to be recent enough to rely on, though less majorly branded. That door handle there doesn’t look like the ones on my ’71 or ’73 Dart, but it looks a whole lot like the ones on my ’62 Lancer.
You’ll notice (wouldn’t you?) this van has one “Power Beam” sealed beam headlamp, made by GM’s Guide division and sold in the aftermarket under the AC brand in the 1970s and early ’80s.
Evidently this Fargo is still in the process of going far; it was gone the next day. I’d like to have heard it start up and drive off.
“We also see a tiny little tailpipe snaking out past and abaft of the main one. I guess it’s for a cookstove or heat stove or something like that.”
On-board generator?
+1 on the generator
Not likely. Generators aren’t mounted fully enclosed inside the body; they’re in a separate enclosure that has a vented cover for the air intake, unless they’re mounted fully outside the body, like underneath or such. I don’t see any evidence of that. And generators are not really very common in conversion vans, especially homemade ones like this one.
Almost certainly it’s for a gasoline or diesel auxiliary heater/furnace, as there’s no evidence of the typical propane furnace exhaust or intake/exhaust vent on the body anywhere.
Def not for a cook stove.
Nice find. Those maxivans sure looked like the quick cut and paste job they were, although I find the white grill quite handsome.
I also enjoy the green grass and leaves on the trees. We’re expecting either rain or snow this afternoon…
A friend of mine had a ’73 Dodge 3/4 ton 4×4, LA 360, NP445 trans and the data plate (yes it was metal) not only said Dodge, but also Fargo, and believe it or not, DeSoto
Refer to the first three comments in this post:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/vintage-trucks/dead-brand-trucks-fargo-and-desoto-still-being-made-in-turkey-well-into-the-21st-century/
I’m not sure those data plates made it to Turkey, though.
Our US made ’69 A-108 and ’66 A-100 said Dodge and Fargo on the data plates, but no Plymouth or DeSOTO.
Like this?
That data plate, with the Fargo and DeSoto names, was used for many years after both those names were discontinued.
Since I sell manufacturing capacity, allow me to comment on one part of your excellent narrative.
Large toolings such as would be used for a fender would normally be built with a removable stamping insert for features like the Pentastar indentation. To get rid of the indentation, the stamping insert is removed and replaced with a flat insert. Replacement of the complete tool is not required.
Tooling so designed allows stamping changes without requiring replacement of a complete stamping die. Following this practice enabled auto makers to execute small year to year style changes without the cost of completely retooling. I’d be very surprised if the Dodge/Fargo fender tooling did not follow this practice.
It’s always fascinating to hear how things are REALLY done. I had wondered about the economics of these changes, but didn’t realize they were fairly easy.
Thanks for your comment. I was generally aware of this, and of course it’s very logical.
I thought of that, but dismissed the idea in this case. Seems to me removable/changeable tooling insert would’ve been provided only if they were producing fenders from the start both with and without the pentagonal recess—they weren’t—or knew at the start of production that in a year they’d be deleting it, which seems unlikely to me. I can imagine their making the new/second set of tools with an insert, though. Or are you saying a feature such as this recess is done with an insert whether or not there’s a need to preserve an option to delete it?
I did oversimplify to make the point that minor changes like this normally do not require new tooling. Still simplifying, but since you asked, here’s a bit more detail. Feel free to stop reading if I get too geeky. . . .
The tooling required for a large complex part like a fender is not a single die. A fender will go through multiple stamping operations starting with blanking.
Blanking dies will first cut a piece of sheet metal to the size needed by the drawing dies. These blanks will then pass through a series of progressive dies that form the metal into the shape of the desired part. The number of progressive dies required depends on the part design. Each of the progressive dies gets the part a bit closer to the final shape.
The reason for progressive dies is that each stamping stretches the metal. If sheet steel is stretched too severely by a single stamping, the part can wrinkle as well as develop weak spots that lead to cracks. A side benefit of progressive dies is that basic parts can have their appearance changed by modifying only some of the dies rather than having to replace an entire set of tooling.
Back when most parts were made of sheet steel, it was a bit of an art to design an attractive part that minimized the number of dies required. Today, many complex car parts are switching to composite materials that can be shaped without resort to progressive dies.
After the forming dies, the part has recognizable shape, but it is not finished. It will go through stations that trim and hem the edges. After hemming, holes and slots will normally be added. Since hemming can double over the metal at critical attachment points, it normally occurs prior to cutting holes and slots. Orienting shapes are often added at the same time. These are not styling features (though they can be), but rather are used to enhance the precision of part placement.
In the case of the Tradesman fender, there would have been a cutting die for the side marker lights. This cutting die would likely had multiple stations to trim and finish the cut edge and use punches to make any indentations as might be necessary. Among these stations for the cutting die, it is likely a punch face was added to make the pentastar indentation while the draw die had some material removed to create the female shape corresponding the male shape of the punch.
While die design does have limits as to where such shapes can be added, it is not necessary to have foreseen every possible change when designing the original die – particularly when adding or subtracting decorative elements whose positioning is not usually critical.
You can see this in the evolution of this series of Tradesman fenders. At some point, the design was changed to reposition the side marker light so that it became integral with the turn signal housing. In terms of the process, this likley was handled by replacing the cutting die with a smooth insert. I doubt a new tool was made unless the old tooling was damaged or worn out.
Neato! Thanks for the lesson. I feel like this would’ve been a good subject for one of those 1970s-’80s Sesame Street sequences where they showed how some industrial process worked, start to finish. Like the ones they did for saxophones; crayons, and sugar.
No, Mr Rob, geeky is good! Comments or posts like yours are excellent, and thank you for it.
Folk regularly reading this site quickly work out that it’s best to google before commenting, so when stuff comes in from a knowledgeable person in a given area, like yourself, plenty of geek in the comment is good. Sure as eggs there was plenty of stuff in your answer here that I didn’t know: I’ll google anything not clear to me now. So I’m off to look at some auto stamping articles or vids, which is another way in which this site seems to work to improve its readers!
Apologies to any here who aren’t, but car nuts in general are pretty geeky people. Ask me how I know…
Just wanted to add my thanks for a fascinating look into the manufacturing process.
Great find, always liked the name Fargo.
I had a ’71 Tradesman 200 panel van, previously fitted with wood paneling and, yes, shag carpeting. I bought it to use to tow, and it did tow, but the 318 drank more gas than I could feed it and it literally left me walking as a result. A broken gas gauge didn’t help, but you couldn’t just fill it up and be good for a while. The abysmal fuel mileage would get you and make you walk, well before you figured it was time.
I didn’t own the van long, and a shady former friend suckered me out of it. A few weeks later, the rear axle failed after he had sold it to a mutual friend (keeping the money he was supposed to give me for it) where it sat, and then another friend bought it, he welded it and drove it around a little longer, the rear tires making squeak noises when turning. He finally sold it to someone out of the circle and we never saw it again.
Seems like every time I try out a MOPAR, I’d have been better off taking my money and setting it afire. This time, unlike the Cab Forward cars, it was not so much the vehicle itself that was at fault for my less than stellar experience, granted.
The Pentastar lived on, a lot longer than the 1970s. It was on the first two years’ LH sedans, 1993-1994. It disappeared on the 1995s. By then it was an adhesive applique only, no recess in the (plastic) fender.
It didn’t live on, it was resurrected for the ’93 LH cars after a 21-year absence—and they put it on both fenders that time.
The two-tone choice of colors does this van no favors, IMO. Given that it has been residing in the wet and humid Northwest, perhaps the lower half got a repaint along the way somewhere, to cover up rust repairs.
Is the chrome/aluminum strip along the sides a factory part, or did someone add it after the fact?
There was a two-tone paint scheme that used a bright strip like that, but certainly not in these two shades of blue. The lower half was obviously repainted. It might have been a single color paint job to start with. Who knows?
Johnston Motors was a large Chrysler Plymouth dealer at Kingsway & Main here in Vancouver…long gone.
Thanks; I wondered where it had been.
an assortment of white fittings I don’t recognise
The top white plastic vent appears to be a vent for the sink and/or water tank.
The one to its right and somewhat below is the fill for the fresh water tank.
Right below it is the city water fitting (hooking up to pressurized fresh water via a hose).
The black elbow is the drain for the sink. It was very common back then not to have a gray water tank, and just let the sink water run to the ground. Technically, that’s still legal in many public jurisdictions but most folks still using that will set a plastic bucket under it to catch the gray water.
The final white fitting in the far right appears to be a drain for the fresh water tank.
Thanks, Paul; I reckoned you’d be able to name ’em off! One I don’t see here that I’ve seen on other vehicles is a metal dingus, usually chromed, having a round port about ø6cm with a crosspiece like one sees in a shower drain.
In a strange coincidence, I learned that today (Easter Monday) is Dingus Day. I had never heard of it before. The Wiki article is quite entertaining.
I had previously only used “Dingus” in the sense you did here, Daniel.
Well, how about that. Today I learned!
You mean like the one below? That’s for a propane furnace. Some have just one (exhaust); some two (intake and exhaust).
Yes, along that line. Thanks.
Nice find! I was well aware of Fargo trucks, but had idea the Mopar vans had ever been branded such.
As a young lad, I was very amused by an anthropomorphic Hanna-Barbera character hopping out of the bed of a pickup truck and saying “Fargo! I guess that’s as FAR as we … GO!” When you’re six or seven, any joke you get is a funny joke.
Did the Fargo nameplate exist so that Plymouth dealers would have a non-Dodge-branded truck to sell? And if so, did Fargo’s discontinuation sow the seeds for Plymouth’s ultimate demise?
In the vein of “bad puns involving Fargo, ND” … although I was a bit older than the intended demographic, I’d occasionally sample the PBS “Electric Company” series in the early ’70s. One of the recurring bits featured Skip Hinnant as a detective who unscrambled secret messages. Naturally, he was “Fargo North, Decoder”.
Hah! I watched The Electric Company when I could get away with it—my mother didn’t like it—and I didn’t remember Mr. North. I’ll go see if I can scare up some video.
These early ones are not often seen. The very first one of these vans I ever saw was a mid trim passenger version in the same color as the upper half blue. It was owned by the people on the street who never kept up the outside of their house or took down the outside Christmas lights until June or so. I found it mystifying why someone might want one. a couple of years later, another friend’s family got a high-trim version and I fell in love.
That rear extension may look like an afterthought, but I always thought it was better executed than the later version that made the extension longer after the stretch panel behind the front doors went away. If these looked a mite tail-heavy, the later one turned that perception up to 11.
You got to get the Trucoat.
It’s nice to see one of these still in fairly decent shape .
-Nate
Great write-up! I’ve kept an eye open for a Fargo-badged B-van in northwest Ontario, but’ve come up empty-handed…I think they all crumbled to dust here years ago. Did spy a Fargo-badged LCF near Kenora, though.
As for the VIN (or lack thereof), I think the dashboard plate didn’t become mandatory on light trucks until years after it first become mandatory on cars…possibly in 1981, when the 17-digit format came into effect. I don’t think Ford pickups had a visible plate until the 1980 redesign, on either side of the border.
Thank you. That’s probably it; now I read the actual text of the requirement as published in 1968 in the U.S. Federal Register, it says the standard applies to passenger cars.
My father had a ’72 tradesman 200 318 Dodge maxi van with windows only in the doors. He used it for his electrical contracting business.
I recall all the extended vans having a tacked on quality about them. Carpet guys loved them.
I still have a nasty scar at the base of my thumb from reaching into the depths of disorder to pull out a box of romex only to deeply gouge it on a large box staple. In a tender moment of care for his 9 year old son, my old man wrapped a piece of a rag with some electrical tape to control the bleeding.
The truck was even tougher surviving around 300k miles of my fathers abuse. A great color, too. Kind of a burnt orange.
I miss the Mopar B vans. Thanks, Daimler.
“Fargo” always sounds to me more like the exclamation one might use if hitting one’s thumb with a hammer in front of the nuns.
But far they indeed went, as we got them here, albeit long prior to these vans, which we got in no form ever. I think Chrysler here was selling the delightfully ugly Commer FC by ’71-ish, which was marketed as Fargo in some places, according to wiki. If you think 198 c.i. is a poor match to move many about in a group, try a Commer: 91 c.i., and they had (possibly) 10-12 seat models and enormously over-topping camper bodies available for those who live in hope rather than expectation of arrival.
I like these American (Canadian) vans. I know from things written here before that they’re crude, but they’ve got a bit of style and actual engines. Also, Ford Oz put 200c.i. sixes into the English Transit vans, and I drove one for a bit. I loved it. Like a US job with the big dogbox into the cabin, but a smaller vehicle and with short-arse gearing, so it really hopped along. Unlike, say, a Commer, under any badge.
Ultimately, the bit of style in this camper and the idea of ANY van with a 6 litre V8 in it is too funny, and too hard for me to resist.
A friend of mine came across a deal to buy a pair of those back around ’80 for the price of one. Might have been out of a fleet or something, I can’t recall now. Long wheelbase etc, big vans, 360 with an auto, slow but thirsty. Some sort of a blue color. Of course they were both rode hard and put away wet even if they didn’t have terribly high miles on them. I guess he finally sold one and struggled trying to keep the other on the road, tranny problems among other things IIRC.
He did have the interesting adventure of just crossing the Sierras out of South Lake Tahoe where he lived, rolled up to the stop sign at the bottom by Carson City and a ball joint broke. Inconvenient, but a couple of miles earlier would have been fatal. He really dodged it on that one. I think he limped it for years until he finally drank himself to death almost 10 years later. Don’t know what finally happened to it, his girlfriend probably moved it out to the street to be towed away.