It seems to be something floating around a fair amount of blogs at the moment, so we thought we'd stick our two-penneth in.  Vannin' rocks!... you want more than that? Okay...
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The 70's US van culture created a wave of murals, button down velour interiors, disco lights and shiny slotmags the world over.  Today you can see the influence it had in the Japanese 1-box scene, which in turn is influencing a variety of Western car anf van modifiers.  At the time it had a strong influence on UK and European modifiers with Bedford and Transit vans getting modified in a variety of different ways.

Wild paint, shiny wheels and plush interiors were the order of the day for these vans, ideas which we can certainly still learn from and apply in different, more subtle, ways to our current rides.  The problem is that being more subtle we may miss the actual point of these vans, to go all the way, to be as lairy as you want to be, to have a wizard, riding a unicorn, carrying a sword, over a mountain, chased by a dragon, airbrushed six foot high down the side of your van, well... it makes a statement.

Whats more vannin is alive and well with both classic and modern vans getting 'the treatment'.  You can catch a great history lesson on the rise of Vannin here which is well worth a read to get up to scratch.

If you want to get a great flavour of vans through the years check out this thread.  I'd love to see some more UK and European builds of this style of van, or perhaps a few of the older ones out and about at the summer shows.  The question is,.. what mural to put on it...

Photos from this flickr set

 

Posted on: November 24, 2009 03:16

Whether running on old car on a daily basis or having it as a high days and holidays special, autojumbles can be one of the best sources of spares and accessories. Some jumbles are better than others and then some jumblers are better than other jumblers too. A stall with well labelled boxes of bits is more likely to get customers than one with a load of rusty old parts just thrown randomly on the ground. Of course there could be treasures amongst those rusty old parts so every stall still needs a good browse…

It is also nice to see some jumblers who are clearly fully involved in the old car hobby and so use old vans or pickups to transport their wares about. Here’s a selection from the recent Enfield Pageant of Motoring.

This Bedford CA pick up was almost hidden behind the stall but would have been a show stopper on its own with the wooden bed and canvas bed cover.



This 58 Chevy pick up had a hard cover over its bed, bed being the operative word as it looked like the stall holders used it to camp in as well as to transport various period US accessories.



Staying with US vehicles, how about a battle scarred early sixties Studebaker Champ pick up?



And then there’s always room for a classic Transit at such events, though it wouldn’t be many years ago when this was just a battered old van.



Some other photos from the show appear in the Practical Classics magazine blog so feel free to check them out there.




Posted on: May 28, 2009 04:37