2013 warming up to be another great year in Vanning

It's been a while between posts here but with Facebook, Showvans.com, Vannin.com and Instagram the word is getting out there. Back in March Steve and I got Ghostrider in the Megaspeed car show here in Toronto. We met a number of vanners/van owners there some for the first time. The van got a lot of attention but surprisingly not even a participation ribbon :(. Oh well same thing happened last year with MUD BOS.

Got word a while back from Scott that AACA had wanted his van Emerald Express for a display. The kicker being that they would need it from May 17 to Oct 13. Scott passed not wanting to be without his van all summer. Fortunately we were able to get Phil and Wendy to agree to put Nautique in the display. The showboard was an ad-van-ture that I took on. Dirty Donny was kind enough to let us use some of his art on the showboard  This also made me delve a bit into the history of custom vans and that was a very good thing. I connected with one of the original members of Associated vans in California. Their club was formed way back in 1966 ! I'm hoping to see Beebe and some of their other members at the event following. Joe Madonia also supplied some images from the past from his vast collection. Will be doing something with Joe to showcase his Vanning Museum soon.

The Mooneyes 2012 Xmas show was the first time vans were officially invited. Although the Vandoleros had been going for a few years. The turnout of vans was very good and vanners/van owners were there from near and far. The word is vans are welcomed back in 2013. There may be limitations on vehicles this year, will keep on top of that. I'm hoping the turnout can be even bigger and better in 2013 and will be using funds from the 2014 Showvans calendar to help with that.  

Vanfest 2013 is just weeks away now, looking forward to that.

Moon Eyes, Vanfest in Mini Truckin', 2 new vanner magazines issues, van art, 2014 van show ...

Winter has yet to set in up here yet and all I can think about is the warmth of California. Maybe it's because of the huge Moon Eyes show this coming weekend. It will likely be the largest gathering of show vans in California this year. Matchstick is headed down to this show to launch Custom Vanner Magazine #5 that also includes a 2013 calendar. Matt is launching Rolling Heavy Issue 2 there as well, you'll see some of John Jackson's work in that issue. Coby will also be at Moon Eyes with the long awaited print of the award winning Vango logo. Some period correct 70's vans stole the Moon Eyes Yokohama Japan show last weekend, they are all over the internet already. VCVC has a wicked looking 2013 calendar as well. The bar has been raised very high this year for all things that vanners are doing in print, that is a great thing !
The 2012 Vanfest coverage is in the latest Mini Truckin Magazine, only a glimpse of vans in the background but this is the first national publication to run coverage of Vanfest. Huge thanks to Jessica and all the mini truckers who put this great coverage together. That whole adventure to get the coverage ended up with Jessica marrying John Mata, the editor of Mini Truckin during the 2012 SEMA week. We'll have John up here for Vanfest 2013. If we don't get the vans from Vanfest 2012 covered in a magazine we'll see if John can help us get them into Truckin' in 2013. He works down the hall from the Truckin' people. Getting back to California, the wheels are in motion to do another calendar for 2014. it would be the 10th and final edition of the Showvans calendar. Should there be a 2014 CofC in California the funds will once again be used to finance the van show. If that doesn't happen I'm looking into co-producing a show in the late spring/early fall of 2014 down there. One of the hottest car culture artists on the planet has already offered to do the poster for it. This time we would have the top van related artists in California displaying their wares at the show and I'll try to convince my friends at Wheels of Confusion to do a Slow Ride that weekend to coincide with the show.

Showvans 2012 Tour, from All Trucks to Altruks, Van Gogh to Ed Beard

This year I did something completely different. Instead of putting all my eggs in one basket and going to the Nationals I went on a week long vanning tour. A few of us have been pushing vanners to get out to the big car shows both indoors and out for a while now. Kurk from Customvan.com took that idea this year and ran with it like no other vanner has done in many moons. First he put together the 10 vans to be in Motorama in march then he pulled off a major coup in getting vans featured at the Carlisle All Truck Nationals. The event was a big success close to 50 vans were at Carlisle and there was a very nice display of vans inside one of the buildings. Coverage is now up on Showvans.com.

After helping pack up everything at Carlisle I went by Kurk's Belly Acres for the night and got to see his shop with an amazing view. From there I headed east towards the Chop State. There are probably more chopped van projects happening in New Jersey than all other states combined. Superbeast my longtime    co-partner in crime for Showvans took me on a tour to see a few of the locals. We stopped by Joe's place, he has 3 chops in various states and other vans as well. Then we passed by Claud's to see his varied collection of vans including Metalstorm. The next day I headed to N.Y.C for a quick visit there. First time there on my own so I was able to take a more leisurely tour through Times Square, Central Park and the Met. Then I got out of Manhattan before the trafic and headed to Munz'. Munz has a very nice collection of vans as well. Including a chopped Astro under construction that few vanners have seen. I've been a fan Astro/Safaris from day one and sure like what Munz has planned for his to make it one of a kind. Next it was off to New York, stopped by Orange County Choppers then headed to Albany. Next day my best non vanning pal Pete and I headed up to Hemmings for a tour and to check out their Cruise Night. Hemmings has the largest collection of panels in their museum that I've or heard of. We met up with their web/blogger guy Daniel and had a good chat. Then it was off to Scott's to see his newest project. Scott has built some incredible vans in his time like the Jersey Devil and Visions. Unfortunately Visions was lost in a fire shortly after it made it's debut at Lost Memorial. His latest project is Mid Ford but a shorty this time. The work so far on it is incredible. The plan is to have it done possibly in 2014, 2013 will be used to do the interior. Scott also showed us his amazing collection of model vans, he seems to have every van model ever built. He has also customized some Nylint vans to make them one of a kind collectibles.

Then to round out this amazing week I went to Somers Connecticut for Super Somer 11. I have a long time very special connection to Altruk Vans thanks to Pat who helped me get the ball rolling on the calendar project. I parked with Johnny O there who was a huge help with the 2012 calendars mailing out all the U.S and International orders for me. Mat and Shoreh from Montreal rolled into our camp late Friday and Munz rolled in Saturday. It was great seeing so many vanner friends there who I hadn't seen since the 2010 Nationals and some even longer than that.

Moving along

The 2012 season is halfway done now but plenty more to go. Vanfest was another huge success once getting with a record turnout. It looks like we are finally going to get some coverage for it as well in Mini Truckin' thanks to the minitruckers getting together to do the story and coverage. It's been a long time coming for that. Here's one of my favorite shots: 

Full coverage on the Vanfest website on Vannin.com

 One of the biggest events for vanning this year will be the Carlisle All Truck Nationals. Kurk from Customvan.com has rallied vanners once again to show at what is the largest custom truck show there is. Vanners are coming from all over for this. We'll have plenty of pictures on the Showvans site and we'll likely see many of the vans showing up in national magazine coverage.  

Krispy decided to sell his beloved van Psycho Delirious this year. He was rather surprised when a huge trailer with Hot Rod all over it showed up to pick it up. Hot Rod and Ebay have teamed up for a web based show called http://www.builtfromebay.com/   It is audience participation so please vote for each episode, right now there are 4 episodes and to no surprise the van is right up there in second place, but we won't be happy until it wins !  

 

Vanfest this weekend, memorial for Al Brown

 The Ford guys and gals are in town for Vanfest after being at Carlisle last weekend. So we had another tour out to Bradford to see Supervan once again.

As a special treat this Econoline pickup was there, two of the guys with us currently own Econo pickups. This one is one of the nicest new school Econo pickups ever built. 

There was also a Corvair Greenbrier there. Great restoration on it but I think the color scheme is more for the vintage car crowd. Even with the surfboard on top, the cool factor is missing somehow.

Headed to Vanfest later on today barring bad weather, then I'll go early tomorrow. We'll be having a memorial for our friend Al there. Al pretty much started vanning up here in Canada and made vanning a part of his life for close to 40 years ! This collage will be shown at Vanfest, a slide show will be presented with all of these pictures and others and some of Al's photo albums, dash plaques and other collectibles will be on display.   

This memorial has been very tough to put together in so many ways . It has extracted a tremendous amount of energy and enthusiasm from me. After Vanfest I'll be taking a break, then hopefully be doing a road trip to the Carlisle Truck Nationals and Super Somer. 

Summer is arriving too quick !

Oooh noo, so much to do so little time. I've been slacking off, well not really but it seems like it when I get my nose stuck in so many things and don't get it all done.

Vanfest is coming up quick in just over a month now. I've been doing the Vanfest website since about 2003 and been on the staff for as long. I totally revamped the website in the past couple of days to attract a bit more attention to it: Vanfest 2012 website . This year there will also be a special memorial to Al Brown who passed away this past Christmas. I'll post more about that once we iron out the details.
 I mentioned a couple of posts back about going to Ivan Benic's during my trip to Autorama. Ivan's been very busy redoing the murals on the Cosmic Cruiser, building an incredible supercar, building another radical tandem Dodge van and a variety of other projects. Yesterday he had 100 gearheads through his shop on tour from Detroit. I had the great opportunity to hang out with Ivan all afternoon in his shop and had a very nice dinner prepared by his mother who is absolutely incredible.

Here's a closeup of some of the new artwork on the Cosmic Cruiser.

Here's a shot of Ivan's Supercar project, it's a fully handbuilt aluminum body. The plan is for it to have a 500hp rear mounted engine. It will scream ! Ivan's been posting regularly on Facebook. You can try to keep up with all the stuff he's been doing over there. Look forward to seeing him again at Vanfest and maybe before if things work out.

One of the things that interested me the most about vans from day one is the creativity that goes into the body mods and the artwork on the vans. There's a whole new generation of artists who are using vans as their subjects and or canvases. I'll be showcasing some of their work and linking up their websites. In the past year I've been fortunate to hang out with some of them and to be able to buy artwork from others.
The artists creating van art range from artists who do renderings, airbrush artists and photographic artists who choose vans as their subjects or canvas'.
I've added to the Van Art section of Showvans.com and will add more as needed.

Steam Whistle Brewery Dodge, Chevy Van 50th.

Went by my favorite brewery yesterday, Steam Whistle is conveniently located at the base of the CN Tower in Toronto. Was hoping to see their newest delivery vehicle and was not disappointed. Here it is in all it`s metalflaked splendor. They got this so right with all the right accessories, molded in flairs and the stance is wicked. We`ll be back there on the pre Vanfest Virtual tour for sure to check it out including the interior. 

The original Chevy van came out in the 1964 model year. Hoping that Chevy will do something for this milestone. I`ve setup a Facebook page to get some interest going in this : 50th Anniversary of the Chevy Van on Facebook.