Virtual Vanner's Custom Van blog

Council of Councils this weekend in St Petersburg Florida

2012-01-30T20:25:00.000-08:00

Each year hundreds of vanners attend the annual custom van convention called the Council of Councils (CofC). There are meetings to discuss custom vanning with elected members of the various councils as well as an open meeting where anyone can participate. It's also at this event that the decision is made on who will be hosting the following year's National Truck-In. The National Truck-In is in it's 40th year in 2012 and will be held in Elkhorn Wisconsin July 11-15. A fairly new addition to the CofC is the van show. Last year we took advantage of being in California to have a full blown van show after the Saturday meetings. This show was sponsored by Showvans.com and attracted some of the top vans in the land including Vango and Octopus's Garden, vans that had just been in the GNRS. Octopus's Garden had also been in the 2010 SEMA show. We managed to get a few magazines there including Hot Rod, Truckin' and Drive Magazine. 2011 went on to be a very good year for coverage of vans in magazines, mainly of Vango. It's appearance at GNRS was huge, Coby took home the Chip Foose design award which pretty sealed the deal that it would gain acceptance by the very critical car crowd. It will be tough to beat 2011, we're not doing the CofC on the doorstep of all these magazines but we do have a new guy at Hot Rod interested in vans. Dennis Pittsenbarger just bought himself a classic Chevy van and is wondering what to do with it. He has written two blogs about it and his motivation to tackle a van : http://blogs.hotrod.com/hrml-motivation-and-’74-g10-shorty-19867.html#comment-38807 I'll be sending him a vanner care package and invites to the next Slow Ride headin up the coast from Malibu as well as Dirty Donny's art show called Vantastic Voyage opening Feb 25th in Santa Monica.
So the future is looking bright once again. To make sure of that Johnny O has followed through with the idea to make show cards to promote vanning. The idea is not new however this is the first time someone has followed through to this extent. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 of these cards have been made. This was another project I was able to donate money to thanks to the 2012 calendar proceeds. Here's what they look like :
The show is in the middle. These cards will be handed out at the big indoor shows like Motorama, Autorama and Megaspeed. Plenty more going on, will mention that next time.

Vanarama 2012, Autorama, Megaspeed, Motorama, Starbird, World of Wheels ...

2012-01-19T10:57:00.000-08:00

Custom vans are hitting the road once again to go to these indoor shows across North America.
Last year was a huge year for vans at these indoor shows with Coby's Vango stealing the show at the prestigious GNRS and taking home the Foose Design Award. Ron's Octopus's Garden was also in GNRS last year as well as SEMA in 2010. John Jackson's Boogie Van was everywhere in the past 2 years including SEMA (2001 and 2011), Detroit, Houston and countless outdoor shows. In honor of this we'll be making banners for all those entering their vans in these shows this year and I'll send some to Coby, Ron and give John his at Autorama. I'll get all the details together of these shows and post them on Showvans.com.

2012-01-07T05:04:00.000-08:00

If I were 3000 miles closer I'd be going on the Slow Ride for sure:

Coverage of the first Slow Ride is here : Slow Ride coverage on Showvans.com

The next Slow Ride is Sunday Feb 19th full info here: Slow Ride to Malibu, discussion on Vannin.com

Al Brown, 1930-2011 R.I.P

2011-12-28T18:54:00.000-08:00

Al Brown left us on Christmas Day, at the very feisty age of 81 years old. Al pretty much started organized vanning in Canada way back in the early 70's and actively participated in it with his last event being Vanfest 2011 this past June. The wheels are in motion to properly recognize Al for his dedication to vanning. Here's a collage of mainly recent photos of Al with some of his many friends.

The 2012 Showvans calendar is sold out.

2011-11-20T03:56:00.000-08:00

Finally got a chance to see the 2012 Showvans calendar yesterday and send out some of the final orders. The printer once again did a bang up job. My buddy Johnny O did an incredible job mailing out 90% of the orders last week, that was a huge help this year especially.
This calendar project started in 2004 as a labor of love and turned into a lot of work trying to outdo the previous version and trying to keep everyone happy. It went from mostly a northeast thing to a world wide thing with a full 1/4 of orders coming from overseas this year.
The 2012 calendar is sold out, I have to scramble ro cover 2 remaining orders. There won't be another calendar until at least 2015 when a final 10th issue could come out to support the 2015 CofC in California.
Thanks to everyone who supported the calendars for all these years !

2011-09-10T06:35:00.000-07:00

The 2011 vanning season is winding down slowly, but there are a couple of big events left. So that means it's time to get crackin' on the 2012 Showvans calendar. Our friend Arne in Norway is busy taking orders to once again blow everyone away . He's aiming for 125 this year ! He asked me to do a preview for him. Once again I need a disclaimer ... this is not the cover and the pictures you see aren't necessarily going to be the ones used. Order info here: http://www.vannin.com/showvans/calendar/index.html

39th National Truck-In

2011-07-28T12:36:00.000-07:00

The 39th National Truck-In will go into the history books as one of the best ! How about I let the pictures do the talking about the 6 amazing days we had in Old Washington Ohio with 614 vans through the gates from the 4 corners of North America.

Check it all out here on Showvans.com :

39th Van Nationals a.k.a National Truck-In July 13-17

2011-07-06T04:47:00.000-07:00

The big one is almost here. Expect to see 600+ custom vans converge on Old Washington Ohio next week. The pre-event starts Monday and the event officially opens at noon on Wednesday. Right out of the start it will be action packed, Wednesday night is Vanners Night at the Races. You will get to see the fastest custom vans on the planet with possibly 3 sub 10 second drag vans. Astro from Vannin.com has arranged to have a hot sport to broadcast a few of the events live. Expect to see video , pictures and blogging live from the event, but I'll warn you now that will make it even harder on you watching this from afar. Do try to be there by any and all means :).Full details here: http://nationaltruck-in.com

2011-06-04T09:26:00.000-07:00

Vanfest 16 is less than a week away, the fun actually begins for many of us on Wednesday at a campout at one of the vanner's places. I've been involved with this great event since about 2002 doing the website and then a bit more once we moved to Toronto. The one thing that still eludes us is getting coverage for Vanfest in a national magazine. So I'll be ramping up that effort this year especially seeing that we somehow managed to get our coverage in Truckin' of the 2010 Nationals and more recently get the 2011 CofC van show event covered in both Hot Rod and Drive Magazines (so far).

Vanfest 2011 will be another interesting run with new attendees coming from the East and West of the U.S.

Vans are back in Hot Rod this month !

2011-05-11T20:06:00.000-07:00

Vans are back in Hot Rod this month. The caption on the cover says Vans are Cool Again (don't blame us). There's a good bunch of people of vanners and van owners to blame for vans being cool again. First off big thanks to Howard and Todd for helping to get Rob Kinnan from Hot Rod interested in vans again. Howard and I visited with Rob at his office on the Thursday before the CofC show, then both him and Dave Wallace who is credited with the article and pictures came to the show. The California van scene has been very hot lately many thanks to my friends Brad and Tom from Wheels of Confusion as well as Jay and the Vandoleros. It's also fitting that there is a picture of Coby driving Vango on the intro page to the story. This van has broken down all the barriers and is appreciated by everyone. Coby of course comes from the hot rod and drag racing world so that is huge in the acceptance of his amazing creation. Ron's Octopus's Garden has also been an inspiration to many and has been seen by ten of thousands of car people at both the 2010 SEMA and the GNRS. It was a great meeting all these people in February during the Council of Councils. I'm hoping we can do it all again very soon. For now we'll just have to appreciate this extra 15 minutes of fame :). Keep on vannin' !

Fresh van porn from California and 2012 Showvans calendars

2011-05-08T05:43:00.000-07:00

A fresh batch of van art arrived this week from California via mail and vanner express. When I was at the CofC I picked up a ton of stuff and had no room to bring back the Jason Cruz Utility board. Originally I thought I would only see it at the Nationals so i twas a pleasnat surprise to get yesterday at our Spring all Ontario van club meeting. Dirty Donny's print and decal arrived as well this week. All of this California sunshine arriving makes the itch to get back there even stronger.

The decision has been made to go ahead with the 9th edition of the Showvans calendar. 2011 was going to be the final one but somehow that never works out. Full details here: 2012 Showvans Calendar order info
Each year I try something different but also keep some of the favorite pages going. I have some ideas to keep it fresh and updated.

Vango cover feature in next issue of Rod & Kulture

2011-04-30T18:23:00.000-07:00

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well this picture may be worth a few more. Coby's thinking of doing a whole edition of CHURCH Magazine just on the van from start to finish. This edition of Rod&Kulture will be out in June. Coby and his brother Marc both amazing photographers shot the cover and pictures for the 6 page feature. In the meantime we get to see it in a number of magazines in their Grand National Roadster Show coverage: Car Culture Deluxe, Custom Classic Trucks, Rod & Kulture, Rod & Custom, Street Rodder and Truckin' so far that I've heard of.
The R & K cover feature was many months in the planning and I was even involved fending off another publication to not scoop a feature on this amazing van.
Next stop for the van is the huge West Coast Kustoms Cruisin' Nationals May 27-29 in Santa Maria Ca. If all goes well Coby will be driving the van up there. He's already done the shake down and is rarin' to get it out on the open road away from the craziness of L.A traffic.

A Night at the Races July 13, 2001

2011-04-21T05:09:00.000-07:00

Here's something different in the works that we haven't seen in a long time. In the early days many van runs were held at race tracks from road courses like Watkins Glen and Mosport to drag strips like Englishtown and National Trail. Seeing this year's Nationals will be a fairly close to National Trail and that both Blastro and Headstone were confirmed attending it was natural to plan a "Nigh at at the Races." More details as we get closer to the event. We're still lining up high performance vans for this including possibly 2 10 second street vans.

Vans continue to show up in magazines this month. If you are on Facebook, Hot Rod's David Freiburger is eyeing up a mid Dodge maxi for himself. Kinnan already has a mid Chevy.

My Dirty Donny art print is in the mail, can't wait to see it. Check out his blog for full info. He has 3 new prints of mid Ford,Dodge and Chevy vans. Dirty Donny's Blog

Getting the word out. Vans in the media

2011-04-10T06:06:00.000-07:00

Vans have been popping up in the media on a regular basis these days. Stride has been using vans in their commercials, the latest one featuring a blue Mid Ford. That van just happened to be at the CofC van show along with some other vans that have been gathering a fair amount of media attention. Vango is in the current issue of Rod & Kulture and will be getting a full cover feature in an upcoming issue. Coby and his brother Marc are currently putting this together. Octopus's Garden will be featured in upcoming tech articles in Truckin'. Both Vango and Octopus's Garden were at the 2011 Grand National Roadster Show. Octopus's Garden was also at the 2010 SEMA along with John Jackson's Boogie Van. John is the latest contributor to R&K Magazine and his Corvan is also in the latest issue. The cover shot is also his:

For the CofC we did quite well with the magazines as Ed Sanchez was with us at Barris' shop tour and ran coverage from there on the site and a few of us took an extensive tour of the Truckin' facilities and met with Dan Ward, Bob Ryder and Ed again. Bob invited us to Ron's afterwards to see Octopus's Garden and projects Ron and his buddies are working on. Bob also met up with us at the Donut Derelicts very early Saturday and was at the CofC van show along with Ed. Howard and i ventured over to Hot Rod Magazine on the Thursday and met with Rob Kinnan. We've been going back and forth with Rob for a number of years. He also attended the CofC van show along with Dave Wallace. Hot Rod is planning to run their coverage in the July issue.
Here's the online coverage from Truckin' :

Here's the online coverage from Hot Rod :

From dream to reality

2011-02-21T05:54:00.000-08:00

This picture pretty well sums it up. Tom's California Dream'n taken on PCH 1 in Huntington Beach California.The day after an incredible van show that some of my friends and I put together.

I lived the dream and will write more about it when I get home. It was a bunch of work for us to put this together and I owe a number of people a lot for putting themselves out so much to help make this happen.

CofC van show update

2011-02-11T06:36:00.000-08:00

We're getting down to the wire, still a few loose ends to connect but all the important stuff is taken care of.
The dash plaques are done, awards are done and in my grubby little hands 3000 miles from where they will end up. Sending out reminders to some of our attendees and burning up the telephone wires cross country to California. Still have plenty to do for then show to make it even more special. The image above is a mockup for something that will be awarded at the CofC van show.

Here are some of the invited vans and some that will be there for sure. We've had one or two drop out but you will get to see many of these vans next Saturday either at the Donut Derelict Cruise in Huntington Beach from 5:00 am to 9:00 am or at the CofC van show from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm

I've been fortunate to be able to help out with the CofC in a very big way this year with the 2011 calendar funds as well as a number of other van related projects and events. We'll be hearing more on one of those projects next Thursday from the CofC. Vanners from all over North America keep stepping up to the plate and hitting it out of the park. This project I'm referring to is a grand slam.

For more details on the CofC van show and eventual show coverage go here: http://www.vannin.com/showvans/events/2011cofc/index.html

For more details on the 2011 CofC : http://www.2011cofc.exofire.net/

VANGO making it's debut at Grand National Roadster Show this weekend !

2011-01-27T09:35:00.000-08:00

There has been a tremendous buzz on the street from the World of Wheels in Atlanta Ga. and now on the show floor of the Grand National Roadster Show in Pomona Ca. it's all about a van that has been a few years in the making called VANGO. That buzz is also on Facebook and many internet forums from customs vans as you would expect as well as a 200 post and growing thread on the H.A.M.B: VANGO thread on the H.A.M.B

Coby has raised the bar, broken the mold and changed the game with this 1963 Econoline. We are hoping to see him at the Council of Councils van show Feb 19th in Buena Park Ca. But everyone already wants a piece of this van and we'll be seeing more of it at the indoor shows and in the magazines coming out in 2011.

Wish Coby all the best with his masterpiece and that he gets all his wishes for it. If you are in our around Pomona this weekend do get out to GNRS and be one of the first to see VANGO.

Council of Councils Van Show Feb 19th. 39th Nationals

2011-01-14T04:47:00.000-08:00

The final details of the Council of Councils are being put into place now. The Left Coast Vanners have been hard at it getting this all done with a minimal staff. Hats off to them for the enthusiasm and effort they put into these events for the benefit of all vanners.
The van show on Feb 19th is also falling into place. The invites have been sent out and we're hoping to have a great turnout. Vans will now be let in to the show area as of 10:00 am. There's limited space but we will work on that.

Onwards into 2011, Vans on the Run the hosts of the 39th National Truck-In in Old Washington Ohio are also busy getting their event ready. Coop let me in on some details that I need to keep secret but will be rather mind blowing, vanners keep raising the bar with their van events which is great to see.
I had an idea for the Nats, bounced it off of Coop and he said run with it. Vanners and racing have gone hand in hand since day one. Some of the early van runs in Ohio were held at the National Trails dragstrip. Yesterday I contacted them to see if anything was going on the week of the Nationals, sure enough there is Grudge Match Wednesday. So now we're in the process of getting some of our high performance vans lined up for this. If we can get some of the notable drag vans on board then consider that event on the Nats calendar. Van drags were very common in the early days, it will be great if this works out.

Some of my friends from the Midwest and Arizona have been putting lettered Showvans.com stickers on their vans and trailers for a while now. It's something I wanted to do for a while myself so along with Attitudecheckonline.com I had some decals and t-shirts made up. I'll have the details on them on the website this weekend. I'll bring a few shirts to the CofC with me a good bunch of decals.

The indoor shows start this month, we'll be seeing two amazing Econos to help celebrate the 50th Anniversary. Alpine Express in the Pittsburgh World of Wheels show Jan 21-23 and the grand premier of VANGO in the Grand National Roadster Show Jan 28-31. This van is a game changer and one of the most talked about vans out of the realm of vanning ever. Coby a well known artist, Church magazine guy and hot rod builder has created a masterpiece. Octopus' Garden will also be in GNRS, this van was first shown at the 2010 SEMA and will be featured in upcoming issues of Truckin'. Both VANGO and Octopus' Garden are suppose to be coming to the CofC van show.

2011 Council of Councils and CofC van show Feb 19th

2010-12-18T04:58:00.000-08:00

The custom van world will be descending on Southern California Feb 18-20 and many before for the annual Council of Councils van convention. This event is hosted by a different group in a different city on an annual basis. The Left Coast Vanners are no strangers to hosting this event and always do a great job. I'm happy to be able to help out a bit with this event by donating funds from the 2011 calendar towards the actual event as well as sponsoring the van show that will be held on Saturday Feb 19th. The California van scene is red hot right now with new clubs forming whose members were not even born when the van craze swept through. One of these clubs the Van Creeps had a recent show in Costa Mesa Ca. with 40 vans. Hot rodders have also taken to vans and have created some amazing game changing vans that we have seen at the 2010 Sema and will be seeing at the upcoming Grand National Roadster Show.
The van show is open free to the entrants, you don't need a full blown show van to enter bring your custom van down to the show park it and hang out. All the van owners who do show up with their vans will be given a dash plaque, a goodie bag, be eligible for door prizes as well as awards. This event will also be free admission to the public. We're inviting Truckin', Dice, Street Trucks, Hot Rod, Church and other magazines to the event and the response is already looking very good. Speaking of magazines we keep seeing a rendering of an Econoline popping up, first in Hot Rod and more recently in Street Trucks. Howard managed to see that van last week in his travels at Midwest Images. It's still under construction but the plan is to have it done by the summer. He had a good talk with Mike the owner/builder of the van and there's a good chance we'll see it at a van event or two down the line.

The CofC van show will start at approximately 1:00 pm after the CofC meetings. A number of vanners will be attending the Donut Derelict Breakfast in Huntington Beach early Saturday morning (5:30 am to 9:00 am). This will be kind of tribute to the late Rick Finn one of the originators of that event who invited us there personally the last time we were in Anaheim. Rick came out on the Friday to our show, showed his kool 53 F100 panel and hung out with us all afternoon. Unfortunately he passed away suddenly later on that year.

for more info on the actual CofC check here: http://www.2011cofc.exofire.net/

2011 will be a huge year for vanning.

2010-11-20T12:03:00.000-08:00

2011 will be rather significant for vanning. Both the Econoline and the Corvan will be celebrating 50 year anniversaries. Ford is producing a limited edition 50th Anniversary XLT. I've heard they are doing 100 of them. The emblems have just come out and one of my extremely good vanning buddies sent me one. You can order them on Ebay or get them direct from your Ford dealer a bit cheaper using part BC2Z-1642528-A.

This year at SEMA there were a few vans in attendance. One that is quite familiar to many online hot rod lovers being the Notstockphotography.com Corvair Boogie Van. John has been all over the place with the van this year taking some of the most amazing shots as he goes. Another van there we first heard Bob Ryder mention a while back in Truckin', Octopus' Garden a Mid Dodge. There was also an A-Team replica van there and a couple of others. Through Facebook today I found out that Octopus' Garden will be joining Coby's Vango Econoline at the Grand National Roadster Show. This is incredible news that I would never have foreseen a few years ago. Having hot rod builders building custom vans to this level is amazing. It's looking good to have both of these vans for the CofC van show in Buena Park Ca. Feb 19th. The interest in the show is picking up, I'm putting together a package for the media to give them a good idea of what we've been doing in vanning when the spot light was not quite as bright.

Stardreamer will be at the World of Wheels/Autorama finals in Houston over Thanksgiving weekend. If your in the area please stop by and say hi to Dave and his family.

There are still 2011 Showvans calendars available and there will be some on hand at the CofC in Buena Park Ca. Feb 18-20 2011.

It never slows down, calendar done, now onto 2011

2010-11-14T08:47:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I made a whirlwind trip to pickup the 2011 Showvans calendars direct from the printer's in Connecticut. Pat and I loaded them into my van, processed them at his place Friday and Saturday morning then mailed them out with help from his brother Terry. Huge thanks to Pat and Alaine for their hospitality !

The timing was quite good for this as I was able to attend the Getaway Halloween party as well. Never one to miss killing a number of birds with one stone we also made a side trip to Frank and Karen's to see his Project #9 and his rather famous garage. Here's Frank perusing the latest Truckin' Magazine Issue 13, some details on project #9 in with the Nats coverage.

Frank is actually doing some welding here, not just posing. He made some good progress on the van in the past week even since we were there.

It's great to see project vans like this happening right across the U.S. Coby's wrapping up VANGO in California and Mike is just about done his Econo in the Midwest. All 3 of these vans have unique features that have never been used on custom vans previously.

Now that the calendar is pretty much a done deal it's time to get serious about the 2011 Vanarama show season and the 2011 CofC van show. It has been very hard to get people to commit to anything lately but hopefully now that we're getting closer to the actual events we'll get some answers. The Econoheads are busy behind the scenes getting stuff ready for the 50th Anniversary of the Econo. Some very good stuff happening with regards to this. I'll hopefully share some of this in my next post. The future is so bright right we gotta wear shades :)

Alaine and Pat at Getaway's Halloween Party, great hosts and they can rock too :)

Good things come to those who wait ... 4 pages in Truckin'

2010-10-15T04:54:00.000-07:00

28 years ago I had a story and pictures in Truckin' featuring 2 of our club's vans at an ISCA show in Montréal. Fast forward to yesterday and I get a call from one of my major partners in crime and mentor Howard letting me know that Issue 13 of Truckin' is out with our 2010 National Truck-In feature. There are 4 pages of coverage including many pictures that Ken and I took as well as the story that Howard and I wrote that went almost unedited. What a great feeling it was to hear all of this but the first thing I asked was if the credits were right, unfortunately they left out Superbeast's name. I hope to make that right when this coverage runs on the website and will be sure to include all the names in triplicate if we're asked to do this again. I have yet to see the actual magazine. You can bet that when I do I'll be buying a few of them and maybe give some to those who helped make this happen and encouraged me all along with this and the many other things I get into.

The Van Creeps are doing a van show in Costa Mesa Ca. this weekend. A prelude to what Ed from Truckin' describes as the "humongous" show we'll be having in Buena Park. So get out there and support the event this weekend and make sure to invite everything to the CofC show. For more info: http://www.vancreeps.com/
I'm hoping to see many pictures posted from the event. Our friends from Wheels of Confusion will be there with a bunch of their awesome vans.

Van Creeps website

Putting the final touches on the 2011 calendar. It needs to go to Pat Altruk for pre-press in the next week and then off to the printer. Scheduled arrival date in your mailboxes Nov 12. The cover is always one of the toughest pages to do. Here's an idea that I have for it so far. This is not the final cover, this image may not even be on the cover but it will be featured prominently within if it's not. If you order by Nov 1 it will guarantee that you will get it in time for Christmas, any orders after that date will likely arrive in 2011. This is a non profit project, the bulk of the profits from calendar sales will be going towards the 2011 CofC in Buena Park California Feb 18-20. The van show on Feb 19th will be sponsored entirely by these proceeds, if your interested in sponsoring a trophy or anything else with regards to the van show let me know.

Showvans calendar, looking ahead to 2011

2010-09-25T05:05:00.000-07:00

It's that time again where I have to put my nose to the grindstone and do up the calendar. This is #8 and I'm happy to say that even after 8 years there are of new vans coming onto the scene and older vans getting redone. I try to keep it fresh and add some new and interesting stuff each year. A few years ago I found the H.A.M.B (google if you don't know it). It's a traditional hot rod site and each Friday there is an incredible art show on it done by some incredible artist (some who are van owners like Notstock Photography, Church and Lordmodelbuilder). Notstock turned me on to road shots and even gave me some pointers. Well all the stars aligned on Labor Day and my long time partner in crime and photography Superbeast and I hopped in my van and started shooting 5 very hot and legendary vans on the road. We both love chopped vans, they look like they are going 60 just standing still. So go 60 with Nautilus in tow and this is what you get:

Nautilus legendary radical custom van rollin' towards Remember Butler 2010

This isn't even the best shot, you'll have to buy a calendar to see it, lol.

2011 is fast approaching and what better way to kick it off than with a Council of Councils in Buena Park California Feb 18-20 2011. Back in 2006 for the 2006 CofC in Anaheim Ca. I was involved with the Leftcoasters on a small scale to encourage the van and panel show. This time around Showvans.com will be sponsoring all the awards (unless someone else jumps for one or two). Hoping to make the show on Saturday Feb 19th a real big happening. The invites are going out to all the top van builders in the land to show their stuff. More details to follow. Vanarama 2011 will be happening as well. 2010 was a big year for vanners to get out to the indoor shows all over the U.S. Most recently there were 5 vanner vans at Charlotte Auto Expo inside, they were one of the feature attractions ! Junior, White Lightning and Flamed were there with there vans and had a great time. Had a chance to talk to Ron (Flamed) about this at Remember Butler and he couldn't say enough good things about the experience.

The next big show is in Houston Texas for the 2010 World of Wheels finals. 30 of the top 35 vehicles will there including Dave with Stardreamer, that event will be held over Thanksgiving weekend.
The 2011 Nationals will be a big one. Ohio always draws a huge crowd, easy 600+ vans expected and this being the 50th Anniversary of the Econoline and Corvan we're encouraging as many early vans as possible to make the trip. We're also hoping for a wicked photoshoot with all 50 years of Econolines represented. Here's a Ford press release on 50th anniversary of the Econoline

Keep an eye out for the 38th National Truck-In coverage in upcoming Truckin' and DropJaw Magazine. Glenn from DropJaw has made 3 appearances at 2010 van events already, thanks for the support buddy !

The 2010 National Truck-In

2010-07-18T04:41:00.001-07:00

The van show Friday from 40 feet above

The 38th National Truck-In was another great one. 589 vans and panels through the gates is quite a feat in this day and age. I arrived on Wednesday just in time for the Nats Board members meeting. This is the group that oversees this annual event. Being part of the support team for the Board I was involved in this event going back to Sept 2008. There is so much behind the scenes planning that goes into making this 4 day event special. VANNY did a great job this year.
I'll let the pictures tell part of the story, let the video tell some of the rest and hopefully we'll see the end of the story in Truckin' Magazine. Bob Ryder called me on the Tuesday of the Nats to see if I was still up to do the coverage. Getting this in Truckin' would be golden. Many many hours were spent taking pictures from every conceivable angle and every photo op was taken from 40 feet in the air to being one of only tow people allowed on the burnout field.
On Saturday during the awards I was surprised with two awards. Astro and I were presented with awards from Todd and Mary who have done some amazing promotion of vanning in New England thanking us for what we have done. The second award was presented by Howard on behalf of Gary owner of Alpine Express as a Vanner Appreciation. This is something very dear to my heart and finally opens the door to me getting this rolling in a big way with no sense that I'm doing it for myself. My feeling and some of my good friends is that vanners should be recognized for their efforts while they are with us and not only when they are being eulogized. One of the arguments is that every vanner is a vanner of the year ... however there are many who have been at this non stop for over 30 years and been involved in keeping vanning going and interesting for everyone every one of those years. There are many who have put their lives on hold, their reputations on the line doing great things for vanning. I was thrilled to get the awards but totally surprised and not at all prepared to thank those who have been supporting what I do for so many years. I'll try to make amends for that and will do a proper thank you down the line.

The Cruise into Greenwich, 105 vans strong !

Alpine Express, winner Best of Show 2010 Nationals

Homebrew "Up in Smoke" during burnout contest

Video compilation

Onward and upward I'll post where we're headed from here shortly. Good stuff coming.

2010 vannin' season kicking into high gear

2010-06-05T07:30:00.000-07:00

Less than a week away from Vanfest now. This will be the official start of my vanning season although it seems like there is always something going on. I came another step closer to getting Showvans.com back on track but then had other stuff to get onto like Vanfest, the 2010 Nationals and talking to Glenn from Dropjaw and Bob from Truckin'. I'll be collaborating with both of them in 2010 and into 2011.
There's plenty to keep the media happy these days and thanks to the effort of many vanners and custom hot rod builders doing vans this will be happening well into 2011. One of the more interesting events this year will be the rollout of the 50th Anniversary of the Econoline at the Ford plant near Cleveland. One of the gurus of Econolines has been contacted by a Ford executive who is inviting vanners to this grand event with their Econolines of all eras. Hopefully we will get that date in July soon so we can plan on having a respectable showing. We'll see if we can keep the whole 50th Anniversary thing rolling into 2011 with the CofC, the Nationals and other events. We're going to have an Econo guru summit of sorts this Tuesday in Toronto to discuss this.
Battlestar is featured in the latest issue of Truckin'. Bob also introduces us to a long term feature Mid Dodge van. I spoke to Coop this week as well and the work on the Battlestar/Deathstar is proceeding slowly but surely, it might not be ready for the 2010 Nationals. Perfection unfortunately does take time and from the sounds of it Coop has taken this van to the next level.

Keep on Vannin' by any and all means !

Rebuilding Showvans.com

2010-05-15T05:23:00.000-07:00

Tearing the site down and rebuilding it from scratch. Instead of blowing money on hosting I approached Astro over at Vannin.com and asked if we could have Showvans over on the vannin.com server again. We had it there originally but it grew too fast at a time when bandwith was charged at a major premium.

It's a bunch of work to have the site but it is a tremendous showcase for custom vans at a time where we have the opportunity to shine with a bunch of big events in 2010 and even more so in 2011 with the 2011 CofC in California. It's also at a time where our media connections are ata n all time high with the magazines both national and regional. Glenn from Drop Jaw is planning on being at Vanfest and will be at the Nationals. Last year we managed to get web exclusive coverage on Truckinweb.com for both of those events. I'll be submitting coverage again this year and hope to do even better things with them next year on their own turf and at the 2011 Nationals.

I wish I could show the pictures of the 3 vans I am following that are currently being built and or totally rebuilt. 2 will be finished this summer, one hopefully next. These 3 vans are incredible and will show everyone that custom vans are extremely cool and worth a look. Also been told we'll have another newly built van making it's debut at Vanfest.

Although my main interest is in vans I also have a very strong interest in all cars and trucks. It expands my horizons and opens me up to different ideas and helps expose people who would not usually be interested in vans to take a look at the other things I do. For the Detroit Autorama I collaborated with Myrideisme.com and helped them achieve their highest single day hit count with exclusive coverage of the Great 8 Ridler contenders. This little adventure pushed my photo abilities to the max and I'm happy to say that these were the best indoor pictures I've ever taken. Last week the Gumball3000 Rally roared through town and I did another story for them on this event.

I mentioned to Randy that I really think this $1.5 million Bugatti Veyron looks like Heavy Metal, :).

So plenty going on and it seems more crazy ideas floating through my head than ever.

Detroit, Vanfest, Nationals and beyond

2010-04-21T05:47:00.000-07:00

Detroit was a great time once again. In the end we managed to get 3 vanner vans in Autorama. It was very disappointing not having all 5 vans there especially Coop's Flying Eagle II as he was there anyway for the pinstriper's jam. Before the event I mentioned that I would be going to Autorama on the myrideisme.com forum. Craig got in touch with me about taking pictures for them, the end result was helping that website achieve their biggest day ever with exclusive Great 8 shots. At the time only Street Rodder Magazine had anything on the net from Autorama. A bunch of my Detroit pictures are headed to Drop Jaw Magazine for their website.

Woody's Smokin Chop custom van at the 2010 Detroit Autorama

Karson's custom drag van at the 2010 Detroit Autorama

Ken's Shelby E-100 custom van at the 2010 Detroit Autorama

2010 will be another great year in vanning. My travels will be limited unfortunately, not sure if I will make any van events before Vanfest in June. Vanfest 15 is going to be Kevin's last at the helm. So if ever I have been motivated to do something special it will be for this one. Have some ideas in mind.
The Nationals will kind of be in my backyard, 6 hours away. I'm doing the website for this event and will be fairly involved with the Vannin.com Auction from there and likely take a couple of pictures for Truckin'. Not likely to see them at this one.
Onward to 2011 and the Council of Councils in Buena Park California. This will be one heck of an opportunity to showcase vans in the mecca of car/truck culture. I've already been scheming on this one since I heard of the bid back in early 2009. Thanks to a bit of help from my friends, we also managed to convince everyone at this year's CofC in Wisconsin to do the van show on the Saturday afternoon of the event. This opens the doors very wide to get the non vanners and the media more involved in the show. Plenty more info on this will be coming.

Also in the process of moving Showvans.com back over to Vannin.com so it could be a bit wonky for a while.

Headed to Autorama this weekend !

2010-02-23T20:24:00.000-08:00

Last year was my first trip to Autorama and we did it up big bringing 5 vanner vans there. It was an amazing show with 800+ cars,trucks, bikes and last year 7 vans. We got there Thursday night and were back daily and then rolled the vans out Sunday night. This year it seems like there were more entrants than ever and many vehicles were turned away. We're headed there with 3 different vans this year, all of them in a class of their own and totally different than one another. I'll be taking a ton of pictures as usual for Showvans.com, for Drop Jaw Magazine and I also have been asked to take some for an up and coming online automotive community.
Issue 4 of Truckin' features Pirates of the Caravan. A very nice 4 page spread on Donnie's amazing van. This feature was along time in the planning stages, they used 3 of my pictures in the feature that went uncredited but hey life happens and it looks good to see more of my pictures in there soon. This feature came out the same week that Donnie had Pirates in the Kansas City World of Wheels with 7 other vans and 2 vanner owned panels.
The 2010 Council of Councils (custom van convention) was held in Wisconsin this past weekend. It was a well attended event and for the first time the meetings were broadcast live on Vannin.com. I was fortunate to catch both meetings on Saturday and even participated through Howard who was there. It was announced that the 2011 CofC will be in Buena Park California in Feb 2011. I've been following that bid for as long as it has been in play and working my non vanner contacts in California. We had a great time in 2006 the last time it was in nearby Anaheim. The 2011 event is shaping up to be even better.
That's all the positive news for now, plenty more to come next time. On a sad note Lynn from Bad Girls N.Y passed away after a battle with cancer at the age of 60 years old. Lynn was very active in vanning for the past 30 + years. We started crossing paths back in the 1970s at events like Van Canada and Van America (which her club hosted). Lynn had been keeping busy helping to plan the 2010 National Truck-In. There will be a Memorial service for her near Rochester N.Y March 20th. It will likely be a very well attended event with vanners from all several states and Canada attending.

2010 another great year of vanning

2010-01-24T21:07:00.000-08:00

Wow it's taking a while to get settled in to 2010. As usual have a bunch of stuff on the go. Winter is almost as busy as summer as I seem to get myself involved in more stuff each year. Last week I got the applications sent in to Detroit for 5 vans for Autorama. Also started working on the Moonlitevans.com for my very good friends in Pennsylvania. Ongoing stuff on the 38th Nationals website. Even though I'm not going to the CofC this year I have been scheming some major stuff for the 2011 CofC at an as yet undisclosed location.
If that's not enough I'm getting together an online charitable fundraiser for a vanner in Pennsylvania who passed away in October from Cancer.

Time to relax, not quite

2009-11-08T07:05:00.000-08:00

Vanning season is done now for me. The next big event will be the Detroit Autorama in February 2010. So once the 2010 calendars are all mailed out time to go whole hog on Detroit. I was asked yesterday for the use of one of my Nationals pictures possibly for the cover of another van calendar, that's a big honor for me which I gave two thumbs for and it's a sign of the mutual help vanners give one another. Although I live in Canada the vanner network I depend on to keep Showvans.com going and the calendar extends to the 4 corners of North America. With the funds from the calendar I've been fortunate to help promote van events in many far off places. This will take on new proportions in 2011 if all goes well.

2010 Calendar is a done deal

2009-10-20T04:31:00.000-07:00

Put the finishing touches on the calendar composition last week. The artwork will be proofed and pre pressed then off to the printer. Delivery on track for Nov 13 to hit two big hall parties in N.J and Chicago. Will get a bit of a breather before mailing them out.

The photo here is actually a mosaic made up of thousands of images of vans. The calendar this year is dedicated to the late John Coldren. That is his van called Plum Loco. John had Mike Lavallee the famous airbrush artist do the amazing artwork on this van. John was able to enjoy the van this summer going to many events in the Northeast. Unfortunately John passed away from cancer in early October. We will be doing up a poster of this cover image and donating all the proceeds after expenses to the American Cancer Society in John's name.
Plans are underway to have a good showing of vans back in Detroit and things are looking good for Chicago as well.

2009 National Truck-In, Summit Station Pa. hosted by Moon Lite and Performance Inc.

2009-08-27T05:02:00.000-07:00

What a great time we had at this event. So much to do so little time, photo ops at every turn. Took over 2000 pictures at the event, the best 100 can be seen here: Truckin' Magazine's 2009 National Truck-In Web Exclusive Hopefully we'll see these hit the magazine at some point. There's also a good chance we'll be seeing the Vanfest coverage in Truckin' and a certain pirate van might be making a major appearance this fall as well.

Dropjaw Magazine Magazine was at the Nationals as well and they have come across big time for us. They have 1700 pictures from the Nats here: Dropjaw Nats coverage Their magazine is already out with the coverage in it as well and they even featured Mary a.k.a Miss Nat's on the cover with Metalstorm and Tub Thumpin'. Can't wait to see this !

Here's a few of my favorite shots of the 2009 National Truck-In :

Todd and Mary's Vanformer custom Astro van

Boop's Tub Thumpin' Astro passing Jason's chopped Econoline

Don's Pirates of the Caravan, winner of Best of Show

John's Ol' Meat Wagon custom Chevy van, winner of the Flying Eagle award, first time shown at the Nationals.

Color my world ! Junior and Glenda's Looney Tunes, Johnny O's Oasis, Ron and Aixa's Flamed and Todd and Mary's Vanformer custom vans during the Dropjaw photoshoot

Pirates and Coop's chopped Astro called Epiphany, both amazing vans, both National Truck-In Best of Show winners.

Showdown at Dodge City, two of the finest chopped radical custom vans ever built by Hooper and Pelc.

Vanfest 2009 and the upcoming 2009 National Truck-In

2009-07-03T09:28:00.000-07:00

Vanfest was another big success. It is hard to keep growing an event each and every year but this is something that Kevin and his crew has managed to do for the past 14 years. Over 300 trucks rolled through the gates and there were over 150 on the show field Saturday. There were attendees from 14 U.S states and 4 Canadian provinces. Full coverage here : http://showtrux.com/events/2009vanfest/index.html

The 2009 National Truck-In will be the largest custom van event anywhere in 2009,we're expecting around 600 vans. This year it is in Summit Station Pennsylvania. The actual event starts Wednesday July 8th, but the grounds open to vanners Saturday July 4th. Drop Jaw Magazine will be there and running coverage down the line and a long awaited return by Truckin' Magazine is hoped but yet to be confirmed. Truckin' has been running features on vans that were shot at the Michigan Nationals, so far we have seen Woody's Smokin' Chop and Alpine Express, coincidentaly 2 past Best of Show winners at Vanfest. For more info on the 2009 Nationals go here: http://37thvannats.com/

Lost Memorial 2009

2009-05-26T07:24:00.000-07:00

Back from this great event that surprisingly got a bit bigger this year. Although we were missing a good bunch of regulars we somehow got a good bunch of newcomers to this excellent event with the largest attendance ever at 255 vans and trucks. There were a few vans making their grand reappearances after makeovers or first time out with full wraparound murals. Great to see my many vanner friends from the Northeast once again and fellow blogger Cap'n Scurvy, his wife and son he calls Van.

This is John's Plum Loco, the van was airbrushed over the winter by Mike Lavallee famous for his flames and appearances on Overhaulin'. It just happened that we had the perfect background for it right on the grounds of the event.

Mike is a well known van customizer, his Dodge van called Machina has won most of the top awards all across the Northeast. Just for fun he decided to build a chopped van. He calls it Kool Blue:

Here is Trish's van called Emerald City. In just about the perfect light here Dreamweaver's artistic talents show through in the airbrush work.

These vans will all likely be going to the 2009 Nationals and be back at the Greenwich grounds next July for the 2010 National Truck-In.

2009-05-10T07:07:00.000-07:00

Detroit was a blast. Arrived Thursday just in time to see the 5 vanner owned vans setting up. It was a great relief to see them all there safe and sound. The vans were very well received at what is one of the largest and most prestigious indoor custom car/truck shows there is. We had visitors in from all over to support the vanners as well and thanks to Deb and Gills we all went out Saturday night to a neat restaurant in Greektown. Here is a video of the highlight pictures:

Around the time this was all going on Truckin' suddenly had a renewed interst in custom vans. So we will likely see them at the 2009 National Truck-In in Pennsylvania and they have promised to run th e5 features that were shot almost 5 years ago in Michigan on Woody's Smokin Chop, Alpine Express, Californiacation, Sweet Emotion and Battlestar.
We had our Vanfest meeting yesterday and things are looking great for that event. We will be adding a cruise into St Thomas on Friday evening which will surely be a big hit.

The vans are back in town. 6 custom vans headed to Cobo Hall for the 2009 Detroit Autorama

2009-02-16T17:13:00.000-08:00

We are going to Detroit March 6-8 ! We got confirmation yesterday that we are going to the big show with all the vans we registered. Unfortunately Nautilus had to drop out due to a work commitment. The vans will be on the main floor of Cobo Hall. If your there come by and see us. Good chance we will be doing something online from there. Will post more info, pictures on the all vans entered as well as daily coverage on : http://www.showvans.com

Looking towards 2009

2008-11-30T08:30:00.000-08:00

The future is looking bright again. It's not even December and 90% of the 2009 Vannin' calendars are delivered, yahoo !
Finally snagged Showvans.com It has been years since I have been waiting for the price to drop to a reasonable level. So I will be working on getting that up and running in the next while.
Latest vanning project is to get 5 vans into the 2009 Detroit Autorama. I think the time is right to be able to do this. We have 5 of the top vans lined up for this. They have a few things in common. All have appeared in nationals magazines be on the cover, in features or in event coverage and all have won best of designations at the National Truck-In.
In the past few weeks I have managed to see two very popular vans going back to the 70's and the late 80's and nineties. Future Shock was built for BF Goodrich in 1976. The build was featured in Hot Rod magazine. It was sold a few times over the years and came very close to meeting an untimely end at the crushers. It will begin it's restoration this winter. Another top show van from the late 80's and early 90's Lion's Den almost met a similar fate. Fortunately it was rescued by some well meaning vanners and is in very capable hands for that restoration to begin. Both vans are being restored in Ontario Canada so you can expect some regular updates here and on Showvans.com

2008 vanning season almost done

2008-09-30T14:58:00.000-07:00

With 2008 winding down we have the events of 2009 to look forward to. Busy getting the 2009 Vannin' calendar together now. The pictures to be used for the main features have been selected but still need to figure out the cover.
My last big event of the year was Remember Butler in Butler Pa. on Labor Day. Three River Vans do a great job with this event and the numbers were actually up this year with close to 200 vans there.

Ken's Shelby themed Econoline custom van

Flying Eagle II custom van originally built by Greg of Akron and meticulously restored by Coop

John's Stallion custom van originally built in the mid 70's and believe it or not the mural was done at the same time. Seen here at Remember Butler 2008.

It takes a vanner to a Scooby Doo van right and this is among the finest I have seen.

Respect the van ...

2008-08-13T12:13:00.000-07:00

Honda ran the first Respect the van ads a couple of years back. It looks like they are are ready for a new one as we were contacted once again for info by the film company doing it as we were for the original. While we see vans appearing in a number of television ads from Honda to Stride gum : http://ca.youtube.com/user/StrideChewingGum

For some bizarre reason we still cannot get the magazines to run regular coverage of van events or custom vans. That is not for the lack of trying either. However we do have our own homegrown magazine that appears about twice a year : http://www.vaninmag.com/ Leadfoot is putting together issue 5 will a likely publish date in time for Christmas.

The National Truck-In was another big success with close to 500 vans from the 4 corners of the U.S. The hosts MASVA said it was going to be like an old time van run and they kept their promise with events like burnouts and a vankhana. Unfortunately I was not able to attend but Superbeast and Brad were both there to supply many pictures for the Showtrux.com coverage. Below is one of the highlight pictures of the burnout competition with the winner of the best of show award Janine and her husband Monte who won Best of the Best award doing a tandem burnout.

Vanning season is far from over and we'll be seeing plenty more coverage of the events coming up on Showtrux.com

National Truck-In this weekend Altamont Illinois

2008-07-17T10:48:00.000-07:00

The "Nationals" the largest custom van event of the year with around 500 custom vans is happening as I write this and I am not there, :(. So I thought I'd start this blog and help get vanning on the map a wee bit more. We've been flying beneath the radar for many years now since the 70's vanning fad went away. But each and every year there is a bit of a buzz among the thousands of vanners still active when companies like Honda, Verizon, Bluenotes and Alltel have all used custom vans in their ads.
The following pictures and video were taken in 2008 at van events in New York and Ontario Canada of vans from Vermont, Pennsylvania and Canada.

Vanning is alive and well in 2008, we're trying to spread the word. The national truck magazines
are very hard to convince that we are once again worthy of coverage.

Nautilus, radical chopped custom Dodge van from the 70's newly refurbished at Vanfest 2008

Alpine Express, winner of Best of Show 2007 Nationals

Tub Thumpin and Nautilus two of the most radicals vans from two different eras

Newly refreshed Visions, updated with late model lights and grille treatment at Lost 2008, N.Y