Vanarama 2012 kicks off in St Petersburg Florida

Vanarama 2012 started off today in St Petersburg Florida at the CofC van show. Don't have all the details but I do have this picture thanks to Tim B one of the gurus of early Econolines. The show was partially sponsored by Showvans and fortunately Snotty from Moon Lite was able to bring some of the 2012 Vanarama banners down there fresh from the printer.
Vanners are getting ready to show their vans in Motorama and Autorama this month as well. Kurk from Customvans.com has done a great job coordinating the 10 vans entered in Motoroma and also got a call from Carlisle events this week. They want to feature vans at the 2012 Carlisle Truck Nationals which is the largest custom truck event there is. This is all pretty new so we'll have more info posted doen the line.

Detroit, Vanfest, Nationals and beyond

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.

Time to relax, not quite

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.