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.

National Truck-In this weekend Altamont Illinois

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