Vanfest 2009 and the upcoming 2009 National Truck-In

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

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.

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

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

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

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 ...

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