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.