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

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

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 !

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

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

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

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

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 :