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.

Headed to Autorama this weekend !

Last year was my first trip to Autorama and we did it up big bringing 5 vanner vans there. It was an amazing show with 800+  cars,trucks, bikes and last year 7 vans. We got there Thursday night and were back daily and then rolled the vans out Sunday night.  This year it seems like there were more entrants than ever and many vehicles were turned away. We're headed there with 3 different vans this year, all of them in a class of their own and totally different than one another. I'll be taking a ton of pictures as usual for Showvans.com, for Drop Jaw Magazine and I also have been asked to take some for an up and coming online automotive community. 
Issue 4 of Truckin' features Pirates of the Caravan. A very nice 4 page spread on Donnie's amazing van. This feature was along time in the planning stages, they used 3 of my pictures in the feature that went uncredited but hey life happens and it looks good to see more of my pictures in there soon.  This feature came out the same week that Donnie had Pirates in the Kansas City World of Wheels with 7 other vans and 2 vanner owned panels.
The 2010 Council of Councils (custom van convention) was held in Wisconsin this past weekend. It was a well attended event and for the first time the meetings were broadcast live on Vannin.com.  I was fortunate to catch both meetings on Saturday and even participated through Howard who was there. It was announced that the 2011 CofC will be in Buena Park California in Feb 2011. I've been following that bid for as long as it has been in play and working my non vanner contacts in California. We had a great time in 2006 the last time it was in nearby Anaheim. The 2011 event is shaping up to be even better. 
That's all the positive news for now, plenty more to come next time. On a sad note Lynn from Bad Girls N.Y passed away after a battle with cancer at the age of 60 years old. Lynn was very active in vanning for the past 30 + years. We started crossing paths back in the 1970s at events like Van Canada and Van America (which her club hosted). Lynn had been keeping busy helping to plan the 2010 National Truck-In.  There will be a Memorial service for her near Rochester N.Y March 20th. It will likely be a very well attended event with vanners from all several states and Canada attending.

2010 another great year of vanning

Wow it's taking a while to get settled in to 2010. As usual have a bunch of stuff on the go. Winter is almost as busy as summer as I seem to get myself involved in more stuff each year. Last week I got the applications sent in to Detroit for 5 vans for Autorama. Also started working on the Moonlitevans.com for my very good friends in Pennsylvania. Ongoing stuff on the 38th Nationals website. Even though I'm not going to the CofC this year I have been scheming some major stuff for the 2011 CofC at an as yet undisclosed location. 
If that's not enough I'm getting together an online charitable fundraiser for a vanner in Pennsylvania who passed away in October from Cancer. 

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. 

2010 Calendar is a done deal

Put the finishing touches on the calendar composition last week. The artwork will be proofed and pre pressed then off to the printer. Delivery on track for Nov 13 to hit two big hall parties in N.J and Chicago.  Will get a bit of a breather before mailing them out. 

The photo here is actually a mosaic made up of thousands of images of vans. The calendar this year is dedicated to the late John Coldren. That is his van called Plum Loco. John had Mike Lavallee the famous airbrush artist do the amazing artwork on this van. John was able to enjoy the van this summer going to many events in the Northeast. Unfortunately John passed away from cancer in early October.  We will be doing up a poster of this cover image and donating all the proceeds after expenses to the American Cancer Society in John's name.
Plans are underway to have a good showing of vans back in Detroit and things are looking good for Chicago as well.

2009 National Truck-In, Summit Station Pa. hosted by Moon Lite and Performance Inc.

What a great time we had at this event. So much to do so little time, photo ops at every turn. Took over 2000 pictures at the event, the best 100 can be seen here: Truckin' Magazine's 2009 National Truck-In Web Exclusive     Hopefully we'll see these hit the magazine at some point. There's also a good chance we'll be seeing the Vanfest coverage in Truckin' and a certain pirate van might be making a major appearance this fall as well. 

Dropjaw Magazine Magazine was at the Nationals as well and they have come across big time for us. They have 1700 pictures from the Nats here: Dropjaw Nats coverage     Their magazine is already out with the coverage in it as well and they even featured Mary a.k.a Miss Nat's on the cover with Metalstorm and Tub Thumpin'.  Can't wait to see this !

Here's a few of my favorite shots of the 2009 National Truck-In : 

Todd and Mary's Vanformer custom Astro van

Boop's Tub Thumpin' Astro passing Jason's chopped Econoline



Don's Pirates of the Caravan, winner of Best of Show



John's Ol' Meat Wagon custom Chevy van, winner of the Flying Eagle award, first time shown at the Nationals.



Color my world ! Junior and Glenda's Looney Tunes, Johnny O's Oasis, Ron and Aixa's Flamed and Todd and Mary's Vanformer custom vans during the Dropjaw photoshoot  


Pirates and Coop's chopped Astro called Epiphany, both amazing vans, both National Truck-In Best of Show winners. 



Showdown at Dodge City, two of the finest chopped radical custom vans ever built by Hooper and Pelc. 

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/