Al Brown, 1930-2011 R.I.P

Al Brown left us on Christmas Day, at the very feisty age of 81 years old. Al pretty much started organized vanning in Canada way back in the early 70's and actively participated in it with his last event being Vanfest 2011 this past June. The wheels are in motion to properly recognize Al for his dedication to vanning. Here's a collage of mainly recent photos of Al with some of his many friends.

The 2012 Showvans calendar is sold out.

Finally got a chance to see the 2012 Showvans calendar yesterday and send out some of the final orders. The printer once again did a bang up job. My buddy Johnny O did an incredible job mailing out 90% of the orders last week, that was a huge help this year especially.
This calendar project started in 2004 as a labor of love and turned into a lot of work trying to outdo the previous version and trying to keep everyone happy. It went from mostly a northeast thing to a world wide thing with a full 1/4 of orders coming from overseas this year.
The 2012 calendar is sold out, I have to scramble ro cover 2 remaining orders. There won't be another calendar until at least 2015 when a final 10th issue could come out to support the 2015 CofC in California.
Thanks to everyone who supported the calendars for all these years !

The 2011 vanning season is winding down slowly, but there are a couple of big events left. So that means it's time to get crackin' on the 2012 Showvans calendar. Our friend Arne in Norway is busy taking orders to once again blow everyone away . He's aiming for 125 this year !  He asked me to do a preview for him. Once again I need a disclaimer ... this is not the cover and the pictures you see aren't necessarily going to be the ones used. Order info here: http://www.vannin.com/showvans/calendar/index.html

39th National Truck-In

The 39th National Truck-In will go into the history books as one of the best ! How about I let the pictures do the talking about the 6 amazing days we had in Old Washington Ohio with 614 vans through the gates from the 4 corners of North America.

Check it all out here on Showvans.com :

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' !