During the 2003 West Coast Kustoms at Paso Robles, California, on Memorial Day weekend, I had the privilege to have a conversation and bonding moment with the visionary icon Steve Stanford. During the conversation, I brought up my missing link theory of Truckin' magazine. When I mentioned vans, Stanford's throttle response was instantaneous; his mind's rpms were hitting the rev limiter, and he almost developed some serious valve float. After replacing his eyeballs back into their sockets, we had a lengthy conversation about the vans of the past, and how we could resurrect the van craze from 30 years ago. But, we wanted to change the design direction, creating a Sport Van look, modernizing yesterday's van to today's styling treatments. A couple of weeks later, Stanford invited me over to his studio, saying he had some renderings I might be interested in. Those early model '60s-'70s Chevy, Ford, and Dodge van renderings were featured in Truckin's Jan. '04 issue. The response has been phenomenal.
These latest Steve Stanford renderings of new late-model Chevy, Ford, and Dodge fullsize vans on the following pages gives us an idea of what could be. Enjoy the journey, as you scan the next couple pages.
The secret is out. Once relegated to the outer fringes of the auto and truck enthusiast world, custom vans are poised to make a startling comeback. Once thought of with a wink and a smirk (not altogether undeserved I might add, considering its embracing of some questionable styling ideas in the past), this time, custom vans are going to pleasantly surprise everyone. If, as I suspect, van styling this time around takes its cues from the sport truck scene, we'll have Sport Vans.
We put forth this idea in the Jan. '04 Truckin' with a complete van section just to see what would happen. Were truck fans ready for something like this?
Apparently, a lot of you are, judging from the response, which has been overwhelming. It seems the majority of the custom truck enthusiasts have been waiting for something like this. While it is way too early to anoint this idea as a trend - god forbid - I think we may see a few early vans going together soon and hitting the shows and events. But, the big three in Detroit have new fullsize vans rolling of their assembly lines every day.
Speaking of new vans, I wanted to illustrate a follow-up story on showroom-fresh vans customized in the Sport Van style. What if you want to start with a brand-new platform the way the pickup and SUV owners do? Great! One thing became obvious early on, the new fullsize van styling is nowhere near as clean and nice as the vans from the classic era. Frankly, it was a challenge. But that's the beauty of rodding and customizing. You improve and personalize, and in this case, you won't see yourself coming and going. So, it can be done, and with some surprising result. Have a look