ABC (Australian Brodcasting Corporation ... not the other ABC) TV's This Day Tonight investigated the cult of the panel van on Adelaide streets in the 70's. Patrick O'Neill's February 24th 1977 report is part of our look at Adelaide in the 1970's to celebrate About Time, the South Australian History Festival.

link to web page and video

direct link to the FLV video here.

Ours weren't Ute-based of course, but there was a huge van craze here in the US during the seventies as well.

Just about any custom touch you can imagine was applied to vans back then, and you can see most of them in this long slide show.

Back then "Vannin'" was a common verb.

My brother had his vanning phase in '77-78...had a dark green '68 Ford Econoline window van..didn't do much to it besides put some Cragar SS mags on it. I think he put yellow shag carpeting inside, huge stereo speakers, and a paddle fan/ceiling light in it. Sold it and bought what probably was the rustiest '65 Mustang in upper Ohio Valley at the time..the Mustang later caught fire while driving across the Ohio River.

Edited May 12, 201114 yr by Cubical-aka-Moltar

I was never a part of it ( a tad before my time), but I sure remember them.

Huge numbers, crazy airbrushing, Cragars, sidepipes, shag carpet, portholes...

Some were super cheese, some were impressive, some were junk - but the owners seemed to be having a good time.

In a way, it was like the ricer thing...

Funny thing is the custom van craze has been huge in Japan for a while now...Chevy Astros are popular there, along w/ extreme body mods.

True (and they are very weird). Some emulate the American vans of the 70s.

Never know what's going to take hold somewhere.

True (and they are very weird). Some emulate the American vans of the 70s.

Never know what's going to take hold somewhere.

Strangest are the tiny Japanese vans w/ custom front ends that are made to look like scaled down '70s Dodge and Chevy vans..chrome grilles and bumpers.

Just the ones I was thinking of.

Those and the psych-ward specials with the massive body mods.

Edited May 12, 201114 yr by Camino LS6

Have to admit, the coolest van I ever encountered looked totally stock from the outside.

This particular Ford van was put together in the late 70s by the government department I worked for, and designed to test airport runways. It was fully set up with all the optional performance parts (351 Cleveland, tied-down suspension, biggest brake option, biggest factory wheel and tire option), plus a definitely non-factory half roll cage.

The van was designed to tow an instrumented trailer down runways at standard jet landing speeds so they could measure wet and dry runway skid performance. In the back of the van was a rubber bladder that they could fill with water, coupled up to a high performance pump and a set of spray bars that were mounted on the tow-bar assembly. Once they got the van and trailer up to speed, they'd remotely lower a wheel in the trailer that was angled to the direction of travel, and measure the forces on the wheel. For wet testing, they'd fire up the pump and spray the runway just in front of the angled wheel.

It would be cool to gave a classic van....