EP621 Sweet Custom Vans at Museum of Vanning

but yeah this truck was originally painted in 1974. so welcome to another episode of junk yards and barn finds with Sean and I'm Sean [Music] [Music] I think this is it foreign morning so that's pretty cool now is this something that's been like original paint that's what I'm saying so that's a Survivor huh first off I gotta tell you I hate that freaking word that makes me old well me too and so how you doing this morning I'm very well so this is the I'm Joe by the way this is Joe that's Melissa so this is uh the uh what's the official name Museum of Annie Museum of Annie yeah we're not there yet okay make a left turn but yeah oh okay this truck actually um the guy that owned this originally used to race motorcycles too oh wow so um it actually still has a 74 Husqvarna inside of it and uh still smells like the 70s in there if you get it so this now does he still own it no he's dead Okay so he passed away and then this is it and then it went to a friend of his who um never did anything with it and it showed up on eBay uh about three years ago and a donut a donor from uh California actually saw it okay decided we had to have it so we bought it and shipped it to us wow motor like literally it's just the way it sat with the motorcycle and everything huh and uh the hope is that we get this thing into the shop that we slow it's it's uh Death March down right and and saved this truck um that's you know the point right now uh just having it is a start I guess you know okay and like I said we got another truck over there another 77 that's another project that came out of California but yeah this truck was originally painted in 1974. now it makes sense when you see can confident wait confidence oh confidence okay yeah the guy raised raced uh motorcycles too while he was showing this is a truck we're hoping to save wow and so it looks like last time was 1981 that it was on the last inspection it says 81. yeah New York State Departments of Motor Vehicles they came from uh Syracuse so why do you hate the word Survivor he's got a hookah so you should see what's on today I don't know if that door oh yeah oh it's unlocked this box in there smoke a little fight oh wow and there's the bike stag party for Bart natto there you go now I'm wondering who did I wonder who if the the whoever spook is I wonder if anybody knew do you know who he is just so if anybody knows who's and this was like if if this guy was still alive he's going to know his work on this particular one yeah so if anybody knows it I have a good friend who lives in Syracuse on a club called Salt City Vans right um done a little bit of research on the band for me um you got to remember there's there's two different sets of networking there was the the network of the guys that owned Vans right clubs and all that kind of thing and then there were the guys that just on the van because because right that never got into organized Manning right this guy actually showed this van at Syracuse and Binghamton indoor autoramas but never took it to what we call truckins Outdoor vanity vents where we went camping in it right this guy much rather go to uh bike meets and race his motorcycle and sleep in his van then hang out with other people that own vans so it's kind of like the guys that build cars and they go racing drag racing every weekend down at the racetrack and they have cool cars and they'll go there on a Ford show or something at at you know Bradenton or somewhere but they don't usually go they're not in the Mustang car club or something like that something to that yeah they just have there's different groups sure so how did you how did this become how did this become like did it start with one van and then you just started adding on or was this something you said I want to do a museum the museum itself yeah in my life in Banning uh well start with how did the museum come about or whichever one which one led to the other one maybe well the whole thing started with me being um my brother went away in the service in 1971 and he subscribed to Hot Rod Magazine okay and during that time uh his books were coming to the house and for some reason I was fascinated with the vans that were in those magazines okay and so I actually cut up his books he hated me for for many years and it took me 30 years to replace them all but there was just a fascination with those vans and I started building my first van in 1974. when I went to my first event I collected my t-shirt my Dash black and my little souvenirs that came along at the events and I've always been a collector of that memorabilia even before I owned a van when I rode I rode bicycles for you know distance racing and stuff I just uh just something that always fascinated me and it grew and grew and grew to the point where I've been through at least six different buildings now wow and this is our biggest to date most of it's been in my house or in my basement up north or you know places like that and um about 10 or 12 years ago a friend of mine actually decided uh came into some money and decided that uh he needed a tax write-off and by us creating a non-profit we were able to um use that money instead of giving it to the government right and uh the land here became available for me because my house is here on the corner oh okay and I bought this piece of property next door just a few years before that and then we um just started growing from there I've always had one of the largest collections in the country right so we started with we saw this one so the other the other day because we're down here in Tampa and we're not giving the address you don't have you don't give the address unless somebody's coming so um you have the website though which is museumofanning.com we're also on Facebook under Museum of Anning or van Museum and you can find us so that way if somebody wants to come here they reach you through their schedule an appointment just give us a call my wife and I run this place exclusively so we want to make sure we're going to be here when you want to come see us we could be away at a car show or or doing something else and we wanted to make sure that we're going to be around we don't like to be tied to nine to five hours we've had people that visit us after hours or in the morning okay and all we ask is that make sure we're going to be here love to give tours and you know make sure we're going to be home all right so first on the outside of the building before we get to the ones behind us so it's you've got a Chevy a Ford and a Dodge okay but you've got the Chevy Ford and Dodge so whoa whoa you think I'd know that so when you when you're looking at vanning it is Fanning number one do they put uh those Volkswagen Vans do you guys consider those vannings you know what I'm talking about the the toy they call 29 window vans or something like that foreign Volkswagens in our world were uh considered taboo okay so they're not really part of our culture yeah um not so much um only because um those Volkswagens um like I never considered myself a hippie right you know even though I started doing this in the 60s or late 60s um I wasn't into the flower power hate Ashbury you know right that kind of thing um not to say that some of those guys were not into what we did too right there were quite a bit of that right but a lot of these guys were um ex-servicemen they were hot Riders and car guys before they ever owned the van and so owning an American van with a V8 motor in it was a big deal okay um you know the Volkswagens were underpowered they were smaller rear engine rear engine which gave them less room to work with inside so they weren't as popular as you know as our American Vans were so just when people are talking Vans are usually in in this world they're usually talking to Dodge Ford uh a us-made U.S manufacturer so and that's why I guess you have Chevy Ford and Dodge up there and then um and you have everything I see an Astro van there right so and then but we started with the this one which we saw at the car show um and this one here is when was this made and everything you kind of I found this van and uh um Fort Myers Florida uh in 1990. wow yeah the guy was working in aaca antique auto club car show using it as a trailer he was pulling it behind this motorhome and it was full of tables and chairs and cooking accessories and I knew the truck when I saw it immediately I was there also working the show and I made him an offer on the van he um Society didn't really want to sell it but a month later I got a phone call and his wife told him it was time to clear out some stuff out of the garage he owned 13 1930s vintage Packards oh at the time so this was the one thing to decide to get rid of I think the Packers might still be there now did this come have the flares on it at the time okay box van the way it was built in the original 70s with uh 246 cylinder manual steering I've done every bit of the work on this truck everything wow and this I mean this would be like a period correct van that there's nothing except for except for is there a flat screen in here or no no no so it is it would be so this would be something that people this would be completely period correct if somebody wanted to make it there are a lot of things that are being um that are being done today in today's world mechanically but um pretty much so yeah oh wow because I'm still stuck in the 70s laughs now did you do the fabric work as well I did every inch of this truck except painted wow the upholstery work I learned how to do back in the 70s wife and I did she sewed the parts of Me sewing and I did all the button Tucker crazy and did you well you didn't did you you didn't do the airbrushing you said right there's no it's all hand-painted by brush oh wow so by hand who did the um I I love the uh glass stained glass sustained glass yeah a man or friends from Canada actually um did those for us she did the tail lights as you can see the yeah that's why I was a little saw those lights and the front marker lights were all done at the same time this is beautiful what wheels are on those those are actually SS craggers that have been powder coated okay are they they got to be are they the old craggers that is a old school Kroger yes yeah a fluted spinner and a beauty ring on it yeah because they have a different build than the new the newer ones so well they're aluminum centers with steel outers right and they have a tendency to crack a little bit apart so instead of instead of buying new Wheels I love the look of the kreggers um I went out and priced new wheels and I didn't like the price so I knew a couple of guys again headed the powder coated their wheels right and I looked into it and the place here locally in Port Richey did it for us now as are these I I'm assuming they are but uh side pipes are functional okay they're hooked up to my uh Mike 302 which is also new now did you do the engine work uh JW Rod Shop here in Hudson Florida built a motor they started with a Craig 302 roller motor it's got an offenhausen intake with a Holley four barrel on it oh wow turns about 225 bars and that is just that's a beautiful we also added power steering to It upgraded the brakes um drivetrain is all new bigger radiator is this metal All Steel the hand the hood is all hand formed steel okay started with a flat piece of metal right and then they uh contoured the skin underneath it and then stamp the 40 louvers on it oh wow and built this and built the steel scoop and then stamped a little bit correct and then they they curved it to use the uh match the original inner skin wow I was done by a guy named Matchstick Customs out of California and those louvers were stamped on jeans Winfield's original press that he had designed back in the 50s for all the hot rods that used to be yeah yep Matchstick actually works for Gene Winfield at his shop in California oh wow sweet there's a little bit of a theme going through this one you got the Jimmy Hoffa stuff and of course the tiki stuff and what the flamingos flamingos exactly so the word is all of that bamboo is actually cut from my neighbor's yard that's real bamboo yep wow neighbor across the street said come and cut all you want that's only grass I love this the clearance the way you guys did this too I mean little details like that because the windows but the little details of this fan are so well it can only happen in 20 years of building the truck you can't build something like that overnight wow so then we have we've seen this so now we go to this is the flying eagle this truck was originally built in 1976. this is its third pay job in its history um the interior in this van is all original from 1976. it's built by a fellow named Greg of Akron who was a custom painter and Builder by trade back then who has since passed away oh wow see the Skylight in it yeah it's just there's the two skylights and then those back windows that with the doors closed gives with the door closed like that oh it makes you look like in depth we found this van on eBay about uh 12 years ago it was in northern Michigan and had a fire in the engine compartment it was burnt from about the dashboard forward and has since been rebuilt new motor put in it on the drivetrain again and then the highlights and all the body repainted and fixed and this paint job has been on it about 10 years now now the the that looks like it's like a ship or it's supposed to Masthead and it has these are the barrels so it kind of looks like the inside of a a whiskey barrel or a well let's see it's a ship theme it's a nautical theme yeah the whole van was done um it's even got a mass very cool and that I guess he was a woodworker huh of some kind he was a little bit of everything a very talented person uh the last person that brought this fan back to life um goes by the handle of coop Greg Cooper from Columbus Ohio uh he fixed the paint on it and brought the body in the van basically back to work um the unique features on this now the and these aren't wraps right is this a wrap this is not a wrap completely this is airbrush work this is all hand painted stripes and airbrushed on this truck everybody nowadays you want something like this you just go and you tell the printer to print it and they put it on here that this stuff is no no talent I mean look at all that that is that's how that's actually gold leaf on there wow Mega vacuum was a very talented airbrush painter in his day and Greg Cooper who ended up with the van uh recently is just as talented the one thing about this van are the many things about this van you have to really notice this first off the flares are all molded in fiberglass the drip rail is shaved off this truck so there's no drip rail the marker lights are gone molded in the pans on the front and the back are both rolled under this is a single back door the whole back of this van has been molded and they created a single back door this originally had double doors on the back right so it was all uh all molded and create the single door the Harpoon bumpers are all handmade even the lights another thing stained glass stained glass so the Flying Eagle two this is flying eagle too this is the second version of the flying eagle that Greg of Akron built first one was in 1975. um this was his follow-up truck this fan won best fan in the nation at the fourth National Truck in the 1976. so 1936 this was probably in a couple magazines this was in quite a few magazines actually its original color was more of a chocolate brown right the gold color is uh is more of an update for its current paint job wow those were the last two times the van was was shown in Ohio see the hood is louvered on this thing the motor is pretty detailed in it there's a lot more room than I even remember in the 1975 this is the next Generation from the panic in Detroit that van was built until 1974. in 1975 Ford moved the engine forward to make everything more accessible under the hood um working its way back to more of the panel truck look uh there was back in the 50s when the first generation van was built like the one that's on the wall over there right you couldn't access the oil but you couldn't access the dipsticks and anything to check any of that you had to do it from the inside so Ford's idea or Ford's better idea when they moved the engine forward in 1969 but to make it easier to check the oil and their fluids and your battery and things like that now the Chevy and Dodge didn't follow that for a couple years did they yeah the 19 Chevy went in 1970 and Dodge went in 71. so Ford has been pretty much the Pioneer with the moving of the front ends um I'm listening to you but I'm just sorry no you're fine I'm listening to you well that's the tribute that um they did for Greg of Akron that's all littered under the hood there yeah it's just beautiful and there is a sparkle to the paint I mean it's very metallic pink it has metal flake in it for sure yep and then this is you can you can see here that's a hand pinstripe that's not tape yeah correct there's no tape that stuff doesn't exist not my world anyway wow and so is now these are kept here um or on loan to you to show people or what's actually been donated to the museum okay Anakin Detroit is my personal van right what I take for the shows this fan and the Voodoo Lounge here and the other pieces you're going to see have been donated to the museum our goal is here is to expand and get these these bands inside they're stored inside now until we have special events like our party we just had last week and then I bring them out for people to see but our goal is to keep expanding and growing so that we can get these uh on display full-time inside now before really the next one if somebody has a van like this you probably would know about if it was like this but if somebody has something like this or wants to donate to you guys or be a part of your Museum they just reach you through email or just go to the website and it tells you how to reach out to you all of the ways above sure we're easy to reach on through the website um you know I do a weekly monthly whenever I get around to a Blog on the Facebook page I try to stay in touch with the with the vanning world and us going out in the Vans and going to those car shows uh hopefully you know get this out in the public so the rest of the world knows about what we're doing here and like I told you on the phone when I first talked to you that even though you're only four and a half miles from where I'm staying I found out about you from somebody when I was 400 miles north in Georgia who you didn't even know yet news about here because he has an orange van similar to yours uh or I'm sorry Chevy uh it was a green green Chevy but a 67 right and he's the one that said you need to come here because you guys did have a national or like a van he said it was the Turkey Run of Vans yeah well that was just going to be a weekend van show that actually didn't happen uh used to be at Ross Myers Harley shop over in Daytona Beach and um that club wasn't able to Ross Myers just recently was sold or something oh and they weren't able to pull that event off but um there's a major network of Vans through especially now through Facebook and the internet custom van you know stuff you can you search on online and you you can bring up almost 3 000 different links so van clubs around the country and shops and places to buy and guys that run particular groups based on certain kinds of Vans early models mid models you know later models now is vanning Magazine still around there are no particular van magazines although there are a couple of places uh this Matchstick I was telling you about runs a magazine called customvanner.com it puts it out maybe once sometimes twice a year depending on how busy he is with with other projects there's also drop jaw Vans which now does an annual magazine off of our national Trucking has I believe close to a thousand pictures inside which is available right now as a matter of fact pictures that he did coverage of at the arvan Nationals he also produced a calendar this year with lots of great pictures on it now if somebody wants to get in the vanning which for a while there it seemed to me and just me but Banning disappeared but in the last couple years has started to come back you know I guess that might be because the internet now is letting people connect well you use the term Survivor van what's happening is you know California is where all of this started Southern California and California now all of a sudden is showing interest in it and being in the media business one of the things that spawned our sport was the media a bunch of guys were sitting around driving in their Vans and in California and Hot Rod Magazine took notice of it the more pictures they started putting in their in their Vans the more guys were interested in it and the the snowball started to roll with the van shops and other magazines and so um you know the media brought vanning to such a huge attention and here we are 50 years later it's coming around again so the guys that are finding these Vans are finding those Survivor bands and the Barns and garages and stuff and they're showing an interest in these trucks because they're kind of cool they're different same way that everybody started building 57 Chevys and four-door cars I couldn't find anymore and then what do you there's um I know growing up in the 80s there's when there's a giant building on I-75 or so I don't know if he's still there but Mark vans used to make those big Vans with the captain chairs and the roofs which were pretty much more like mini buses for people and and basically um I don't know if those were considered we used to call them custom vans they weren't really custom vans they were because they weren't like this kind of custom um what's in your van groups or whatever those vans are they better left if someone restores one of those are those accepted or are they looking more for somebody that does something pretty like cool custom instead well the correct term on those vans are called conversion vans okay and those conversion vans actually started back in the 70s on when you know a bunch of these uh long-haired kids without such an influence on the whole country that the auto companies actually noticed um Ford Chevy and General Motors got a got a whiff of what was going on with these custom bands and they started creating them right out of the factory themselves uh sending them out to Van shops to be converted and then putting them on on Lots what you see today in these conversion vans is just a next generation of those a lot of the vendors that are my age are into those now because they can find them where the Interiors are done all they have to do is maybe rip out the couch in the back and build a bed in there right make them more comfortable they're a lot they're like driving a Cadillac down the road I own an O2 that is the most comfortable amazing vehicle I've ever owned it doesn't rattle don't shake and it's got an awesome stereo and it's quiet and you know so it is the evolution of what um where the van came from unfortunately the the big government has not allowed a lot of the things that were done in those vans to continue so those companies are all gone oh so it was a guy because my parents had an 89 Ford Econoline with the raised roof and all and I remember the TV was there and yeah after 1992 of the regulations to the government destroyed those companies oh bay windows became illeg golf swivel seats became illegal and none of that stuff would stand up in a crash test oh so um it just destroyed the companies and their ability to to do those things now you can buy Factory converted Vans anymore which are based on Factory window vans they don't have the larger bay windows that are installed in them um and so what they're doing to them is a lot less uh elaborate than they used to do to these things back in the day and so um it's sort of taken the fun out of it but nothing says you can't take them home put a nice set of mags on them and some pinstriping on them here and there yeah I didn't know I always wondered like all sudden they were they were everywhere and then they were nowhere it's been since about 1996. yeah government regulations have changed wow that's that's crazy so this one here has looks called The Pearl this was donated to us by uh Connie Williams from Virginia Beach Connie was actually at the very first Woodstock in 1969 she was a nurse there and immediately became enamored with Janice Joplin and so she built her van theme around the 60s uh tie dye and and uh the whole rock and roll theme from back in the day all the windows in this van are etched all the way around this is a 94 Chevy Astro van and she was single at the time and a few years ago she met a new bow and decided to uh he wanted to travel with her and see the world right and so they bought a bigger full-size van and instead of this van just going to anybody and getting tore up on the highway she wanted it to be saved oh well that's why she donated to the museum wow look at all the everybody used to wear the buttons from everything collect them so and it seems like stickers for the most part are part of the van thing because it seems like almost every band's got stickers stickers in the back windows the Surfers started that without cleaning shops and Invaders have always been uh hoarders of souvenirs which you'll see inside the building um whether it's putting patches on their jackets or stickers on their Vans we love showing the world and all the places we've been that's what this board is all about that's all I was going to ask next yeah this is all the people that have come to see us here at the Museum from the United States all the places they've come to from so these are visitor areas correct and if I show you the other side these are people from all over the world oh wow we've had people here from Norway and Finland and Sweden we just had visitors here uh three days ago from Denmark they've been here from Estonia which is a Russian Province England Spain [Music] wow we're still working on the uh the African continent and Australians although we we have a connection with a lot of Australians we actually have a display in the museum of Australian Banning we just haven't got any of them over here yet so I would think that there'd be some some people here with the Vans down there but maybe haven't been here yet but yeah well most of them cross the border aren't doing it uh they're the ones that go back sometimes are just going over here to Surf and do other things right all right so then this building here is the van Museum oh we got one more okay uh you got some pictures but I didn't really tell you about it oh okay so I'd like to tell you about it oh yeah yeah yeah where are we going well wherever you want just I just want to tell you about this truck though oh yeah okay all right um well this van is called the Voodoo Lounge this is a 1987 Ford that was donated to us by a fellow named Bob Maurice um also went by Starship Trooper and Bobby just passed away about three weeks ago and he knew that he was battling cancer this summer and decided that uh the last act that he would have in his vanning life would be to make sure that his van would be enjoyed by other people and so he donated it and all this camping material and uh all of the um contents to the museum he gave us some of his Trove as you see inside it was a national winner I had a couple of Nationals um a guy a fellow named Greg gerns actually on this van before Bobby he went by the handle of Odie he was from Michigan so this band's been owned by by two banners in in its in its life it was bought new in 1987. od was a work for Ford Motor Company and bought the brand new back then the pain on this truck is 87 Mustang blue and as you can see Bobby took incredible care of the van uh used I found all kinds of wash polishes and rags and and all that stuff inside the van when we opened it up so I knew he took really great care of that and this is what you were talking about the windows that are no longer legal right correct there are companies now that are making these things are repairing them and remaking the glass on them and there are places like up in Elkhart which was the RV capital of the world that have warehouses that have backed stocked these things because a lot of motorhomes and RVs and Van are still had these things trying to find them so if you're lucky enough to be able to find the size and the shape of one of them you can you can actually find one so most beautiful yep so yep I mean I don't it's is this the original paint no this is 87 Mustang blue um it was originally a darker blue color as I uh was saying um Greg who owned it originally worked for Ford Motor Company and had he had Insight with uh with Ford and a few things that were going on um but Bobby's on there for the last 10 years and he's the one that truly truly took care of this van and drove it all the time this truck's never been on the road on the uh back of a flatbed or delivery or whatever else he drove it um and camped in it slept in it and traveled in it and just had a lot of fun with the van and again this is hand paint as well the Buddha Lounge he was a Rolling Stones fan that's where that comes from right wow and we've already seen and this has captain's chair so very cool April should they subscribe to this channel even if they don't like cars today for this one probably just for this one

Channel: Junkyards and Barn Finds with Sean

Views: 8,606

Keywords: Junkyards and Barn Finds with Sean

Id: b0lursalb14

Length: 35min 31sec (2131 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 29 2022