When I was a kid the first real job I had was delivering newspapers around my neighbourhood and one of my favourite houses to deliver to was an old Victorian style mansion that looked like something out of a old Hollywood horror movie. The yellow paint was peeling, some of the windows were broken and there was a massive scraggly tree in the front yard that used to scrape against the side of the house when the wind blew.
Everyday I would load up my little red wagon with newspapers and make my rounds and I always delivered to the Victorian house last. That way I could spend a few extra minutes watching the owner work on his 1970’s Chevy van.
His van was shiny black with gold chrome mag wheels and a huge Conan the Barbarian type mural painted on the side. Inside there were speakers everywhere, thick shag carpeting and even a bed, which at the time I didn’t understand why anyone would want a bed in their car.
He always seemed to be working on the van and I never actually saw him drive it but I was fascinated with watching him work on it. I remember one day I decided that I wanted to customize my wagon by putting bigger “meats” tires on it. The only large tires I could find in my house were the ones from the lawnmower, so I pulled them off and hammered them on to my new custom wagon.
I showed my new van buddy what I had done and told him of my plans to give my wagon a custom paint job and he gave me a piece of shag carpet to lay under my newspapers.
Unfortunately my father put a stop to my customizing career after he went to mow the lawn and found the lawnmower was missing the two rear tires and just like that my vanning movement came to a stop.
Every time I see an old 1970’s Chevy van it reminds me of the time when briefly I was the coolest kid on the block.
Vans and the places where they were documents surviving custom/conversion vans across the West and examines the dialogue which sometimes exists between a van’s visual aesthetic and that of its surroundings.
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December 5, 2009
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