In 1976 when I finished writing and publishing my first book, “The Complete Van Book,” there were less than 10 years left until the whole customized van craze of the 70’s ran its course. Enthusiasts took delivery vans made by Ford, Dodge, and Chevrolet, adorned them with wild metalflake paint jobs, molded flares around the wheel wells, cut oval windows into the vans’ side panels and sunroofs into their flat tops, and transformed the raw metal-ribbed interiors into dream palaces complete with flocked-wall treatments, shag carpets, velveteen convertible sofa-beds, refrigerators, mirrored ceilings and built-in wet bars. One van I saw in California had a champagne-spewing fountain, a fox-fur upholstered TV, and a mirrored disco ball. In the late-70’s and early 80’s, you saw them everywhere: there were custom van shows called “Van-ins,” variations on the hotrod shows of the 50’s and 60’s; van clubs that caravanned down freeways headed nowhere in particular, just so they could blast their crazy paint-jobs at the straight people in their station wagons and VW bugs; you even saw them in national parks in the summertime, their hippie-owners showing off their shag-carpeted home-away-from-homes to campers roughing it in tents and sleeping bags.
Did anybody else here choose the nautical version of a mobile tiniest home—namely, wind-driven vs gasoline-powered? A substantial body of cruising literature celebrates that life—first and foremost, Joshua Slocum's. Search lin larry and you get Lin and Larry Pardey, my heroes, who chronicled decades of earth-circling cruising aboard 20something-foot cutters. (After she had to tuck Larry into a comfortable NZ assisted-living facility, Lin promptly found herself a replacement skipper—at least that was the way I read it.) Did van dwellers have a troubador all their own as sailors had in Freddie Neil?
Fred Neil! He's come up in conversation a lot lately with a pal who lived in Miami in late '60s/early '70s and knew him well. A near-forgtten talent, sadly.
BTW, there was that kinda icky 1973 hit song "Chevy Van" by Sammy Johns.
'Chevy Van' by Sammy Johns I missed, unsurprisingly. I'd pretty much given up on pop by '73.
Yes, Freddie was the center of a bunch of musical salts in Coconut Grove—Vince Martin (his 'Bleecker & Macdougal'-days partner), John Sebastian, others including Kevin Ryan and in time Cafe au Go Go owners Howard and Elly Solomon https://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/16/us/howard-solomon-75-owner-of-famed-village-nightclub.html Freddie died too young, but friends were relieved at least it was in bed, not guaranteed during the bad-boy years, and presumably quite solvent thanks to 'Everybody's Talkin'.'
My pal Bob who knew Freddie in the Grove says much the same as you about his last years.
My favorite version of "The Dolphins" – a song I adore as I'm a big dolphin guy – is by my pal Dave Alvin that he did with his psychedelic side band The Third Eye.
Oh, that's nice. Thanks for the link, Rob. His dedication to dolphins was multiply manifest. I never knew Freddie, just met him during a gig he and Vince did at the Au Go Go. Personal news I got only second-hand.
I haven't thought the Pardey.s in many years and I am ashamed of that. They captured the essence of blue water sailing and kept it to the bare essentials. I am a sailor and licensed merchant marine officer, (now inactive). Some years ago I quit my day jobs ashore and delivered yachts on the Pacific. Most of my deliveries were largish power boats that had a lot of conveniences - - - air conditioning! fresh water maker! roll preventers!, SSB!- - - all things that we always critically short handed delivery crew welcomed. But, yeah, we knew we weren't the real deal like the Pardeys.
Wow, Bob. Just wow. I suspect that your tribute would have meant far more to the Pardeys than the usual they received. (Larry died, as you must know, in 2020. Wikipedia gives them a respectable amount of attention.)
Your resumé is a jaw-dropper. But in the end you had had enough? I'm always surprised when blue water sailors settle inland—Robin Lee Graham in Montana, e.g., the first to shock me. My sailing days are long past but—maybe because they were unadventurous—proximity feels as crucial as ever. Living four blocks from a tidal estuary I can see from my front door comforts me.
When I met my husband in DC in 1969, he had a VW van. We used to go to Rock Creek Park almost every weekend and to Georgetown in that baby. In the cold winters, we’d bundle up close in Army blankets because his heater was kaput. He and a friend got stoned one day and decided to paint it. They bought enamel wall paint and coated it in dark brown and orange. The vents were painted orange. The interior was a front bench seat while the back had been converted to a full-size bed, the walls were wood paneling. He had somebody make curtains for the windows and hung a bell near the rear light. A sight for sore eyes but man, we loved that van. Sold it for $250. When we moved to CA in ‘74, we bought his high school buddy’s van for maybe 2 thousand. It was green but had a bed and a small kitchen. Sold that later on and bought another VW, close to looking like a Westfalia. This was my favorite. Had a rear seat that folded out like a bed, a sink, a closet, and lots of storage. Plus, a pop-up when there was a suspended cot. Loved it until a drunken woman, driving a Lincoln Continental, smashed into the engine (Porsche at the time) and totaled her out. That was the end of our VW vans. Honestly, they had no guts going up hills. We’d take our vans to Tahoe and it seemed we were driving a Flintstone car. You know, where your feet are out on the pavement pushing and encouraging the car to go further.
While in Vietnam in 1968 I ordered a then new thing, a customized VW Camper van with a pop-top. I bought it through USAA's car buying service. We picked it up at a VW dealer in Luxembourg; all went smooth as silk. Traveled around Europe for months. Europe had great campgrounds, usually in wooded areas with hot showers, pools, amenities I had never seen in America where I had camped extensively. I had the van shipped back to the docks in Whiting, Indiana from Hamburgh for $200 (good guess) via a VW service.
What sticks with me is that when we stopped at a place, I had to move a lot of stuff around to get it all right. We stopped buying stuff!
We did that in 1972. It was absolutely fantastic. We had a VW van before that but the Westfalia was a cut above. No guts but we weren't in a hurry. Thanks for the memories.
1970. A buddy and I just discharged from the Army not quite ready to return to civilian life. He buys a new Ford Econoline Club van, stick shift(three on a tree) and talks me into driving from NYC to Arizona to visit another pal at ASU. We have a ball along the way and stop at KOA’s(Kampgrounds Of America) for showers always arriving late at night when the office is closed and leaving very early in the morning before the office opens so we didn’t have to pay. I had to drive over the Rocky Mountains because my Purple Heart and Combat Infantry Badge recipient buddy was too afraid to look down from the driver’s seat. As Lucian mentioned, you sat close to the windshield with no hood in front because the engine was in the cab. If being discharged from the Army was liberating, this road trip was exhilarating, fun, memorable and probably necessary to shake off military life. Hate to admit it but after 53 years I don’t remember the trip home!
In 1970 my parents bought a VW camper van with the popup roof for a bunk where I slept. We had an attachable tent, where my older brother slept and an attachable bunk that went across the driver and front passenger seats where my younger brother slept until he outgrew it. Mom and Dad slept on the foldable back seat. It had a little sink with a small ice box below. We traveled around the eastern seaboard and up to Canada. One memorable moment was going up a mountain in Nova Scotia. The camper didn’t make it up the grade. Dad backed it back down and backed it up the hill we just traveled down. He then tried again, didn’t let up on the gas until we made it back up the mountain. Woo-hoo! Fun vehicle but gutless, as it had the same engine as our VW Bug.
You had some nice parents who actually took you on their vacations. My parents had a different take on things, probably normal for the 1950's and earlier, which did not involve children. I can't picture my mother with a backpack, living in a tent. Her idea of roughing it was having to send my father down a hotel corridor to get ice because the room(s) didn't have an ice machine.
I had a very upper class girlfriend many years ago who refused to sleep in our tent on the beach in the Hamptons. She said for her camping meant staying at a motel instead of a hotel.
I worked at a Ford dealership in college when these units became a thing. We called them "Happy Wagons" or "F*** Trucks". Fifty years later, they are back, but as alternative (unwelcome) student housing. College administrators, apparently forced to expand enrollment with no new local housing, are kicking kids and their vans off the college parking lots and onto the streets.
My partner and I will be retiring in a couple of years, and our plan is to get a van and visit all of the national parks in the lower 48. Looking forward to outfitting our van!
I love this piece. Brings back memories. My late husband and I started out with a 1971 Ford van, bright yellow. He had your book to give him ideas. I hope to find that book tucked away somewhere someday.
My van was a Dodge Ram with a skylight, swiveling seats and grey shag carpeting. The first day out one of the kids spilled an orange soda on the wall-to-wall carpeting and the stain was there forever.
The looking straight down on the roadway sensation is great. As a kid I romanticized semis and my executive dad finally arranged for me to take a road trip to Chicago in one of his grain hauling semis. The truck was a cab-over with a window cut-out at your feet where you looked directly down on the roadway or the cars below, it was great fun. The cab-overs were finally retired out of, I assume, safety concerns. Your van memories Lucian remind me of Bill Clinton's El Camino with the astro-turf in the bed tales. Oh the things young people get up to.
Brings back some domesticated memories. One of the many cars I have owned in 82 years was a 1971 VW van (light blue and white). With VW vans you learned to judge traffic and anticipate speed adjustments - if you didn't, you'd be using the shift lever like an oar as you tried to gain speed again. You also had to figure cross winds - those vans were light and had nice flat sides; if you weren't watching, you'd come out from under a bridge into a crosswind and be half in the next lane in a flash. The Bride and I have considered a Sprinter for road trips, but new ones are kinda pricey. Some of them are true mini-motor homes with toilets and showers, viable for really long trips. It can be a great way to travel if you don't like rough camping. The Bride's idea of "roughing it" is B&W TV at the Ahwahnee.
Thanks for this fascinating look at van culture old and (re)new(ed). I was a teen in the 70s, and only got the barest glimpses of the interiors of such vans, from a distance. But I remember them on the road. The ethic of cozy--I like that expression, it captures that feeling well.
What? No pictures of your van’s interior? Tsk tsk, Lucian!
Great story, as always. I remember the van days as well, only I believe we called them “f*ck trucks” since their owners were so eager to get us in the back for some “Afternoon Delight!”
Perhaps the world's supply of recreational human testosterone in small containers on the earth's surface is as finite as the amount of oil underground. Brilliant cartoon in, of all places, Playboy, way back when, showed vengeful God looking down and shouting at a guy roaring along a road in a sports car, blonde babe-ola in the passenger seat. Caption was, "THIS is what you've done with my dinosaurs??" In today's version, He with a capital H would be looking down at The Usual Suspects while shouting at the rest of us, "THIS is what you've done with the testosterone I gave you???"
Did anybody else here choose the nautical version of a mobile tiniest home—namely, wind-driven vs gasoline-powered? A substantial body of cruising literature celebrates that life—first and foremost, Joshua Slocum's. Search lin larry and you get Lin and Larry Pardey, my heroes, who chronicled decades of earth-circling cruising aboard 20something-foot cutters. (After she had to tuck Larry into a comfortable NZ assisted-living facility, Lin promptly found herself a replacement skipper—at least that was the way I read it.) Did van dwellers have a troubador all their own as sailors had in Freddie Neil?
Bankin' off of the northeast winds
Sailin' on summer breeze
And skippin' over the ocean like a stone
I'm goin' where the sun keeps shinin'
Through the pourin' rain
Goin' where the weather suits my clothes. …
…
Those were the days, my friends.
William F. Buckley wrote a couple of good books about his sailing (real sailing!) adventures.
Ya gotta grant him this, the man could write. Buckley did love sailing, I think especially bigtime ocean racing,
Fred Neil! He's come up in conversation a lot lately with a pal who lived in Miami in late '60s/early '70s and knew him well. A near-forgtten talent, sadly.
BTW, there was that kinda icky 1973 hit song "Chevy Van" by Sammy Johns.
'Chevy Van' by Sammy Johns I missed, unsurprisingly. I'd pretty much given up on pop by '73.
Yes, Freddie was the center of a bunch of musical salts in Coconut Grove—Vince Martin (his 'Bleecker & Macdougal'-days partner), John Sebastian, others including Kevin Ryan and in time Cafe au Go Go owners Howard and Elly Solomon https://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/16/us/howard-solomon-75-owner-of-famed-village-nightclub.html Freddie died too young, but friends were relieved at least it was in bed, not guaranteed during the bad-boy years, and presumably quite solvent thanks to 'Everybody's Talkin'.'
My pal Bob who knew Freddie in the Grove says much the same as you about his last years.
My favorite version of "The Dolphins" – a song I adore as I'm a big dolphin guy – is by my pal Dave Alvin that he did with his psychedelic side band The Third Eye.
https://youtu.be/1X5bmxWBImc
Oh, that's nice. Thanks for the link, Rob. His dedication to dolphins was multiply manifest. I never knew Freddie, just met him during a gig he and Vince did at the Au Go Go. Personal news I got only second-hand.
I haven't thought the Pardey.s in many years and I am ashamed of that. They captured the essence of blue water sailing and kept it to the bare essentials. I am a sailor and licensed merchant marine officer, (now inactive). Some years ago I quit my day jobs ashore and delivered yachts on the Pacific. Most of my deliveries were largish power boats that had a lot of conveniences - - - air conditioning! fresh water maker! roll preventers!, SSB!- - - all things that we always critically short handed delivery crew welcomed. But, yeah, we knew we weren't the real deal like the Pardeys.
Wow, Bob. Just wow. I suspect that your tribute would have meant far more to the Pardeys than the usual they received. (Larry died, as you must know, in 2020. Wikipedia gives them a respectable amount of attention.)
Your resumé is a jaw-dropper. But in the end you had had enough? I'm always surprised when blue water sailors settle inland—Robin Lee Graham in Montana, e.g., the first to shock me. My sailing days are long past but—maybe because they were unadventurous—proximity feels as crucial as ever. Living four blocks from a tidal estuary I can see from my front door comforts me.
When I met my husband in DC in 1969, he had a VW van. We used to go to Rock Creek Park almost every weekend and to Georgetown in that baby. In the cold winters, we’d bundle up close in Army blankets because his heater was kaput. He and a friend got stoned one day and decided to paint it. They bought enamel wall paint and coated it in dark brown and orange. The vents were painted orange. The interior was a front bench seat while the back had been converted to a full-size bed, the walls were wood paneling. He had somebody make curtains for the windows and hung a bell near the rear light. A sight for sore eyes but man, we loved that van. Sold it for $250. When we moved to CA in ‘74, we bought his high school buddy’s van for maybe 2 thousand. It was green but had a bed and a small kitchen. Sold that later on and bought another VW, close to looking like a Westfalia. This was my favorite. Had a rear seat that folded out like a bed, a sink, a closet, and lots of storage. Plus, a pop-up when there was a suspended cot. Loved it until a drunken woman, driving a Lincoln Continental, smashed into the engine (Porsche at the time) and totaled her out. That was the end of our VW vans. Honestly, they had no guts going up hills. We’d take our vans to Tahoe and it seemed we were driving a Flintstone car. You know, where your feet are out on the pavement pushing and encouraging the car to go further.
Thanks for the memories!
While in Vietnam in 1968 I ordered a then new thing, a customized VW Camper van with a pop-top. I bought it through USAA's car buying service. We picked it up at a VW dealer in Luxembourg; all went smooth as silk. Traveled around Europe for months. Europe had great campgrounds, usually in wooded areas with hot showers, pools, amenities I had never seen in America where I had camped extensively. I had the van shipped back to the docks in Whiting, Indiana from Hamburgh for $200 (good guess) via a VW service.
What sticks with me is that when we stopped at a place, I had to move a lot of stuff around to get it all right. We stopped buying stuff!
We did that in 1972. It was absolutely fantastic. We had a VW van before that but the Westfalia was a cut above. No guts but we weren't in a hurry. Thanks for the memories.
And l place to share them.
Going back can provide some comfort when the way forward is so fraught.
1970. A buddy and I just discharged from the Army not quite ready to return to civilian life. He buys a new Ford Econoline Club van, stick shift(three on a tree) and talks me into driving from NYC to Arizona to visit another pal at ASU. We have a ball along the way and stop at KOA’s(Kampgrounds Of America) for showers always arriving late at night when the office is closed and leaving very early in the morning before the office opens so we didn’t have to pay. I had to drive over the Rocky Mountains because my Purple Heart and Combat Infantry Badge recipient buddy was too afraid to look down from the driver’s seat. As Lucian mentioned, you sat close to the windshield with no hood in front because the engine was in the cab. If being discharged from the Army was liberating, this road trip was exhilarating, fun, memorable and probably necessary to shake off military life. Hate to admit it but after 53 years I don’t remember the trip home!
Here comes (there went) The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby Lucian . What a delightful respite from da news of da day. Thanks a-gain.
Last year when I thought I might lose my house, I considered van life. Wish those dream boxes had better mileage, though.
House is now safe and I might re-read "Blue Highways" instead.
Great book!!!
In 1970 my parents bought a VW camper van with the popup roof for a bunk where I slept. We had an attachable tent, where my older brother slept and an attachable bunk that went across the driver and front passenger seats where my younger brother slept until he outgrew it. Mom and Dad slept on the foldable back seat. It had a little sink with a small ice box below. We traveled around the eastern seaboard and up to Canada. One memorable moment was going up a mountain in Nova Scotia. The camper didn’t make it up the grade. Dad backed it back down and backed it up the hill we just traveled down. He then tried again, didn’t let up on the gas until we made it back up the mountain. Woo-hoo! Fun vehicle but gutless, as it had the same engine as our VW Bug.
You had some nice parents who actually took you on their vacations. My parents had a different take on things, probably normal for the 1950's and earlier, which did not involve children. I can't picture my mother with a backpack, living in a tent. Her idea of roughing it was having to send my father down a hotel corridor to get ice because the room(s) didn't have an ice machine.
I had a very upper class girlfriend many years ago who refused to sleep in our tent on the beach in the Hamptons. She said for her camping meant staying at a motel instead of a hotel.
I worked at a Ford dealership in college when these units became a thing. We called them "Happy Wagons" or "F*** Trucks". Fifty years later, they are back, but as alternative (unwelcome) student housing. College administrators, apparently forced to expand enrollment with no new local housing, are kicking kids and their vans off the college parking lots and onto the streets.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-11-26/cal-poly-humboldt-students-who-live-in-vehicles-are-ordered-off-campus
https://lostcoastoutpost.com/2023/nov/2/cal-poly-housing-protest/
We have come to this. But those early van conversions were sure fun. Shag carpeting :)
HSU (now Cal-Poly Humboldt) Class of '74.
My partner and I will be retiring in a couple of years, and our plan is to get a van and visit all of the national parks in the lower 48. Looking forward to outfitting our van!
DO IT !
I love this piece. Brings back memories. My late husband and I started out with a 1971 Ford van, bright yellow. He had your book to give him ideas. I hope to find that book tucked away somewhere someday.
What a nice way to start a Monday!
My van was a Dodge Ram with a skylight, swiveling seats and grey shag carpeting. The first day out one of the kids spilled an orange soda on the wall-to-wall carpeting and the stain was there forever.
The looking straight down on the roadway sensation is great. As a kid I romanticized semis and my executive dad finally arranged for me to take a road trip to Chicago in one of his grain hauling semis. The truck was a cab-over with a window cut-out at your feet where you looked directly down on the roadway or the cars below, it was great fun. The cab-overs were finally retired out of, I assume, safety concerns. Your van memories Lucian remind me of Bill Clinton's El Camino with the astro-turf in the bed tales. Oh the things young people get up to.
Brings back some domesticated memories. One of the many cars I have owned in 82 years was a 1971 VW van (light blue and white). With VW vans you learned to judge traffic and anticipate speed adjustments - if you didn't, you'd be using the shift lever like an oar as you tried to gain speed again. You also had to figure cross winds - those vans were light and had nice flat sides; if you weren't watching, you'd come out from under a bridge into a crosswind and be half in the next lane in a flash. The Bride and I have considered a Sprinter for road trips, but new ones are kinda pricey. Some of them are true mini-motor homes with toilets and showers, viable for really long trips. It can be a great way to travel if you don't like rough camping. The Bride's idea of "roughing it" is B&W TV at the Ahwahnee.
Never owned a van but loved my 1967 VW bug for open road travel with car camping every night.
Thanks for this fascinating look at van culture old and (re)new(ed). I was a teen in the 70s, and only got the barest glimpses of the interiors of such vans, from a distance. But I remember them on the road. The ethic of cozy--I like that expression, it captures that feeling well.
🤣🤣✌️✌️🕊️🕊️
What? No pictures of your van’s interior? Tsk tsk, Lucian!
Great story, as always. I remember the van days as well, only I believe we called them “f*ck trucks” since their owners were so eager to get us in the back for some “Afternoon Delight!”
Ah, the ‘70s…!
It's in my book, if you can find it.
Perhaps the world's supply of recreational human testosterone in small containers on the earth's surface is as finite as the amount of oil underground. Brilliant cartoon in, of all places, Playboy, way back when, showed vengeful God looking down and shouting at a guy roaring along a road in a sports car, blonde babe-ola in the passenger seat. Caption was, "THIS is what you've done with my dinosaurs??" In today's version, He with a capital H would be looking down at The Usual Suspects while shouting at the rest of us, "THIS is what you've done with the testosterone I gave you???"