Bedford Vans

Plymouth Vans, people go crazy over them. They sale for big bucks at auction, in reality they’re just rebadged Dodge vans. I admit I share the same kind of enthusiasm for Bedford Vans, basically rebadged GM vans made in the UK and sold through all of Europe.

Bedford Vans differ from their American brethren with the different grille as well as a unique sliding passenger and driver’s door. It’s really pretty cool little feature and I am surprised I’ve never seen an American custom van fitted in this way.

Bedford Vans also differ from the US counterpart in the way that paneled SUV’s and Wagons were considered part of the van line as well.

Bedford vans came in many different flavors starting with a slant 4 cylinder engine. Think a V6 van is underpowered; try driving a standard size van with a four banger!

Very few have made it to the U.S., the ones that are hear are basically rusted out. With the van scene of the 70’s not really taking off in the U.K. like it did in the U.S. custom rides are few and far between, but a little digging on the web can turn up some spectacular examples.

Post to Come: Bedford Vans, Classic JDM Book Update, and Maggie Cheung!

So a month goes by, and I don't post anything. Then last week happens and I write 7 new post. I'm trying to keep the pace up, so here's a list of what to expect. 

Not a lot is commonly known about Bedford Vans in the US, even among enthusiast.

Will take a close look at these British GM people movers in a detailed Profile. 

My post about Classic JDM Books has had a lot of hits but since posting it I have

found many more resources including the English language "BIBLE"  on the subject.

Look for a picture heavy post coming soon.

So Japanese women get a lot of love on this site, but I don't discrihate I love all

Asian women! To prove just that point, we will have a nice profile and selected

Filmography on Hong Kong beauty Maggie Cheung! 

If you notice I didn't put any dates on when these will go up, I'm going to try in fit them all in this week, but there's my other two blogs I have to  post on as well so just check back and see.

70's Camper Trucks

Travel Back with me to a place and time when having a camper over your truck bed was cool. Have a look...

My Post Apocalyptic Van

I love Post Apocalyptic movies, with the Mad Max trilogy being high on the list. One aspect I love about these movies are the funky vehicles the survivors outfit for the wasteland. What started as an art project I got some of my artist friends to help me with rendering my van with women posing with it, took an entirely different direction when one of them sent me a quick sketch of my van Post Apocalyptic style.

Below is the results of some of my artist friends hard work. Below each picture is a link to their portfolio, I urge everyone to take a look at their stuff, and consider them for any illustration needs you might have that fit their style.

To see how the Vans & Girls image turned out, click here.

Clean lines and a minimalist approach gave my van a very Dystopian authoritativeness. The

work was done by Argentine artist Diego Martinez. Yeah I'm digging it.

www.mardelplatacomics.blogspot.com   

Spanish artist Antonio Jesus went the opposite direction by adding a ton

of gritty detail bits. I like how he kept the original design of my van and

kit bashed an outlaw look form hell.

http://aj79.deviantart.com/gallery/ 

This big bit of awesomeness is from the very talented Hoyt Silva. Hoyt has

a very unique style a little reminiscent Mignola but totally original at the same time. I had to

wait a little longer to get this piece in, but as you can see it was worth the wait. I really

didn't know what to expect when I commissioned these but Hoyt was right on

what I envisioned.

thehoyt.deviantart.com

hoytsilva.com

The Eagle Has Landed

I wrote over a month ago about how I bought a 1977 Ford Custom Van in Fort Worth, and was going to have it shipped to where I now live in Mississippi. I was waiting on my tax return to come in before I could get it shipped.

As some of you might have heard the IRS had a major backlog of payments they couldn't send out for whatever bullshit reason. Well last week my deposit finally went through and I made arrangement's to have it shipped.

Exactly one week after I made the call it's now in my driveway. I already showed pictures of the exterior, luckily nothing changed in the move. So I thought I would share some pictures of the swank 70's interior.

Custom Wrap Around Couch In The Back

 Thick Shag From Floor to Ceiling

Shot From The Back Seat 

Custom Cup Holder Built On The Dog House

It Flips Down To Reveal A Hand Gun Shaped Spot
And Holes Drilled Perfect Sized For Bullets!  

And One Last Shot Of The Orange Beast  

SCORE: 1977 Ford Econoline 150 Custom

It was the right time and I was at the right place. I had spotted the crigslist ad two weeks ago, and conversed with the seller by phone and text.

I live by the mantra that if it's to good to be true it probably is, this seemed to be the case. The seller assured me everything in the description was accurate. I decided to make a weekend trip to Fort Worth to see it in person. Sure enough it was as nice in person as in the photos.

I paid for the van, and rented a trailer from U-Hall unfortunately the trailer was to small. What really sucked is the fact that I didn't find that out until I loaded the van on and ripped a hole the front passenger side tire. I then hauled it from Godly, TX to Fort Worth and nearly flipped the van off the trailer.

So it was decided I would store it at my friends house long enough for me to arrange transport from a shipping company.

I'm so excited, it's not perfect by any means but is a great platform for a custom van project.

Photos below.

The grille trim needs to be replaced, but otherwise
a nice straight front end

Changing the Tire

Didn't take any photos of the interior, but it's all original from '77. Floor to ceiling shag carpet, four captains chairs and a custom wrap around sofa in the rear.

Old School Auto Ads

Flipping through an issue of Car Craft Magazine (May, 1975) I stumbled upon a couple of great ads. I thought I would share them here. As always, click the picture for a larger image.

Car Craft May 1975 Cover

SuperMuff!

Great Dodge Ad

T-Shirt Iron On Decals

Close-Ups Of Some of the Decals

Classic JDM: Update

Since my last post on Classic JDM Cars I have received in the mail a couple of more Classic Japanese Car items. The first is issue 1-3 of Japanese Nostalgic Car available here. This really is a great read, tons of photo's and interesting pieces. Well worth the cheap price.

Next up is the professionally produced DVD of 2007 JCCS event coverage. Tons of beautifully restored and modified classic JDM cars on U.S. soil! Awesome DVD, get it here. 

Classic JDM

I love classic Japanese cars. To a lot of people "Classic" and "Japanese Cars" don't go together. The truth of the matter is the Japanese have a long and interesting legacy of car manufacturing. It's true, the Japanese did event the compact economy box, and a lot of 60's Japanese cars fit this profile. Although they didn't really have any large, heavy, V8 muscle cars they had fast little coupes with a lot of personality.

I get excited when I see a mid 80's Supra or 70's Celica on the road. Like all my hobbies (read obsessions) I feel the need to read up on the subject. I started on amazon.com, I have bought tons of books on American and European cars on Amazon so I thought I would find a lot to read on Japanese cars. I was wrong.

First off there are not whole lot of books on the subject, and hardly a one on classic Japanese cars. I found a nice selection of books on Datsun Z's, but that's to be expected. Most Datsun owners don't even think of their cars as Japanese. Some going as far as cramming SBC engines into their little sports cars.

I did some digging and found a title named The Complete Book Of Japanese Import Cars, Peterson Publishing 1977. I bought a used ex-library copy off amazon for $25. It's a thin hard bound book with a color cover and black and white interior pages. Toyota, Datsun, Mazda, Honda, and Subaru are all covered in it's pages. It has a short description and specs on the cars it features and photo guide instructions on doing simple repairs.

The photos of the cars are all in black and white and there are not a lot of them, what is there is cool enough though. I came to find out latter this is somewhat of a rare book and usually sells for upwards of $50.

Typical photos found in the Peterson Book

Next I ordered a copy of Celica & Supra:The Book of Toyota's Sports Coupes, by Brian Long 2007. This book is published by Veloce, the same people who brought us the equally entertaining Datsun Z book. This book is full of color images of every  Celica and Supra  released up to 2007. Also included are ad mats from Japan and the U.S. featuring these two great Toyota's. Spec sheets, facts, and opinionated articles are all present making this a solid book.

My only complaint is the price of the book. It's a British book so a high price is to be expected but it retails for $39.95 U.S. Given the fact that it's a thick book and the pages are all glossy one could say it's worth it. I guess it all depends on how big of a Toyota fan you are.

An example of  just one of the beautiful Celica's featured 

Up to this point these were the only books on classic JDM cars I could find. I was left to scouring ebay for back issues of Motor Trend and Car & Driver from the 70's that had write ups on Japanese imports. Months later I received some back issues of the Japanese Kogal magazine Egg. I bought them from a book dealer in Japan that specialized in Back issues of Japanese magazines. He had stuck a flyer in the middle of one of the magazines. I had seen it before, it said something along the lines of "I can send any Japanese magazine available to the U.S." The thought hit me like a ton of bricks, if anyone would have books or magazines on Classic JDM cars it would be Japan!

I know this might sound stupid given the fact that I order stuff from Japan all the time, but I just hadn't made the connection until then. I emailed the guy and he wrote back telling me there were plenty of books and monthly magazines on the subject. The books start out at about $75 and climb up to $250, magazines can be had for $25 to $40.

Typical Japanese magazines are a lot thicker than American magazines. They're of course in Japanese but are very image heavy with the added bonus of funny Engrish throughout. There are numerous titles available but the best seems to be "Nostalgic Hero" and it's off shoots.

Every month Nostalgic Hero features a number of great restored classic Japanese cars, many never available in the U.S. Back issues are plentiful on ebay, but expect to pay a lot when it comes to shipping.

Coming full circle I was in Books-a-Million last week looking in the automotive magazine section and came upon a new title, Super Street Retro. It's pretty unbelievable but it's a Super Street magazine that doesn't feature one Honda! Weird I know. What is does feature is classic Japanese cars from the 60's through the 80's. Informative articles on build-ups, and Garage profiles. I snatched a copy but don't have it in front of me, so I can't tell if it's a monthly, bi-monthly, or yearly. I don't recall any subscription cards in it though.

And that's my quest for classic JDM car books, believe it or not there are not a whole lot of web sites devoted to the subject either, what I have found is listed below. If you're just looking for eye candy cardomain.com is a good place to go. Just plug in the car of your choice and choose display results year oldest to newest.

..::Linkage::..
http://www.jdmclassics.com/
http://japanesenostalgiccar.com/
http://www.jassics.com/