1972 Chevy Vans

Lost highway

Ten o’clock Sunday morning in the hills of North Carolina. Cars, miles of cars, in every direction, millions of cars, pastel cars, aqua green, aqua blue, aqua beige, aqua buff, aqua dawn, aqua dusk, aqua aqua, aqua Malacca, Malacca lacquer, Cloud lavender, Assassin pink, Rake-a-cheek raspberry. Nude Strand coral, Honest Thrill orange, and Baby Fawn Lust cream-colored cars are all going to the stock-car races…

This is no stock car race, though, and it isn’t North Carolina, but Wolfe nailed it. I’m at the Sawyer Motors Car Show, and I’m not much of a gearhead, even though I’m flanked by a few friends who are. They have a factoid for every auto we mill past (we’re milling because the streets are absolutely jam-packed with people), dropping terms like fuel injected and pressure per cubic centimeter. I don’t really care about that – I’m here for big engines and colors.

The GTO has a pretty substantial presence at the show. As it should. The GTO is a bad, handsome old thing that looks particularly fly in Swamp Thing-green. Frankly, at a show like this, you fall in love every two minutes with something new and more beautiful than before. The Chevy Nova is the apple of my eye, a bay-blue car from the ’60s and the everlasting king of my Hot Wheel collection. There’s that GTO, “The Judge,” with its golden piping on its olive coat – something you’d drive, maybe, if you were a tough as nails ’70s detective or a crime fighter (non-gearhead car factoid: the GTO is the modern Green Hornet’s car ). There are pink and blue Impalas left and right – it’s weird to imagine that that old thing, that rounded, brace-faced old monster, once rolled all over America.

Unearthly El Caminos, shimmering in the 90-plus heat of Partition Street.

Blood Orange Challengers, looking like they’ve bursted out of a time machine to spend some time being admired by their 21st century fans.

A passerby, while we’re standing in front of an Estate Wagon – a rambling old wood paneled, blood-colored tank with three, maybe three and a half rows of seats and an old timey cherry transistor radio hanging in the back for good measure – asks the question “Why don’t they make them like this anymore? Who said that you can’t make cars like this anymore?

Converting van front motorhome to car hauler? Anyone do it ...

After recently spending way too much renting trailers and borrowing trucks to move my assorted crap around, and browsing craigslist to see how overpriced most trucks seem, as well as storing a dolly or trailer, I had this thought....

This could be easily registered, cheap to insure (and build if I do it right), have lots of storage area for tools and parts under ramp ( if I weld some metal boxes down there) and much easier to store-I dont mind moving it every 3 days, and without smog tags would be easy and cheap... Anyone here done it? Ideas for something better?

I see a dedicated tow rig under $1500....

almost.....

in my mind 2 straight ramps (the one in above pic has that curve, would be impossible to get anything I own on that) running from edge of roof (or longer as needed) to rear bumper-then ramps that go on just like a car hauler

big ol winch should make loading easy, but would have to be pretty strong and have some engineering behind it so it doesnt fall apart when loaded

Try an old school bus (van based "short bus".) They have fairly low floors (therefore low deck height) and are built on heavier chassis than class-C RVs. Comparing the handling on one of those to the 1977 Dodge van-based 24' motorhome my parents had at the time was night and day, WAY more confident and controllable. I don't know about finding a pre-'74 model but the bus company I used to drive for sold a bunch of 1990-1992s off for 3-digit prices when I worked there.

school bus is a cool idea if you have a place to put it, I dont think a school bus would go unnoticed by the parking cops around here-have to look into parking rules in my city, but I know that I see at least 3 small(ish) motorhomes that never seem to move, which is encouraging-I am used to jockeying cars around on street sweeper day :)

internetautomart-interested to see more pics-how did you solve the hole in the roof?

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