I grew up in a small country town. There were 3 vans in town. One was mine, and I bought one of the others after it went up in flames.
I grew up in a small country town. There were 3 vans in town. One was mine, and I bought one of the others after it went up in flames.
I also got into cars in the late 90s in adelaide as well. The panel van was very much a tradie or a surfy car. I think this is why I still think it's a tradie van when it's white.
Back then van's weren't that cool tho, everyone wanted a ute. In a dark colour, with a twin headlight front, race buckets, gts guards, stateman interior and a v8.
Since I was getting my car loan through a very helpful dad he was having none of this van or ute buisness. So I ended up with a rust free but very ugly brown wagon which I loved.
Mid 70's, small central west NSW town, I can't say there were too many Holden pannos about. The local tank builder/ plumber had a ice blue Panno with stripes which always had a huge load of pipes on custom full length racks. You would sometimes see him getting around with a couple of smallish corrugated overhead tanks sitting up high on the racks. Dunno if his wheels were a sandman, but I do remember the stripes. There was a rough drifter that got around for years and years. It had an incident with a roo somewhere along the line and the grill was replaced with a poorly cut and installed chunk of 500 mm mesh. It was a 'local' car and whenever I head home, I would always see it in the main outside the Railway Hotel.
My cousin from Forbes (yep, with a good mow and a paisley wardrobe) had a nice nice nice HZ burgundy van with a fully decked and shagged interior and a spade shaped partition entrance. It was the first car I heard that had was stolen and I don't think he ever got it back. This was in the very early 80's. I remember my aunt telling Dad that my cousin said he was never going to sink his heart into any vehicle again after he lost it. She was right, he never had anything flash after that.:(:(:(:(
Same as Rico ... no dirt bikes!!! Dont miss the spilling of billy water though.....that stench would peel the paint off the walls!!Originally Posted by ozbox
My brother and a few of his surfie mates had wagons.
They had the cupboards, a matress, C.B.'s and curtains.
Also grew up seeing some Custom Vans in their prime at the local Panelvan & Hot Rod show.
BO6 = Rarer then a Sandman
Vans were all but dead in central west NSW in the 90's. There was one at Ag college (blue sandman). There was another I remember at Hawkesbury B&S with fat van plates doing circle work. Thats about it though for vans.
Utes were the thing. They were every where. Bullbars, bull lights, stickers and aerials. Heaps of Subaru Brumbies, XF Falcons, HQ-HZ Holdens. But king was WB Kingswood. All the rest were povo utes. How times change hey. Now WB Kingswoods are the poor cousin (to some anyway).
There was one other van around here actually, brown HX with a Tooheys sticker across the tailgate. It was fairly legendary around here. As a mater of fact, its the only van I have ever travelled in. It sucked more dust in than any other car I have ever been in. Dust just sort of hung in the air lol.
Hang on, Sandaros HJ Sandman Van was another, all the way back in high school and still going strong!
my first job was collecting money for newspapers in 1976 and one of my customers was a GMH executive and he always bought new cars home, he had statesmans ,monaros etc i also went to elizabeth high school and at lunch time we would hang out at united motors (now peter page) and collect brochures for all the current models including sandmans and LE monaro . i had 2 customers with sandmans and they were my favorite cars so i started buying custom vans and truck magazine and just got hooked .I bought my first sandman in 1982 it was a HX deville blue 308 4 speed and was used to tow a ski boat and sleep in . I owned it for 15 years and sold it in 1997 because it only had 2 seats and there were three of us by then.
can remember pulling into the original maccas at Yagoona late 70s and seeing a couple of dreggy looking guys in a fully decked out van with 2 smoking hot babes and thinking it must be the van as there's no other reason they would be with them
a mates sister was a bit of a bike (as was my neighbour) and they both had a thing for vans
at roller skating (bankstown and campbelltown) a lot of mates had vans and they were always full of girls
bunch of mates where i lived had vans
i was just pretty much meant to drive a van really
in mid 80s (i actually had 3 at the time) i was dating a girl who lived at blacktown and every friday night we would go to bass hill drive-in but i dont think i saw the second movie for about 2 years
was usually about 6 or 7 vans and we were always in the back row
those of you that never got to experience a packed single screen drive-in with the back 2 rows filled with vans - well, i just pity you. It was the best times i ever had
had a number of show cars and been to countless shows, taken out all sorts of awards and mates could never understandwhy i would run off to look at some old van where the shows full for 100k + show cars
went to buy a commodore ute 2 years ago and there was an XG ford van for sale so i bought it just because its a van - and i dont like fords
when the mambo van was at the motor show i went in with $5k and hassled the holden exec i knew to make sure i got Number 1 and he kept laughing at me. I thought it was because i wanted a van and then he showed me it was really a ute
i drove the mambo van in 2005 and offered to buy it and they wouldn't sell it - bastards :(
Last edited by 0488TINTER; 29-10-2011 at 03:10 AM.
Dean who was that maybe I knew him, Forbes is where I lived from 74-83, and BTW Rodney bought our original Sandman from Tony Caroll motors in Grenfell in 1981 2nd owner....(holden dealer on corner Jims trim is behind it)
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Totally agree we all used sit on bean bags on on the tailgate etc. it was the norm in all towns especially the country towns where there was nothing else to do....
HZ Jasmine Yellow Windowless Sandman, now being driven everywhere and is finished!
HZ Madeira Red Windowless sandman now Sold to Bigrob
HX Mandarin Red Sandman Ute finished, and club registered
1979 HZ malachite windowless van with 308 5spd, all chromed up and shiny finished and named "The Player"
Married to RodneyHZ253
I had a HJ Kinga van in the early 90`s for a while... It was the deeper sort of yellow, windowless, lowered, jelly bean mags, fat tyres and a black TJM bullbar with spotlights and I was constantly getting pulled up by the police for, well, who knows?
They never got me for anything, I never did anything, guess I just looked like a bogan!
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