Sandman and sub cultures

[wbute]

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!

[thatotherguy]

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.

[0488TINTER]

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 :(