Van Extraordinaire

Remember the van daze of the 1970s? Every young dude had to have a van, a van that made a statement. Add shag carpet, a water bed and you were ready for sex, drugs and rock and roll.

It started with the flower children of the sixties and their psychedelic VW microbuses. In 1961, however, Ford introduced the Econoline and set the pattern for the following decades. In '62 a mode elevée version, the Falcon Club Wagon, entered the catalog; the Econoline was for families as well as tradesmen. Dodge followed in 1963 with the A-100, and Chevrolet joined the pack in '64, forsaking the microbus-like Corvan for the new Chevy Van.

With kids tricking out the stark commercial vans for their own social tastes, it was only a short time before big business entered the market. The recreational vehicle industry, which had arisen with pickup campers and motor homes, started doing van conversions, some basic, some quite elaborate. My daughter Harriet spotted the van atop this page in Arlington, Virginia, recently, dubbed Vantastic by Hop Cap. Hop Cap, Inc., of Bremen, Indiana, one of a host of RV manufacturers in Michiana, the region along the Indiana/Michigan border, began making fiberglass pickup caps, and expanded into van conversions and motor homes. This Vantastic is a rather mild makeover of a circa 1975 Dodge van, with diamond bubble windows and trendy graphics.

The van movement finally faded, and with it Hop Cap, which closed in 1980. By the mid-eighties, the van of choice was a Dodge Caravan, the darling of soccer moms and football dads. You can still buy a conversion van, but they're for adults now. The kids drive tricked-out Honda Civics.

That's not to say that the psychedelic van movement is dead. This Ford is regularly seen in New London, Connecticut. One wonders, though, how in the world the driver sees where he's going.

In My Humber Opinion

Lee Miller has a soft spot for Humbers. The owner of a 1961 two-tone grey over red leather Super Snipe while on duty in Britain with the US Air Force in the 1970s, he's kept an eye out for them ever since. Familiar to him was a 1964 model that sat for ten years, unmoved, three blocks from his Florida home - until he went to take some better photos in the summer of 2003 only to find it gone.

More remarkable was finding this 1952 Humber Super Snipe Touring Limousine in a St. Petersburg junkyard about a year ago. Purchased as a project by the yard owner, it has become sidelined in favor of a Bentley restoration. In need of lots of work, it has the traditional English walnut interior trim, leather seats and a division window. The hood ornament, hub caps and fender skirts (spats) have been removed, but go with the car. (It is currently for sale; if you're interested, call Steve at +1 727-423-2571.)

The Humber was kind of a British Buick, flagship of the Rootes Group, whose siblings included Hillman, Sunbeam (-Talbot), and Singer. Established in 1868 by Thomas Humber to build bicycles, Humber, Ltd, made the transition to motor cars in 1898, selling out to the Rootes brothers, William and Reginald, in 1930. The Snipe and Pullman models of the 1930s were joined by a smaller Hawk after World War II.

I have some personal experience with the Hawk. My aunt and uncle toured Europe in one in 1956, taking delivery in London and bringing it home to the USA at the end of the summer. Basically a four-cylinder Super Snipe, it was devoid of walnut but possessed of typical British accoutrements of the period. I distinctly remember learning the intricacies of shifting, in which the column-mounted lever was pushed away-and-down to start in second (first gear was for pulling stumps), pulled near-and-up for third, then straight down for "top gear." Reverse required pulling out on the knob, pushing toward the dashboard and then way down toward the floor. (This illustration has been "flopped" from the factory literature to reflect the car's left-hand-drive.)

Super Snipes of the type spotted by Lee were not uncommon in the US during the 1960s, the wrap-around windshield and quad headlights expected to appeal to western tastes. When Chrysler Corporation took over Rootes in 1967, Humbers were sidelined, the last model being the Sceptre of 1968-76, basically an upmarket Hillman Hunter.Though small, Humber's following is dedicated, and includes clubs in Britain and Australia.

Family Falcon

This is the time when apple blossoms usually come to the CarPort's home town. The blossoms in turn remind me that 25 years ago this week we purchased our new, seventeen-year-old Ford Falcon station wagon.

I had flirted with the car, a 1963 Rangoon Red Deluxe four-door wagon, at Spring Carlisle, but without cash in hand and inexperienced in the ways of buy-and-drive, I had returned home car-less. Unbeknownst to me, a friend had purchased it; when he learned of my interest he was happy to find a motivated buyer. He drove it over and I bought it on the spot.

Our new Falcon was a rather rara avis, equipped with the 260 cid version of Ford's small block V8 and a three-speed manual transmission. The "Sprint" Falcons, announced in January 1963 and delivered a couple of months later, are well known, but less appreciated is the fact that the V8 could be ordered in any Falcon from that time onward. Bearing simple "260 V8" emblems, our car was devoid of the dress-up items lavished on the new Sprint versions of the hardtop and convertible, but packed the same 164 bhp through a slightly quieter muffler. It served us well for six years as a family car, carrying home the newest member of our family in 1983 and making countless excursions to nursery school, Grandma's house and beyond. When carefully packed, it would hold all that a family of five needed for a two-week vacation.

Usually I prefer the first year of any new car design, typically in its purest form. Of the first generation Falcons, though, the '63 is my favorite, since the "pure" 1960 is too "McNamara-ish," and the '61 and '62 appear contrived. The added adornment for 1963 nicely complements the new convertible and fastback hardtop added that year (thanks to Wayne Graefen for sharing a photo of his new project hardtop). The Falcon Club of America looks after Ford Falcons, and their website has plenty outgoing links.

Eventually, as mileage crept towards 170,000, the engine developed emphysema, and signs of rust, just festering sores when the car arrived, became gaping wounds. I planned to give it a heart transplant and some skin grafts, even acquired a parts car. But the more I investigated the more complete seemed the need for restoration. Eventually we needed the garage space for other projects, so I sold it to a pediatrician as a mate for the Rangoon Red Sprint convertible he had just finished restoring. We were sad when our station wagon left, and we still miss it.

Tall Trucks

Wayne Graefen's been out carousing again. This time he's come up with a bull-nosed beauty not far from his Texas hacienda. When I was young there were lots of these cab-over-engine trucks around, "Cab Overs" we called them, or sometimes "COE;" some people called them "cab forward," but I never did. Now they're a figment of the past. This truck has been identified by Rich Miller, an early Ford V8 enthusiast with a rich knowledge, as Body Style 80 from the 1941-47 era - they looked virtually the same for that entire period. Built on wheelbases from 101 to 158 inches, they carried a myriad of model numbers, all ending in "W."

The reason for mounting the cab so high is obvious. By putting it over the engine, or nearly so, it's possible to make a shorter, more maneuverable truck for a given payload. The chassis (this one's actually a '39) is downright stubby, much shorter than would be required for a conventional cab. The skybox, where the driver and passenger sit, suffers an intrusion by the engine, and the shift lever is canted forwards, since the transmission is actually behind the driver. Rich says that the Ford Cab Overs feature a "nice roasty-toasty cabin for those chilly nights and early morning hauls," but on "brow-sweating summer days on runs grinding up the highway with the windshields pushed out for maxium ventilation" the side ventilators on the cowl were "essential once the engine heat got too unbearable."

Cab Overs arose during the 1930s, and most truck manufacturers, Ford, Chevy, GMC, Dodge, Studebaker, had them, right through into the 1950s. Internationals were among the most streamlined of the early COEs. The Cab Over trucks most unusual in the USA may be the Canadian Military Pattern made in Canada by both Ford and General Motors during World War II for use overseas.

Why don't we have Cab Over Engine trucks any longer? In the 1950s, several manufacturers moved the engine aft and the cab further forward, putting driver and passenger closer to the ground. The "Tilt Cab" (for that's how you get at the engine) models from Ford appeared in 1957, and International, had them too. I call them "flat-fronts." The idea quickly caught on, and by 1960, almost every truckmaker had made the switch. Thus the Cab Over passed into history.