new blood in vanning

[silverado]

Heres a topic for discussion and provoking thought.

How can we entice new blood and younger people in to vanning.

Most of realise that the vanning lifestyle "craze" was spawned in the 70's by CB radio and movies like convoy, Smokey and the Bandit, CB Husslers, Road Kings and many other cool car and trucking programs and films.

But for many it went way passed that, it was also the time of greats like George Barris who lead the way in far out car and van customising.
Hell even Holden had a go with thier sand Van version of the panal van.

Now days we have far easier access to accessories and technoligy has made modifiying vehicles as simple as plug and play.
The young petrol heads today are more aware of technoligy and they also have a much greater desposable income, not mention access to international outlets for parts, with the internet putting everything on our doorstep.

When I saw Smokey and the Bandit at age 13 and decided I was going to have a Bandit Trans Am, who would have thought I would have shopped all over the USA for it, from my lounge chair in NZ and then had it shipped half way around the world.

Then there is the abilty and the easy affordability to have an awesome well equiped workshop at home, things like Mig welders, grinders, presses and whole plethora of other equipment thats now really affordable, portable and in some cases didnt even exist in the 70's makes the vanning hobby so easy.
Technoligy has also bought us easy access to things like prefinnshed timber and trim, sythetic materials with an unbeleivable range of colours styles and textures, not to mention synthetic leather, cool.
I wont even start on paint and wheels, just let your mind wander for a while...

So the question remains, we have the abilty to carry out mods and customise to our hearts content and its all so much easier.
The kids keep buying these pocket rockets and bolting on this that and the other till they all have the same label wheels, same label lights and so on.

How can we entice these talented kids back to real customising and something that has a lot more to offer than just a quick thrill.

Will there be vanners in another 30 years.
What are your thoughts.     

[obsession]

AHH FFFFFFFFF 2 PAGES TIMED OUT GRRRRRRR

[Dano]

ah #%^&# IT same as he said!

[Kirk]

Ban Ben from buying them all, that way they atleast have a chance to see one:) hahahaha

[matty]

  I think when it comes to cars most people want to be part of a group and be seen in that group.  We all want to be an individual while still be part of
something, I guess that really goes for people of all ages not just the young.

  You don't really see many vans on the road anymore and you rarely see them all together.  Maybe as a group we should be jumping on hot rod runs and
make our presence know at any other car cruising events.  I’m sure we would be welcome where ever we go.
 
  I guess it’s a lot easier said than done.

[BlackBedford]

The short answer is you wont.

Vanning started in the USA in the 70s:
http://www.vannin.com/briefhistory.shtml


There are historical reasons but one of the main problems is the stupid managemant at GM and Ford.


If you look at any street scene in US movies, you will quickly notice that box vans are VERY common.
In some movies I have counted 1 in 4 vehicles being box vans. Why? New vans are relatively cheap over there. There is plenty of factory options available as well. That gives plenty of stock available for customising.

The scene is Australia has always been different.
Although we have always had box vans, they have been incredibly overpriced.

Here is a quote I got for a new CFS. The salesaman wouldn't sell me one and quoted a Holden for comparison:



Note the number of options available for a CF.

GMH and Ford should have optioned V8s, etc, but wouldn't.
Panel vans were the go and have always been popular. Parts are interchangeable from sedans so customising has been easy.
In the 80's stupid management decided that they weren't selling enough vans and therefore making enough money so they stopped production, where they should have dropped the price. Importing the Isuzu Shuttle van and the Mazda Econovan were somehow seen as acceptable.
I can still remember having a stand up argument with a senior MArketing Manager from GMH about how they had lost touch with the market. It happened at a Holden Dealership where they had called him in to complain about cutting the WB Statesman and 1-tonner (60% of ALLL their sales). I uped him about their inability to supply a good delivery van.
He was convinced that the dealership would prosper on the Jap crap. The dealership management overheard me and came out and pated me on the back. It didn't do any good, the dealership, and many others, closed down.
As a result of GMH decisions, there is now very little stock available for us.
As far as I am concerned, the sooner GM, and Ford, goes broke, the better.

There are some customised vans starting to show up, L300s, Hiaces, Vitos, etc.
I myself now drive a Suzuki carry van. This is the type of van that GM and Ford could of, and should of made. It is well made, goes well, and has interchangeable parts with the sedans.

There are lot of other historical social reasons that I could rant on about for hours but ant the end of the day, Vanning is a fetish, so just enjoy it.

I consider myself a 2%:
http://www.vannin.com/history.htm

And I think that is better than being one of the 98%

[obsession]

AHHH.... an age old chat let me get my soapbox....
So we had some of this discussion on the old site a few years back and its worth reading Chris Ryan’s post on the 2% phenomenon. I’ll try and find it later and re post it or he may still have it,
This is just my 70c worth
Youth, your right of course if you want to involve youth in our sport then you have to do it at grass roots level that’s where the building blocks of time are established and where the 2%er‘s come from those of you who are unfamiliar with the term it is basically a hardcore or never dying Vanners eg never gone away from the vans either owning 1 or being involved.
There are a couple of things that stop us from recruiting young customizers to the group the 1st and most important thing is a lack of quality project vans to start with have you priced a sandman lately?

And lack of a Mentor system.........
Pickmeup and I were fortunate enough to travel across the U.S.A in style with a F100 club and attend the  1956 F100 supernational’s apart from the 5000 F100’s in attendance one of the biggest things I remember about the trip was at the end ,they had a trophy night and the 1st thing they did was invite all the  JUNIOR MEMBERS up on stage to talk about their projects, some of these kids were 10years old up into their teens in fact I think we met a girl who was 15 and her pickup made the top  Ten!

The clubs or individuals over there start the interest in high school and at club level they have info days for the kids and workshops and how to’s etc some clubs even donate a project to a local manual arts class and so becomes a shop learning tool.

I have 2 teenage sons and they are not interested, it’s not their thing but  one of their mates has almost become a fixture in our house he’s a school dropout at 16 and a bit of a rebel but loves to work on my van and loves to learn stuff so we have a good thing going I have a gammy leg and he does some of the labouring  stuff that I can’t do in return he gets to learn cool stuff and gets an ear that will listen ,as he says if school had been like this he’d have stayed but by his own admission it keeps him out of trouble  I was a bit hesitant at first his Mohawk put me off but now I’d encourage anyone to adopt a teen customizer .
You don’t have to be in a club to do this just be able to encourage kids and tell them it’s not uncool to “just have a go.”

IN 1992 I went to the Van Nat’s and was told vanning was dying.

IN 1996 I went to the Van Nat’s and was told vanning was dying.

IN 2008 I went to the Van Nat’s and was told it was the most van’s since 1984

Vanning is like anything else in our world it’s what we make it.

Yours in vanning
Craig.

[obsession]

lol I never seen so many replys so quick  when I started my 1st reply there was non and now 40min later.....lol ...rusty got any more ??  hahah sorry just think its a great beer late night fire topic.

[Bas NZ]

Craig, would have to say the same for NZ, In the 80s I built Custom van for a living over the years they disapaired, but I must say it looks like they are on the come back, a dream come true for many, but the truth is it's due to sites like this that is making this happen. Neve thought I would here myself say this but you Aussie guys have done good.!!!!!!!!! 

[eddy]

hey wombat couldn't agree more with your statement and am certainly impressed with what you are doing with the young bloke. You are giving him memories of companionship that he will cherish later in life (take a moment to think back when you were a young person and how positive people influenced you, bet you will remember them forever) consider it an honour to be accepted in this role. I consider myself to be in the 2% bracket, always have been always will be. There's five adults ( ummmm let me rephrase that .... there's two adults and three sons of an adult age  in my family. I'm the only beddie fanatic (that coming from the other four non believers in our family unit) so that makes me a 20% at my house !!