76 Chevy "Shorty"

I found this "Shorty" on eBay and couldn't pass it up! (I think everyone knows how that goes) It's just like the one I had back in the seventies. Origainlly a California van, owned by a clock repair business. It had just been repainted when I bought it in Ohio, low miles, no rust, new tires and wheels and a halfway decent paint job.

I and a friend, Lee, flew out to get it in early November of 2011. We did make a road trip out of it. I had also bought a soda blaster out in Pennsilvania that we needed to pick up, it was about 200 miles from were I got the van. When we got to were we were picking up the soda blaster blaster, we were about 80 miles from the crash site of 9/11 Flight 93. We thought we were this close, so that was going to be our next stop. 

69 Chevy Panel Van

Actually I was looking for something that I could take to the famous "Back to the Fifties" car show that is held every year at the MN State Fair Grounds. It would need to be a 1964 or older model, as this is the cutoff year for the show (they keep the Mustangs and most muscle cars out that way).

I had been to a few larger swap meets with one of my brothers and seen a few Ford Econoline vans and pickups for sale. These sparked my interest since I had some childhood memories of some "Ma Bell" vans my dad had bought for a business of his. I think they started building these vans and pickups in 61, so I set my searches from 61-64. 

My interest quickly turned to the Chevy and GMC vans. I beleive the production started in 64 on these as Chevy had the Corvair van from 61 - 63. After a few months of watching and searching eBay, Craig's List and any other site that pop up on my search results, I fell upon this 69 with a V8 - most vans had the straight 6. My earlier researching had led me to beleive I shouldn't pass this one up. The gentleman that had it listed didn't seem to know how rare it was and I wasn't going to be the one to tell him, after all it was just a 69 chevy van. So off to Nebraska I went, not exactly what I was looking for, but that's the way things happen sometimes.

Just home from Nebraska

"Look ma, no doors"

Very straight body

Minimal surface rust

Nice shag

Pretty straight on the inside too

Getting Started

After 30 plus years, it's exciting to get back into vannin. I didn't realize I missed it until I purchased a van for one of our businesses. All it took was a 200 mile road trip to a car show to set the hook again. My intentions here are to keep weekly or monthly updates on my van projects. I now have two, a 1969 Chevy Panel Van - 1 of only 50 produced in 1969 with no side doors, so I'm told (side doors became standard equipment in 69 rather than a $55.00 option) and a 1976 Chevy "SHORTY" as they called them - very similar to the original one I owned back in the 70's when vans were very popular. So that's all for now - will have pictures posting soon. Hope you enjoy!!!