Van Projects: 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.