It seems to be something floating around a fair amount of blogs at the moment, so we thought we'd stick our two-penneth in.  Vannin' rocks!... you want more than that? Okay...

The 70's US van culture created a wave of murals, button down velour interiors, disco lights and shiny slotmags the world over.  Today you can see the influence it had in the Japanese 1-box scene, which in turn is influencing a variety of Western car anf van modifiers.  At the time it had a strong influence on UK and European modifiers with Bedford and Transit vans getting modified in a variety of different ways.

Wild paint, shiny wheels and plush interiors were the order of the day for these vans, ideas which we can certainly still learn from and apply in different, more subtle, ways to our current rides.  The problem is that being more subtle we may miss the actual point of these vans, to go all the way, to be as lairy as you want to be, to have a wizard, riding a unicorn, carrying a sword, over a mountain, chased by a dragon, airbrushed six foot high down the side of your van, well... it makes a statement.

Whats more vannin is alive and well with both classic and modern vans getting 'the treatment'.  You can catch a great history lesson on the rise of Vannin here which is well worth a read to get up to scratch.

If you want to get a great flavour of vans through the years check out this thread.  I'd love to see some more UK and European builds of this style of van, or perhaps a few of the older ones out and about at the summer shows.  The question is,.. what mural to put on it...

Photos from this flickr set