Inland Vans Berdoo Club featured at the June PSM

For those who don’t remember the 1970’s, there was a time when vans were extremely popular and that was the Disco era. It used to be that people eschewed things like Corvettes and high-performance vehicles and, instead, went out and bought a big box on wheels and turned it into a personal statement.

Vans weren’t the uncool munchkin transporters that some think they are now – instead, they were rolling pieces of artwork where one could also bed down for the night in many cases. That latter part is why so many fathers didn’t want their daughters dating boys with vans.

There are clubs across the country who have paid tribute to these days and one of them was there at the last Pomona Swap Meet with a nice number of examples of this by-gone era. Inland Vans Berdoo has been celebrating the van since 1969, with many of the same members and we got a chance to speak with Steve Portias about his love of the van.

So what piques someone’s interest in what others consider a utility vehicle? “I got interested in vans because the girls liked ‘em”, states Steve Protias. Oh yeah, it used to be that these vehicles were referred to as Shaggin’ Wagons and it was very common that they would proudly sport a bumper sticker boasting, “If this van’s rockin’, forget about knockin.” Maybe vans weren’t well sprung or something like that – who knows why the suspension was being overworked.

The club started in the late 1960’s when Steve and several others found a treasure trove of vans being sold off by the telephone company for about $100-200 apiece. These former Bell Telephone trucks then underwent a significant transformation to become the vans that one would show off. With all that sheet metal on the side, there were some beautiful illustrations painted on them. What’s more, many were festooned with slogans as well as the Club’s name and the names of beer companies, of course. From pictures on the club’s website, inlandvansberdoo.com, it’s clear that the female form was celebrated in paint on more than one of these machines and, perhaps, that’s why the suspension issues were mentioned on bumper stickers.

While the outside of the vans got modified so, too, did their motivational department. Many club members took out the original in-line six-cylinder engines and wedged eight-cylinder engines into the dog houses of these vehicles.
Steve indicates that aftermarket parts weren’t being made for vans in the early days of the club, so the members had to see what fit into the dog houses of the vans and that might mean a Hooker header on one side of the V8 and a Jardine header on the other. Space was limited only because these were essentially utility vehicles according to the manufacturers, so there was no reason for early vans to be able to swallow large engines. However taking a large engine and wedging it into a relatively light vehicle meant that, according to Steve, these vans would often outperform some fast cars of the day, much to the chagrin of the car owners.

The club has been around for all these years with many of the same members. It used to be that you could find 50-60 vans cruising the streets of San Bernardino but, even today, there are still 69 members with many of those being original members. Today not all of the members have vans, but there is certainly a good representation of the vehicle with many being rebuilt right now.

In 2008, the club was inducted into the Hot Rod Cruisin’ Hall of Fame. This is quite a prestigious honor and the club has earned the recognition for their pioneering spirit and creativity. On this topic, Steve specifically remembers vehicle manufacturers coming to meet club members with tape measures and notebooks in hand and then seeing some of the things that club members did in production vehicles a year or two after these meetings. Again, vans were really popular in the late 1970’s once passenger vehicles started to become smaller and less able to pull trailers and the like.

“We went our separate ways, but now that we’re getting older we’re living our second childhood,” concluded Steve Portias. Sounds like a whole lot of the rest of us and that’s not a bad thing.

Oh, and if this website’s rockin’, click the Like button and share with your friends. Some things do change over time.

This article was written by Tony Barthel from the Curbside Auto Column and Car Show Calendar. For auto articles, news and an on-line calendar of automotive events, please visit www.curbside.tv.

Tim Wisinger and his 1964 Chevy w/ headers and fancy rims. Known as “Dad’s Pad When Moms Mad”

Steve Portias with his 1968 Ford Econoline named “Ripped Van Ripple”

Chris & Shirley Cook with their 1964 Ford Falcon. AKA “Vanbulance”

Ron Kidd and his 69′ Chevy “Harley-Van-Davidson”

Alan Cook with his 65′ Ford Van. His van is known as “Dirty Old Van”