It's hard to wrap your mind around American culture of the 1970s. What to say about the forgotten phenomenon of the custom van?
From flashbak.com: "There were no minivans in the 1970s. This was a time before the van had
been tamed, before it had been neutered into the soccer-mom machine
that it is today. In the 1970s, vans didn’t carry spoiled kids drinking
juice-boxes and watching Spongebob…. quite the contrary. Vans were
basically a bedroom on wheels. No Spongebob, no juice boxes, no trips
to organized sporting events in the suburbs…. just lots of sex and
recreational drug use. You might say the 1970s full size van was the
crazy uncle of the modern minivan – the uncle that lived dangerously in
the 70s, then flamed out at decade’s end.
In the 1970s, many van owners took their shaggin’ wagons seriously and
tricked them out to the limit: Big shiny sidepipes with mellow sound,
plush interior carpeting for maximum fornication, duals to amp up the
horsepower,…. and, perhaps most importantly, the artwork on the sides….
The vans of the 1970s were decorated with airbrushed psychedelic
wizards, doobie smoking dragons, naked slave girls, flaming unicorns…
the trippier the better. I reiterate – this was not your mom’s minivan.
This was a place where “bad” things happen, and the designs were
warning signs. Get into the back of a van with an airbrushed Grim
Reaper in a land of mushrooms and naked fairies, and you should know
what your (sic) getting into."
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