lostwire's '68 A100

You'll love Baker's we have a great Mopar group that comes every year.

Have you ever attended the Dream Criuse yet???[b][i]

G-Man wrote:You'll love Baker's we have a great Mopar group that comes every year.

Have you ever attended the Dream Criuse yet???[b][i]

No, I haven't attended the Dream Cruise. Do you have a link or some info about it?

G-Man wrote:Lostwire I'm heading down and going to meet up with billski and his 66 chevy you would be welcome to come along if you want. It is Saturday Aug 16. Still working on details with billski about what we are doing. I am heading to billski's that morning. You haven't nor ever will see anything like this

If my wife doesn't have any plans I'd love to tag along. So who's billski and where abouts is he? Sounds like he has something pretty special.

G-Man wrote:billski is a member here and has a sweet 66 sportvan. It's the nicest sportvan I have ever seen. Check the Baker's pic's it's the silver sportvan. He lives in Michigan also and is close to Pontiac where we hang out for the criuse. I will send you a PM with my phone # One thing I want to add about your steering wheel. It's about the cool not the leverage. LOL

The steering wheel is cool. I just ordered one of those suicide steering wheel knobs from JC so hopefully that will help. I'll check out the Baker's pics again but I'm pretty sure I know the ride you're talking about. Can't wait to see it up close!

Does the VIN start with 198? If it does then it was a factory V8 van.

19=Tradesman Van

8=318 V8

very nice. A great find.

Sweet van, CONGRATZ!!

Hey Lostwire, I really dig that van of yours. Looks really nice and cool. I see in the Woodward pics Chris posted that you have swapped out the yellow painted headlight rings. Good choice man. Are you putting the moon discs back on the wheels or swapping the wheels out too? Can't wait to see it in person. MK

Thanks fellas!

Hemi A-100 wrote:Hey Lostwire, I really dig that van of yours. Looks really nice and cool. I see in the Woodward pics Chris posted that you have swapped out the yellow painted headlight rings. Good choice man. Are you putting the moon discs back on the wheels or swapping the wheels out too? Can't wait to see it in person. MK

Those moon discs are off for good. I've never been a fan of those so right now she's riding on some cheap aftermarket rims that were hiding behind them. They were a bit rusty so I just used the wire wheel on them and rattled them flat black. Eventually I'll be putting on some Cragars once I figure out what sizes I'll be going with and what, if anything, will be done with the rear suspension and axle. In addition to stripping the paint off the headlight rims I also did the door handles, locks, control knobs, and the gas cap. Somebody painted over just about everything! I did a bunch more minor stuff too so I'll try and post some pics later just to document where I'm at.

Here's a few pics I just took. Nothing major in the way of changes, just slowly bringing it to where I want it.

The painted over headlight rims are back to normal, as are the handles, locks, and gas cap. The moon discs are gone and the rims hiding behind them have been painted flat black.




The interior has seen a few tweaks. I picked up some cheap flamed floor mats just for fun and trimmed one down to fit on the dog house (helps keep things from flying off while driving around).


The radio/CD player was originally in the glove box mounted to a sheet of metal that had replaced the interior. It was nice to have it hidden away but it was a pain to operate while driving. So yesterday I cut a hole in the dash and moved it to where the stock radio would have been, then ordered a repro glove box interior off eBay. It will be really nice to have a place to store stuff once it arrives. I also stripped the paint off the heater control knobs. They look pretty darn nice still.


Something else I added was a rear view mirror. The previous owners had the rear windows blocked off with carpeted over wood so they had no need for it. Not me though. I wanted rear windows, so this led to my next project. Tearing the back of the interior apart to gain access to them.


This is about the best shot I can take of the inside looking through the back windows. The black carpet just doesn't like to be photographed! Originally the rear was all boarded up, covering the windows, so off it all came. After stripping off the black paint which was used to black out the windows, I cut a new piece of wood with window openings and reused the original carpet to cover it all up. Sure is nice seeing out the back!


Ah! You can see all the way through! I also got rid of the tacky wipers they somehow jammed on there and replaced them with some from Napa. They're pretty close to the originals for now and mount like them too.


I also ordered a pair of swan neck mirrors to replace those big clunky ones on the doors. These new ones will mount to the door frames just above the windows. Once I get them on I'll post a pic.

I think I found a shop that would make a great candidate to paint my van some day so out came Photoshop to draw up my A-100 and mess around with some colors and modifications. After countless variations I'm leaning towards this color scheme based around the Gulf livery. Body seams, bumper holes, locks, and the gutter would be removed, while all hinges would be relocated inside. Lots of other stuff too.

A fella can dream, can't he?

Nice drawing, if it becomes a reality on your van, it will be one seet looking early.

both vans look great, the one you have now- love it... and the dream. how did you do the drawing?

wylee wrote:both vans look great, the one you have now- love it... and the dream. how did you do the drawing?

Thank you. The state of my current paint job (which isn't that great) should hold up for awhile yet but some rust areas are starting to blister the paint near the bottom of the doors.

After taking a few photographs, I brought them into Photoshop and used them as a guide to redraw the van. Each image above consisted of dozens upon dozens of layers... highlights in the paint, shadows, halftones, chrome bits, etc. Each one took quite a few hours to do but the nice thing is that since the work is done it's not much trouble to go back in and change colors for new concepts.

I'm guessing a new paint job is still a year away (unless I can break down the willpower of my wife who insists this isn't something we need to do right now). In the meantime I'd like to take care of some mechanical issues, as well as trying to get some more power out of the 225 /6. Just swapping out the stock air cleaner for an Edelbrock gave me a wee bit more power so I'm curious what a new manifold and headers from Clifford Performance plus a 350 2 bbl Holley would do.

You know, I always thought a guy could make some money just drawing jpeg templates of muscle cars, or any collectible car. You could create images of the front, rear, driver side, passenger side, angle shots, interior shots, then sell them on sites like this. I have been working with photoshop amateurishly for almost ten years now, and loved to do mok-ups of cars I have owned. You don't have to use photoshop either, MS Paint would probably be enough to satisfy most people (to color that is, not to draw the template)

Lostwire!!! That would be awesome if you painted your van like that!! I love the zoomies and foresure the SS Cragars just set it off beautifully. You have to do that man!! That is KILLER!!!

Hangtime wrote:You know, I always thought a guy could make some money just drawing jpeg templates of muscle cars, or any collectible car. You could create images of the front, rear, driver side, passenger side, angle shots, interior shots, then sell them on sites like this. I have been working with photoshop amateurishly for almost ten years now, and loved to do mok-ups of cars I have owned. You don't have to use photoshop either, MS Paint would probably be enough to satisfy most people (to color that is, not to draw the template)

Not a bad idea. Maybe I should look into doing something like that.

Hemi A-100 wrote:Lostwire!!! That would be awesome if you painted your van like that!! I love the zoomies and foresure the SS Cragars just set it off beautifully. You have to do that man!! That is KILLER!!!

Thanks man! I'm really DYING to get it painted like that. Every time I look at my van now I see it painted this way and jacked up with those wheels. I'm guessing it's probably a year off before I do it so I can take care of all the mechanical issues before paint. It looks like I'll be ordering some headers, an X pipe, and a new manifold from Clifford Perf. next week, as well as buying a Holley 350 2 barrel carb. so things are heading in the right direction.