Okay I'll admit it - I have a thing for vans, maybe it was too many episodes of Scooby Doo as a kid, but there is something appealing about the practically of owning a van.
Now if you read my Lego posts regularly you'll know I own the furthest thing from a van so maybe it's just a case of wanting what you can't have
Or maybe it's a reaction to lockdown - as I've not been more than 5km from my house in about 4 months (seriously Google Map tells me I drove 19km in July and 17km in August) the idea of being able to throw a mattress and some sleeping bags in the back of van and hitting the road has some appeal.
But Vans are expensive and I have a lot of Lego pieces so it's probably more logical to just make one out of Lego.
So that's exactely what I did. As always when making Lego vehicles the most important things to start with are the Windscreen - which is a quite rare tall, 8 wide one that I originally bought for the convertible. The Wheels - I like the chunky balloon type of look these have - very seventies. The Wheel arches - this is where this started to not really work for me - I had to go with white, which wasn't ideal. I would have perferred a darker colour - maybe black like the A-team van - but we are restricted by the things we own (both in life and in lego).
From there the design is pretty simple (As a guy who worked a Renault once told me - Vans they are just two seats and engine and heap of air - that's why there is some much money in them) highlights:
The coloured stripes kinda worked but kinda didn't - it was cooler in my head, potentially would have been cooler on a darker colour, and maybe I shouldn't have put the white in between.
I like the roof a lot, the spoiler at the back feels realistic to me, the yellow rear end maybe not so much, again a darker base colour a maybe it works.
The front end lights and grill feels right - it's sort of a US style, late 70's early 80's vibe which I like.
The back windows worked, the lights up the side and the rear bumper bar all work, the ladder is a little less successful.
All in all I think it works - it's not quite a cool as I imagined, but for a first effort at this type of thing I think it was a reasonable effort.
