Tag: BangShift XL

What’s old is cool again, right? In many ways that line is the truth for all automotive enthusiasts who love the machines that carried us around decades ago, but the van world is booming right now. Classic vans hark back to the 1970s decade when they became a massive subset of the aftermarket and developed their own culture around them. This video is not so much about the vanning counter culture as much as it is about the primary market Chevrolet was trying to reach, the practical one. No shag carpets here but a study in why these vehicles were great for local cargo hauling and other work.

It’s weird that we’re kind of at the end of the traditional van era, most models have been discontinued in favor of smaller, European-style low floor jobs like the Ford Transit and others. There’s something great about the full-framed, tough as nails vans that we all grew up with, though.

We’re not sue if this video was shown by dealers at the dealership, sent to large fleet customers or what but we’re telling you right now that we want that red and white cargo van with loads of horsepower and an engine swap right now. Funny how the yeoman vehicles of the past become the cool stuff of the present, right?

Press play below to see this 1975 Chevrolet promotional film hawking vans!

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This is one of those videos that makes you realize just how much the world has changed over the years, right? Yesterday we showed you Franklin Dobson and his cool hovercraft that you could have built from home. Today we look at video of what might be Dobson’s most impressive private project, although it’s never really spoken about in aviation history so we’re guessing it was a failure. This is a video documenting the construction of the prototype Dobson “Convertiplane” which was a VTOL (vertical take off and landing) aircraft that would lift off like a helicopter and then the props would level out and drag you around like a normal plane does.

The most awesome parts of this video are the actual machining and construction of the prototype. We see guys making stuff on lathes, welding by the swimming pool, fitting beautiful gears and differentials together, and the list goes on. It appears that basically all of this aircraft was built in either a single small home shop and backyard or a few home shops and backyards. Either way, this is the stuff people used to do before the internet existed. Who knows, these guys probably read books as well. Gasp!

A little more digging on Dobson seems to have turned up some interesting facts, like the idea that he was the designer of the most widely used glider aircraft in WWII, he got the boot from Germany in the 1930s while studying aeronautics and apparently getting a little bit too far ahead of the class, and the list goes on.

This video is a visual link to a world that seems so, so different than that of 2020.

Press play below to see our man Franklin Dobson creating an airplane at home!

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