Truckin Magazine March 1978 Volume 4, No.3
During the daylight hours Dennis Brickner has his hands full with his catering business. But when the work is over, he likes to hop in his much modified van and just truck. Recently Dennis decided to take a vacation so he and Yosemite Sam trucked to Seattle for a show, then headed down to Southern California, stopped at Vegas and headed back to Detroit. Dennis couldn’t believe all the compliments over the CB, or people taking pictures of the vans while they were driving. Throughout the trip people just couldn't believe there were vans like this on the street. No matter what Dennis builds he likes to drive it too. His 76 Chevy has definitely got the hours put into it. The Paint Pit in Connecticut Yosemite Sam’s in Detroit and Dennis did all the body work with features such as chop top, rear doors leaned forward, hand fabricated grill section, sunken taillights and metal flares. And all the wild candy and pearl lacquer paint job is Yosemite Sam’s Paint Shack. Inside is fitted pine, button pleated black velvet, done by Mel Fender and brass antiques.
Fast forward 36 years ...... I saw the craigslist ad as some of you did so I called and got the story about the owner selling this van and other vehicles to the new buyer of his home. I called the following day and found out that it was true the van was left in the house and the new home buyer purchased the vehicles too. I contacted the buyer and it turns out he did this just to make the house sale happen and wanted to sell the vehicles so I grabbed my dolly, tools, tires, jack, cash and headed to Detroit. Here is the van as it appeared in the add and when I got to the house.
I must admit I was pretty discouraged when I saw the van in this condition, leaned on it but didn't budge and noticed animals had been residing inside of it for years so I wasn't 100% sold. While I was looking at it I was talking to Eddie Smith (66 No-Dice) on the phone in FL and he convinced me to drag it out of the garage and get a better look at it so I did and this is what I saw.....
When Eddie said drag it out of the garage he wasn't kidding the 2 front wheels slid for about 2-3 feet before they broke loose. This might be the 1st time this van has seen the light of day in 20-25 years.
I have owned this van for about a week now and let me tell you this may have been a show piece at one time but it has really been let go as you can see by the photos. I have begun to tear down and repair the motor just enough to get it running and see what it needs. The carb is rebuilt, new plugs, wires, cap, fuel pump, fuel, line and other small items. I will drop the tank this week and clean that out too. Everything needs to be overhauled but the best part of this project is I have LOTS of G-van parts just hanging around ....literally hanging on the garage walls as art. The chop portion is in great shape other than the windshield frame and that is a G-van flaw to begin with. I have found a 76 donor van already so I have a good start on some wiring, suspension and body parts I will need.
Here is is ready to go on the dolly for the 10 hr trip home.
Notice Justice hanging on the lawn in the shade.
There are some cool Yosemite Sam touches done to this van like, custom grill, custom paint and full belly pan, unfortunately the body has been painted over but the paint is still in the door jambs and on the belly pan.
Here is the belly pan, if you look close in the craigslist photo you will see it hanging off in the back so I had to remove it from the front of the van so I could crawl under it and disconnect the drive shaft.
Here is a photo of the van washed up and with a factory grill on it. I think I'm going to use the stock grill and hang the 200+ lb Yosemite grill on the wall.
The plan at this point is to get it running, redo the suspension and brakes, clean the crap out of it, rewire it with another wiring harness and cleanup the wood interior. When all this is done I will start looking for someone to do the body and paint and or advise me on what I should do. The body itself is pretty good but front door bottoms on the inside are shot, 3 of the 4 flairs need repair and 2 of the sunken parking lights are showing their age. It also needs door glass because this van had acrylic side glass from the original chop in 1977 and I believe that is what caused the problem with the door bottoms.
I've been wanting an old custom showvan for a while now and although this van is far from show worthy at this point it has great history and most of the fun of owning a custom van is building, restoring and driving it.....Right? So this van will see plenty of all of this.
I want to thank Lee for posting this add, my brother Mike for inspiring me to get up there and at least look at it and Eddie for convincing me to get this van into the light of day.
I would also like to thank Paul and Savilla for meeting up with me on the way back for a bite & offering me a overnight stop and also reuniting The Radical Rickshaw with custom vans and vanners again!!!
And shot out to Dave Astro Hufstader who makes this all possible. Thank you Dave.
LET THE FUN BEGIN!!!!