Vannin' Home Forums General Discussion Readers Rides Tradewinds out of the dust

And I salute the person willing to bring this van back up to Glory.

Thanks. You're welcome.
Thanks for the replies.

Hi again.
We have put some primer on all the spots to prepair it for the mural painter. Here are pictures from all the spots we could find sofar. maybe we find some more, but we are gonna take care of that also. Its very hard to find the last ones because of the wrap around mural.

Ok. Here we go.

Behind the rear bumper;







Bumper molded inlets;





Just on and underneath the driprail at the rear;











The only bad fenderwell left rear side;



little damage spots;





The side doors with the wingdoor where those 3 meet;





Upper hinge of the left door had a to much large gape, solved;







Right side passenger door;





Molded antenna. Looks like its not finished, but its perfectly smooth;



Behind the front bumper;



I think i have to re-chrome some parts too





Drivers side door;





The hole in the A pillar;





Wingdoor corners at the rear;





Here 2 side shots from the sheetmetal we replaced on the drivers side. Didn't post a photo from it, only with the running boards on.;





Don't look at the paint quality. It's gonna be mirror finish quality, but we first put some paint on it



Finaly the photo's from the fiberglass parts. Here we go;


























YEAH!!! Let's PARTYYYY

Free of rost and scratches damages and stuff. One BIG STEP further in the process.

Thanks for watching sofar.

Sweet man, back to it's former glory.. Nice job

Can’t wait to see finished pics. This thing is so cool

Hello there,

Thanks for the replies guys!

I have a little story that only a few know!

Before the Tradewinds dodge van and trailer were build, there was another full muraled dodge van and trailer done by Bobs Vanshop and painted by Harold Harnish!

That was the "Iron Horse".



A beautifull combo . Very very awesome

But..... when i spoke to a guy on Facebook named "Wookie van" i had a lot more questions.
He owned a welding fabricating business near by, and talked to Bob about the Tradewinds. Wookie build his own trailer from a ford and then Bob said that they started on the Tradewinds and they would take the trailer from the Iron Horse to redo it to match behind the Tradewinds .

There was no time left to build a new trailer, so they took the one from the Iron Horse .
Unbelievable .
So... how do you take a complete nice fresh wrap around mural from a great cutomtrailer that belongs to a great customvan, and sand it down to bare metal, put a window in front, put a different high top roof on it, delete the wooden runningboards, changed the rear lights, and paint it again

I first talked to the mural painter Harold Harnish. He even didn't know, because even he said that those were 2 separate trailers. I was mistaking.

Second i send an email to Bob Kashner. And yes....he confirmed the story
The trailer was taken from the Iron Horse to match with the Tradewinds Dodge B100.

If i had to do that i hadn't sleep for a month i think

So, the trailer behind the Tradewinds is the former trailer behind the Iron Horse!! The Iron Horse van was indeed on the next vanmeets without a trailer!! That was confirmed too. The Iron Horse dodge van is with a train aficionado somewhere near or in PA. Nobody has seen it again, but the last person who told me the info says that he was still there 4 years ago, but no pics of that.

Wookie his trailer out of a ford is still around in a heated garage somewhere in NJ.
That's this one;



Looks at the pics that i have.

The trailer was first build to match a grey/black painted dodge van that was build by Bobs Vanshop.
This pic was send to me by Bob himself. He took a picture of a photo but you can see its the same. Look at the roof. Also this rear bumper became the front bumper on the tradewinds dodge. The wooden running boards were also there, same as the trailer had behind the Iron Horse. They had both the stock rear dodge lights.



Look here, same angle;





Another angle;









More shots;







There is also a very nice story about the wrap around murals! That's also a thing that not much people know. I think this custom van is the one with the best story around.

Now.... i am pretty sure you didn't know this.

Please WRIGHT A COMMEND. Who didn't know???

Thanks. See you next time

That is such a cool story! I love seeing the lineage of some of these older builds! So cool!

Great story. Always cool to find the history on a vehicle

Looking good. Nice to see there are still custom vans on our side of the ocean.