vans of the seventies

Long before SUV's were the thing - even before minivans - people of the seventies drove vans - the full size vans. People would go buy rolls of green, red, or orange shag carpet and tack it to the inside of their vans. Not only would they put it on the floor, but they ran it up their walls and on the ceiling. 8-Tracks and cassettes were installed and speakers were often concealed in the shag as well. Many people made pillows and furniture that would be covered in shag as well. Shag carpet was the thing back in the seventies. Oh - I almost forgot - every custom van had to have a CB radio in it. Too many people were learning the trucker CB jargon back then and boy did life get obnoxious for a spell!

People spent a lot of money on tricking out their van's interior.  Moocho money was also dished out  making the exteriors of these love-chariots as unique as possible as well. You could make a lot of money in the seventies if you knew how to use an airbrush. Sure T-shirts were hip - but if you could paint a wildly futuristic funkadelic landscape on the outside of a vehicle- you were one rich airbrush dude. Today -people are in to tattooing their bodies. Three decades ago people were into tattooing their vans. Everybody had to have their very own fantasy airbrushed on the front, back, and side panels of their ride.

Now, I never had a airbrushed van. I wouldn't know what I would have wanted one painted if I had one. I was an odd sort back then. I think I would have have had a picture of Lee Van Cleef painted along side if perchance I had one. I didn't care for shag carpet back then. I used to wash a lot of cars and shag carpet seemed a might tedious to keep clean even then. Maybe a wood paneled interior - something that might have represented the interior of Captain Nemo's submarine. So maybe it's a good thing that I didn't have a van in the seventies. It would not have been much of a chick-magnet. Everybody that did have an airbrushed van sure was proud of it.
I wonder if airbrushing vans will ever have a comeback? Can you imagine people painting SUV's with futuristic landscapes - or half naked fantasy women? I bet someone in California has already birthed the idea and we'll be seeing a Humvee sporting a purple and pink unicorn in our neck of the woods before you know it.