Junkyard Find, Dude: 1988 Skater-ized Chevrolet Van

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

When a truck gets turned into a band’s wretched gig-rig, you know it’s on its last owner prior to entering The Crusher’s waiting room. The same can be said about any car owned by Juggalos. Likewise, when a bunch of Denver/Boulder skater/snowboarder dudes get hold of a cargo van, that’s the end of the line. Here’s a thoroughly used-up Chevy G20 van that I spotted at a Denver self-service yard earlier in the week.

When you need to haul a dozen or so of your ragin’-est, board-equipped droogs to the mountains/ the pot dispensary/the dry swimming pool, nothing beats a great big windowless Molester Van for the task. You’ve got room for all your gear, plus cases of the local suds (and maybe even stronger stuff), and The Man can’t see everyone passing around the Sour-Diesel-packed four-footer in the back. Can you smell the stale weed smoke and sweaty socks through your computer screen?

Of course, sometimes conflicts arise over who gets the only passenger seat in the van. You can sit on a case of beer in the back and fight over who gets the proper seat… or you can establish a “Shotgun Code” for passengers. Note the enlightened vagina-beats-marijuana policy— these smooth-talkin’ dudes probably had no difficulty enticing XX-chromosome-equipped individuals into this totally unthreatening vehicle! There’s a stonily-executed nekkid-chick mural in the gallery, for those of you who aren’t reading this in The Man’s uptight cube farm.

Personally, I think the irony of using a GM “Dustbuster” minivan makes for a better Dudely Van™, but you take what you can get for $200 on Craigslist.








Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

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  • Yuda I'd love to see what Hennessy does with this one GAWD
  • Lorenzo I just noticed the 1954 Ford Customline V8 has the same exterior dimensions, but better legroom, shoulder room, hip room, a V8 engine, and a trunk lid. It sold, with Fordomatic, for $21,500, inflation adjusted.
  • Lorenzo They won't be sold just in Beverly Hills - there's a Nieman-Marcus in nearly every big city. When they're finally junked, the transfer case will be first to be salvaged, since it'll be unused.
  • Ltcmgm78 Just what we need to do: add more EVs that require a charging station! We own a Volt. We charge at home. We bought the Volt off-lease. We're retired and can do all our daily errands without burning any gasoline. For us this works, but we no longer have a work commute.
  • Michael S6 Given the choice between the Hornet R/T and the Alfa, I'd pick an Uber.
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