I’ll state right off the bat that my knee-jerk reaction to crustaceans is that they’re nasty. I’ve never been a seafood person, per se. Back when I was in high school, unless cultural clues had told me otherwise, I would have looked at you as if you were crazy if you told me lobster was both expensive and considered a high-class food. The big claws. The beady eyes. The twitchy antennae. The multitude of legs. No, thank you.
That isn’t to say that I hold such a view in midlife. Little by little, I’ve waded deeper into the seafood waters starting probably out of necessity (shrimp fried rice was among the best bargains at the local Chinese restaurant when I was a poor college student), and then later because many of my friends like shrimp and I didn’t want to be left out. I genuinely like shrimp now, even if it isn’t my absolute first choice.
Hermit crab photograph by James Tiono, as sourced from Unsplash.
When I was a kid, I found hermit crabs both fascinating and disgusting at the same time. My first discovery that a random shell wasn’t just a shell but had a living thing inside of it surely blew my mind, especially if it had started moving across the ground, seemingly under its own power. My mind’s eye can see my late father picking one up to show my brothers and me as kids, with him turning it upside down to demonstrate how a hermit crab would retract into its shell, a home of its own choosing, until it no longer sensed danger and would get back to its business.
With no pretense of giving a marine biology lesson, suffice it to say for the purposes of this essay that hermit crabs have a very soft exoskeleton that requires them, for their own survival, to select a suitable, protective shell based on size, opening, shape, and weight. They will upgrade when necessary when they’ve outgrown the shell they’re in. This will often happen en masse with other hermit crabs, with smaller ones queuing up for the discarded shells that have the room they now need.
When I passed our featured Dodge on the sidewalk last month, my first thought was that it looked very lived in. It’s not every day that I have seen a Class B (built on a van chassis and the most easily manageable) motorhome parked on a main, collector street on the southern end of my neighborhood. It also had out-of-state plates and while it wasn’t in bad shape by any stretch, a quick peek from the sidewalk into the passenger’s side door of the cabin gave clues that a lot of time had been spent in there. This Dodge probably wasn’t a weekends-only vehicle that was off to a fancy camping village in southern Wisconsin for bocce ball and craft beers. It appeared to be getting more use than that.
A license plate search showed this 19′ long example to be based on an ’86 Dodge Ram Van B350 powered by Chrysler’s 360 cubic inch V8 with 175 horsepower. The Falcon conversion was performed by a company called InterVec (shortened from “International Vehicles Corporation”) which appears to have started operations in 1984 and gone out of business around 1997. I have seen examples of the Falcon using both the Dodge Ram Van and Ford E-Series platforms, so InterVec did not seem to have had a clear preference in terms of donor van. I was unable to find an abundance of information online for either InterVec or the Falcon conversion outside of sales listings and a few forums dedicated to their upkeep and preservation. There appears to be a substantial following for these.
Speaking of which, I stumbled across one particular classified listing for a different example of Dodge Falcon for sale in Kentucky, where in addition to extoling its virtues, the owner had divulged that he or she had been living in the van for a couple of months while traveling between states. That van was of a similar color scheme to this one, if slightly different, and if I wasn’t able to compare pictures of both on the spot, I might have thought that this example was the same one. Prices for Ram Van Falcons of this vintage range from about $7,000 to double that, based on features and condition. The presumed funkitude of a van that had been lived in continuously for that amount of time might have steered me away from that one, but that’s not a value judgement.
I’ve often wondered what I might do if my own circumstances found me in a place where I was no longer able to live in the manner that I’m used to. While our choices absolutely have much to do with our current life situations, often times, unfortunate events can also happen outside of our control which can alter our path. I’m not at all assuming that there’s someone living full-time in this van because they’re destitute, or anything like that. My own modest home of my choosing in this somewhat densely populated area of the third-largest United States city of Chicago wouldn’t be for everyone. I love where I live and the simplicity that comes with being responsible for only so many square feet. I love spending time at my home base as much as I enjoy being out and social, if not more.
Maybe someone else, perhaps like the owner of a Class B motorhome like this Dodge, isn’t so much married to a physical address and enjoys being able to travel the country at will to be with loved ones and family, whether defined by blood or by choice. What works for me may not work for the owner of this van, or for you, which is one hundred percent fine. My question, though, is what happens when a motorhome that is used more frequently than average become uninhabitable or inoperable for some reason related to wear or age? Like a hermit crab, would its owner/occupant then look for another, larger, nicer “shell” and shed this Dodge Ram Van Falcon, which would then be used by a smaller “crab” who is looking for a project to discover? As with the end of this particular Tuesday, all I can do is hope that people are okay and content, regardless of the home environment of their choosing.
Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois.
Tuesday, August 17, 2021.
The hermit crab is a very apt analogy for this Dodge. As the CC Effect would have it, yesterday I saw a picture of another InterVec Falcon, but that one was a similarly colored Ford encountered in Alaska.
Your question about being uninhabitable or inoperable could likely be two questions. From an online forum I periodically visit, there seems to be a small but enthusiastic crowd who seek these older vans and then treat them to a complete interior overhaul. Interior funkiness likely helps with bargaining on price.
Mechanical woes could prompt one of these into a new life as a tool shed / storage container.
Dodge vans seem to have one of the highest survival rates of anything Chrysler built during the 1980s.
I can imagine the retrofitted tailoring of the interior to one’s liking having immense appeal. When I read your comment, I started thinking about what I would do with a Falcon of my own.
And I’d agree with you on the survival rates of Dodge vans relative to overall Chrysler output of this time.
Quite a good looking camper van I’d take it as a mobile home,
CC Effect indeed! Just a couple of days ago I drove by a similar van-based camper (I’m doubtful it was a Dodge, but it was definitely of an 80s vintage) parked across several marked spaces in one of those in-between, off to the side, overflow, lots at a local mall. I could immediately tell someone was living there. But this is a mall I wind up at frequently, so I knew it hadn’t been there earlier in the week…and I would doubt that it’s there now if I were to go back and look.
I think that the hardest part of a lifestyle – by choice or otherwise – that is built around living in a vehicle is the lack of options one has when (not if, but when) something goes wrong. Short of something catastrophic like fire or natural disaster, most people have some time to deal with problems that occur with things like apartments or houses. Camper vans, not so much. If the thing breaks down in a parking lot – or worse, on the side of the road – you HAVE to get it fixed NOW before someone comes along and compels you to move on…which maybe you can’t. Personally, I’ve been fortunate-enough that I’ve not had to make choices that might put me in such a situation. Obviously, not everyone is so fortunate.
The film Nomadland (and the various criticisms of that film) comes to mind.
Excellent article Joe. Once again you’ve framed thought-provoking issues within a story about vehicles within a non-vehicular analogy. Masterfully.
Jeff, thank you so much – I appreciate both your own reflections / observations and good words.
And now Nomadland is on my radar to watch. Thanks for that, too.
I don’t know why I find these so fascinating. I don’t go camping, and if I did it would be by myself because Mrs. JPC REALLY doesn’t go camping.
But something like this gives off an air of freedom – freedom to visit friends and family, yet to bring your sleeping accommodations with you so that the only imposition is a power cord and water hookup. But of course you have all of the normal “old car woes” coupled with camping/living systems like HVAC, water and such.
And I am right there with you on the seafood. It might be different if I lived somewhere close to that seafood when it was alive, but I live in an area with an abundance of cows, pigs, chickens and corn and where “fresh” seafood is many hundreds of miles away and cannot possibly find me before it is older than it ought to be.
You don’t actually need a power cord or water hookup; these all have water tanks and batteries. Our 30 gallon tank lasts us 4-5 days, and with a solar panel on top, no need to plug in, which we’ve never done yet.
It is a liberating experience to go anywhere with all the basic comforts of home on board. Even visiting our sons means not having to stay in their places. And now it’s our temporary cabin at our coastal property.
I can’t imagine life without our camper van.
I always enjoy reading about the van-ventures. Those are far removed from my own experiences and fun to experience vicariously, even if only in a several hundred word essay.
JP, for all intents and purposes, I’m as Midwestern as you are 🙂 , and I agree with you that there must be something to growing up in that part of the U.S. relative to doing so on one of this country’s coasts. About as close to “seafood” as my family of origin dared venture with any kind of frequency was breaded fish sticks that we would heat in the oven and dip in ketchup.
I love these Class B vans, and I often daydream about owning one. But like JPC notes above, realistically I know these are full of hassles (like the combination of old-car plus old-house hassles, neither of which are my favorite things in the world to deal with).
Anyway, here’s an small ad for the Falcon from when it was new (the one you found has wrap-around windows up top, which makes it even neater). Looks like the Falcons listed for around $25-35,000 back in the mid 1980s.
The hassles can be fairly minimal. The key is to find one being sold by an older couple who stored it under a roof and didn’t use it much. Not easy, but some of those are in remarkable condition.
There’s not that much to go wrong, as RV technology has been pretty long established and not complex.
These go for a surprising amount of money these days, especially in good condition. Huge demand.
wow I bought my 1985 falcon in sept of 2022 I have looked everywhere to find another like it with no evail. This add is it, finally I see the exact one. Most falcons have two headlights not four, also top front windows are not wrap around. My toilet is not at the back doors. Thank you for this add and I will still be looking for an actual one like mine. Gerry from n.c.
As I remind my teenage sons that dream of the #vanlife, it’s cool to live in a van when it’s 100% by choice. When it’s a situation forced by bare necessity, it loses a lot of the glam. So stay in school, get a good job, and then look for the van once you have the spare driveway space.
This one looks quite nice, I’m on record as finding this generation of Dodge Van front end one of the most attractive and the living quarters seem to maximize the space too.
Many parents of recent college-age kids probably have some experience with hermit crabs, they were a suburban “thing” again about a decade or so ago. My daughter had a few over a couple of years span, the most memorable were named Fluffy and Applesauce (yeah, I don’t know, kids). Probably memorable as those were the two I moved from CA to CO in a terrarium in the back seat of a Civic. Other than that they mostly hung out in their shells and wandered about a little bit on some days. Very cool though to learn about how they just take over empty shells and one of them (Fluffy?) actually did so while in our care. As a hermit crab guardian you keep a few extra shells in the tank for such occasions…
“Fluffy” and “Applesauce” have to be the two best names for hermit crabs. For all time.
😂
Class B’s are fairly valuable compared to regular vans and many RV’s. They tend to be built better and last longer. As long as the bottom end doesn’t rust out most repairs are cost effective. Values for a clean one are in the 6-12k range (or higher depending on brand) given the mechincal parts on these are mostly very cheap repairs often make the most sense.
Most RVs are taken off the road thanks to water intrusion rotting their wooden components Class B’s in general are metal and fiberglass and avoid that issue.
90’s Road Treks and Pleasure Ways were selling for close to $20,000 pre-pandemic.
Very nice. My calculation is that for the amount of travel I do, RVs are not cost effective. A relative has a fancy one that must have cost $100,000. So adding in the cost at a lot of KOA type places, it is very expensive per night of use. When I travel I try to rent an inexpensive car and stay at a reasonably decent motel, and that is that. It costs, but not paying for something I would not use much. YMMV
My mother (70’s)and her “friend” (also at least 70’s) own one like you speak of, but don’t do the KOA thing, that whole concept is sort of anathema, can’t see the appeal in paying to literally be closer to other people than at home.
No, the appeal is being able to park anywhere on BLM land/forest for no charge, be entirely self-contained, not need to “hook up” constantly but still be extremely comfortable and very secure with whatever comforts and mod-cons they desired to have installed when they ordered it. Not that they really spend much time inside, it’s mainly a carriage to get where they are going and then a place to stay in the middle of nature while they hike and do whatever for more miles on foot than I seem to drive most days. The only time they do campgrounds per se is when they volunteer as “camp hosts”, usually up in Alaska or Glacier or other National Parks at public campgrounds where they then get the pick of the spots and stay for the season (so several months) for no charge with the only responsibilities to provide information to fresh campers as they arrive when they are around. And of course drive all over the States and Canada whenever the whim strikes otherwise (and the borders are open). Currently they’re in Oregon and have been gone for over month now traveling around the PNW. When in transit during the day you can park wherever just like a normal car or truck and at night it’s not difficult to find random places to park later in the evening and leave again in the morning without being hassled by anyone. The rig looking well-kept and not exactly cheap keeps people who might normally object to some raggedy thing from the ’70s with tarps on the roof and body damage from going all Karen for at least 24 hours…The same objective can of course be achieved by spending considerably less money too.
Interesting to see what these are going for—Mopar4wd seems to have hit it on the nose: https://www.smartrvguide.com/rvs-for-sale/dodge-falcon
If I just wanted to dip my toes in the water beyond renting one—rather than spend the big $$$$$ for a recent, high-tech one—this might be a way to proceed, especially if you can always sell and not take a bath on it…
Wow nice van i have an 1986 falcon van .im going to replace engine its worn out..carpet is worn out .paint worn..but van conversion is well built..cant wait to get .it up in the mountains.and on the road. every one told me why would i store an old van..because it was rare in 2oo4 .and it will have a great future.some day and its priceless because of pandemic now.