An admission: This two-tone Ford van is a surrogate for my original target, but a fantastic and fitting one nonetheless.
It’s not often a thirty-one year old Ford Econoline, arguably one of the least inspiring vehicles ever built, will inspire much verbiage but stranger things have happened.
This had been my initial target, captured here via the graciousness of Google. This old dry-cleaning van had been comatose in this spot for years, a spot down the hill and across the street from the hospital where I was born.
Yet before a recent visit that would allow some suitable picture taking, the old Ford disappeared. Google traversed the area to capture these two images a month prior to my last visit.
A safe assumption would be the life of this vintage Econoline has officially ended, having presumably been hauled to that automotive morgue otherwise known as the salvage yard. This van had been silently sitting here deteriorating, languishing, and utterly ignored for years, a death that was slow and torturous. I can vividly remember it looking much more vibrant when I was a lively high school student in the late 1980s. While I cannot see the front to verify, I believe this may have been a round headlight model Econoline from the 1970s.
A part of me was hoping this third generation Econoline would be one of the rare birds with a three-on-the-tree. Death arrived before its secrets could be told. C’est la vie, old Ford van.
The discovery of the white Ford having taken its one-way voyage to that great highway in the sky was during a journey with my parents. The passing of this van was appropriately fitting as we visited Lightner Cemetery, a final resting place populated with both sides of my family, including two sets of both great-grandparents and great-great grandparents, a cemetery in which my parents have already erected a headstone.
It was a living genealogy lesson as I learned the first resident of Lightner Cemetery was my great-great grandfather, who died in 1915. Toward the end, he requested to be buried in the about-to-be-birthed cemetery but his timing was off. He had been gone for several months when cemetery opened, so the family had him exhumed and relocated to honor his wishes.
This funereal story was included due to its remarkable consistency with this outing; it is also fitting, as our journey culminated in finding this heavy-duty Club Wagon, unearthed a few blocks from my first house. While this Club Wagon has escaped an automotive purgatory comparable to the albino Ford, this one is still tenaciously clinging to life despite its sedentary lifestyle. Given the expiration date of its newly minted license plates, it has moved recently enough to visit the automotive hospital for a safety inspection, an inspection that appears to have yielded a clean bill of health.
Movement does indicate life.
Instead of being abandoned in front of a defunct dry cleaning business, this two-tone Ford was parked at a church that was equally defunct, the property about to be auctioned. This Club Wagon appears to have outlived its usefulness to Burfordville Baptist Church as Burfordville was twenty miles away. It has certainly outlived the now former Red Star Baptist Church where it was parked.
The promise of eternal life apparently doesn’t apply to church buildings . This church is a reflection of its neighborhood, a neighborhood that has been quietly dying for twenty years. It is now awaiting some industrious person’s conceiving a grand idea about neighborhood rebirth. It seems such is the natural cycle of things.
Even though this Ford has been lively enough to have moved at some point in the semi-recent past, it’s been napping for an undeterminable duration. The interior of the windshield had heavy condensation, making a good accompaniment to the soggy innards of the headlights.
In times past, I have disclosed my dearth of fondness for vans. Ponderous, oafish, and of limited versatility they are; opining about their abundant limitations is invariably accompanied by a certain degree of irony that borders upon hypocritical to me. Why? For nearly a decade I have owned a much newer example of Ford’s long lived and hard-to-kill Econoline. Perhaps my Econoline is simply 5,500 pounds worth of proof of opinion; perhaps, as the late Packard brand said in an advertising slogan, “ask the man who owns one”.
As of late, for reasons inexplicable, a bizarre infatuation with vans has been born and demonstrated unwelcome growth within my brain. Wishing it were attributable only to inferior quality sleep, the infatuation has been so lively as to prompt me to create new ones on manufacturer websites.
In reality, this troubling infatuation is due to my ever increasing amount of life experience. I’ve welcomed the concept of retiring one day and further traveling North America in the modest, self-contained way of doing so that only a van can provide. Thus, in this van owner’s mind, the potential uses for vans might exceed my number of thumbs.
Beyond that, it seems vans remain conveyances remarkably unencumbered by diversity of purpose despite mine starting to show some modicum of latent talent other than for taking up space.
By genetic predisposition I’m a tightwad; I’ll never buy a new van. Many vans, particularly of the commercial variety, have the life wrung from them only to be tossed aside like yesterday’s underwear. However there are some great catches if one is judicious in their searches. As a case in point, this 2010 Econoline was found at a dealer in the same town as these other two vans.
Offered for a mere $2,900, this 4.6 liter powered Ford has over 377,000 miles on the odometer; despite this lofty and rarely seen number, odds are it has a lot of life left. It makes me wonder how quickly the next owner could double that. That $2,900 is about equal to the immediate depreciation of driving a new Toyota Sienna, Honda Odyssey, or Chrysler Town & Country off the dealer’s lot.
People wax poetic about getting 200,000 miles out of their whatever-branded sedan. If you want some real mileage out of a vehicle, get a Ford light truck. They are the mechanical equivalent of eternal life.
But I digress.
When our featured van was born in 1989, Ford provided a delectable menu of drivetrain options. By the time one ponied up to the one-ton chassis, which is what our featured Club Wagon rests upon, the only engine excised from the option list (from what can be ascertained) was the nearly eternal 302 cubic inch V8. The 300 straight-six was standard equipment with the 5.8 liter (351), 7.5 liter (460), and the naturally aspirated 7.3 liter diesel all being optional; the 302 was available on lighter rated chassis.
As my grandmother once told me, nothing is meant to live forever. All those engine options have long been scrubbed from Ford’s options list. As for the 300, some people love it and are correct about it being a durable, reliable, and generally smooth-running engine. But for most it’s life, power output was the definition of despair. From the early to mid-1970s to about 1983 or 1984 it coughed out 114 horsepower from 4.9 liters, with each of those poor horses being chased by the grim reaper. Power grew to 145 or 150 (depending upon application) when fuel injection came along in 1988.
For perspective, Ford’s abysmal and maligned into perpetuity 255 cubic inch V8 cranked out comparable horsepower from 5/6 the amount of displacement during the time both could be found in Ford showrooms. My hope is to be so lucky as to have a life long enough to encounter a factory tuned 300 that predates the strangulation.
Hope springs eternal. Therefore, let us also hope whomever purchased this van after its birth in 1989 was knowing enough to purchase something better suited for the task, such as the 460 cubic inch, 7.5 liter, cast iron V8, for this 15 passenger church-bound chariot. If not the 460, the 351 would have been a shrewd choice. It’s not like the consuming of juice from dead dinosaurs would have varied much among these three engines.
From the 1990 Ford catalog; these torque graphs are very intriguing
Like so many things in life, caution should be exercised when making observations that will linger for perpetuity. In 1990, the 460 was rated at 230 horsepower, a figure exactly half its displacement and equal to the terminally vaunted 300 in horsepower per cubic inch. Therefore one cannot credibly state the 460 was intrinsically more powerful than the 300 at this point in time. The versatile 351 surpassed both by providing more power, both horsepower and torque, per unit displacement than the 300 and 460. A 351 would have been my preference for a church van application.
One can certainly imagine two otherwise identical Club Wagons, one powered by a 300 and the other a 460, would have been as different as….life and death.
It’s no exaggeration when I state vans have needled their way into my consciousness. Perhaps this van has occupied this esteemed place due to its physical size being almost larger than life. Anyone currently subscribing to the van-life phenomenon could find this particular Ford to be a virtual palace. A Taj Mahal it is not.
While the church at which this Club Wagon is parked has died, there is little doubt it will be living a lot more life before its days are over. We should all be so lucky as to have the promise of a long, productive life.
Found February 6, 2020
Cape Girardeau, Missouri
How do you know Google Stree View dates are accurate? I remember having seen my old BMW 7series on Street View and the date was march 2012 but I had sold it about a year ealier. And lately I read that Google is changing the dates of their pics for (whatever) security reasons. But maybe not in every country.
> A part of me was hoping this second generation Econoline would be one of the rare birds with a three-on-the-tree.
This is actually a third generation Econoline. I had a childhood friend whose family had a second-generation Club Wagon from roughly 1970, a top of the line Chateau model loaded with options like rear air conditioning, and it likewise made me entranced with vans as a kid. Poor me, I had to endure long two-day family trips in our crowded station wagon, sitting in the same seat all day long. With a van, there was room to actually walk around!
When the new generation Econoline/Club Wagon arrived in 1975 it was like a revelation to me. The earlier one had an engine doghouse so big it was difficult to move between the two front seats; in the new one it practically disappeared. The appointments were as nice as a regular car; the dash would look at home in an LTD. The windows were much taller and the pillars thinner. It’s amazing how long this basic design lasted – the revamped 1992 design was basically just a new but similarly shaped body over the same chassis, and that was built until the Transit took over a few years ago. The heavy-duty cutaway chassis versions are still built today.
You are right. Perhaps the Falcon based first generation clouded my mind. The change has been made.
I was on the Ford website the other day, looking at the E350/450 cutaways. Ford has updated the dashboard and is making their new 7.3 liter V8 available…all this tells me it’s going to be around for a few more years. It looks like it’s going to continue to have a very long life.
Check out this company that’s building campers/overlanders by adding bodies to those E-350 cutaways that look like old Econolines:
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a28982653/sportsmobile-classic-4×4-ford-e-series/
Damn. Something that can push $140k and looks way too much like the 377k 2010 model I found? I’m still intrigued. With the engine options, one couldn’t go wrong with any of the three, although I’d be tempted by the 7.3 just for the heck of it.
That type of low-profile (in status, not size) vehicle intrigues me too. I daydream of traveling in a vehicle like that. Seems like Canada has quite a few van conversion companies that do conversions that end up looking like regular passenger vans. I love them when I occasionally see them at campgrounds.
I’ve seen these “Safari Condo” vans a few times:
https://safaricondo.com/en/motorises/
They do mostly GMC/Chevy vans, but the idea is similar (but not 4WD like the Sportsmobiles).
That’s crazy. I can’t believe they’re actually building a new rear van body for the cutaway chassis. On second thought, I can. These 4×4 Sportsmobile Econoline conversions have been the hot setup for a couple of decades now for the serious overlander van crowd, and have a very loyal following.
Sportsmobile has been converting vans with their modular interior components for decades, and sells just the components too, for DIY types. Their online planning tool is helpful to evaluate the various configurations possible. All the various vans are in their configurator. Early on, I considered buying components from them, but as my comfort level with building my own increased, I realized that their stuff is pretty expensive. Building the basic building blocks of a van interior is actually pretty easy.
I’m not all that familiar with van conversions, but yeah looking over their website they’re a real pioneer that got into it way back in 1961 converting VW vans and the first Econolines. Lots of good stuff right from the start, lots of even better stuff today, but somewhere in between they built *this* – those of you too young to remember the ’70s, here’s what you missed…
Not E-350’s but even crazier is the stuff that EarthRoamer builds just a few towns to the south of me. They always have several ready to ship at their facility right next to I-25. They even have a “Pre-Roamed” section on the page, the prices are heartstopping but people buy them.
https://earthroamer.com/
A used 2017 F-350 HD Roamer camper with 5,200 miles for $550k? Seems like a deal to me.
No telling what the new F-750 4×4 runs, other than with 115 gallons of diesel and 250 gallons of water.
Holy Sh!t! Obviously I’m in the wrong business if you can sell used units for 1/2 a million dollars. There has to be a serious profit margin in a new one.
I bet it’s going to be around for quite some time. E-Series has decades of upfitter history and support, and it’s going to take a while for Transit to build up a somewhat comparable level of support.
The family of a high school friend made that same jump as your childhood friend. They went from a 1969 with a six/3 speed and bare steel interior to a 3rd gen 1976 Custom Club Wagon V8/auto/air that was, as you say, just like a “real car”. It was odd, though, that the Custom (middle trim) still only gave you a color keyed rubber floor covering. You had to go to the Chateau to get carpet.
There was a serious push in the 1970s to sell full-size passenger vans to families, and quite a few in my neighborhood bought them. This ended when minivans arrived, or shortly thereafter. A handful of families with lots of kids and/or towing needs continued to buy big vans but it was a relatively tiny number. Ford tried to stoke that market in 2001 with the E-150 Traveler, marketed to big families for whom a minivan was too small, but it didn’t sell well and wasn’t renewed for a second year.
yep, I remember a number of families having a full size van as the family truckster when I was in grade school. They seemed to be popular for about a hot minute or so, like you say, minivans took over pretty fast.
It didn’t help that a lot of those full-size vans were Phoenix or Starcraft conversions with interiors trimmed out with just the cheapest garbage possible. My aunt and uncle had a couple. Yeah, it was neat because it had a side facing seat in the rear with a small table. Oh, and it had a CRT TV up behind the first row seats, which broke fairly quickly and often.
My carpet installer has a twin to this CC although I don’t know which motor he has. Like this one, he has about 400,000 miles on it and no plans to replace it. Does what he needs and that’s it.
I’ve had two F150’s with the 300 six. a ’91 and ’96 which I think was the last year for them. Basically bullet proof engines.
My grandpa had a ’75 or ’76 Club Wagon “Chateau” with a 300 automatic. I remember its smell, which was unlike any other car from any other period. I also remember thinking that “Chateau” was a pretty pretentious name for something like a Ford van, but you have to have a sense of humor, I guess.
Welcome to the (wagon) Club. I have had a few of these inhabit my life in various ways, ranging from bare cargo versions to loaded-up Chateau versions of the Club Wagon. This XL would have been base trim, but look – even tightwads got woodgrain slathered all over the dash.
I agree that the 351 would probably have been a reasonable choice on this. In my 94 Ford only offered the 351/5.8 with something like a 3:55 trailer towing axle. Which is a big part of the reason I never broke 16 mpg on the highway with mine. But it had lots of grunt down low.
The white one appears to bear the glue-marks of a Ford oval badge low on the right door, which means that it from the mid 80s or newer. The old ones had F O R D in big, thick block letters.
In this era the XL was the middle trim line, the Custom was the base model, that didn’t get wood grain. I’ve had Nantuckets in Custom, XL and XLT trim.
Thanks for this fun look at an un-fun vehicle Jason. I encourage you to travel upon your retirement, North America has so many awesome places to see. Your converted commercial van should say “Jason’s Cape Cleaners” on the side.
It shouldn’t be too hard to set up, I read a really great article on how to convert a ProMaster somewhere 🙂
And as always your sketches of midwestern life are fascinating for us international crowd. Neighborhoods don’t die where I come from, but towns probably do in our more northern regions.
I occasionally drove one of these vocationally during a summer back from college. The Valet Company I worked at (best job ever for a high school student, btw), bought a loaded Club Wagon in burgundy and silver for airport shuttle duty to complement the Astro we already had for that purpose, we must have been an early company to do that, this would have been around 1988 or so, and I recall a few runs from the Valley to LAX. No licensing or permits or anything of that kind beyond my regular license, nobody cared, and tips were excellent.
The van rode decently when loaded and had plenty of power. But otherwise driving it was a bit of a chore, lots of wandering, much looseness and vagueness, and thoroughly uninspiring. I really can’t imagine driving all around the country in one nowadays.
Having driven ours to Oregon and back, along with as far east as Alabama (or would that be south?), one does get accustomed to the way it drives. Faint praise indeed.
Thankfully, ours is still very tight all the way around but the odometer is setting at just a few ticks under 125,000. Not even broken in compared to the 2010 I found.
It’s hard for me to find anything kind to say about vans. I just can’t share the authors enthusiasm(?) for them. In fact they’re the single class of vehicle that I categorically despise above all others. I do have to say, however, that despite never having set foot in the state of Missouri, and previously having no thoughts of doing so, these snapshots of Cape Girardeau continue to pique my curiosity. I doubt I’ll purposely put it on my travel list, but if I’m ever within spitting distance I’m going to have to pass through.
I agree. I’ve never owned one but jobs in my way back history had me driving some at various points in time. The driving experience of them can best be described as “s**tbox.” Cramped footwells and weird pedal position thanks to the engine doghouse, noisy, leaky, exposed door hinges which started rusting on the way to the dealer, etc.
The first time I drove a Transit I was like “this thing is a goddamn sports car in comparison.”
Cape is a wonderful town – and I haven’t lived there in nearly 20 years, but do visit periodically.
Missouri is like any other state; there are some great places to visit and there are some places in which your life will be just as full without seeing. If you do make it to Missouri, let me know and I can tell you where to avoid. Of the 114 counties here, I’ve been in 113 of them, so I do know my way around the place.
Well, that’s got me curious… what’s the one Missouri county you haven’t been to? I’ll take a wild guess and say Sullivan Co.
McDonald, in the very southwest corner of the state.
Ah… I haven’t been to McDonald Co. either. But if you buy the Citroen XM for sale in Oklahoma City, McDonald Co. will be just a short detour!
Van life sounds appealing? I can relate to that. 🙂
You haven’t indicated what you have in mind for amenities in the back for sleeping, cooking and otherwise. But there’s something of a rule of thumb that says that the more time or money you invest in the conversion, the newer the van should be, so there’s not a huge disparity in their respective values. I certainly wouldn’t start a conversion with one 377k miles on it. Your retirement, which apparently will come at an somewhat earlier age than average, will hopefully last a long time.
But yes, these old Econolines are tough. But as Jim Klein pointed out, they also don’t drive nearly as nice as the newer euro generation of vans, whose rack and pinion steering and other improvements makes it feel like one is driving just an oversized minivan rather than an old truck.
The newer the van, the more money you can safely invest…absolutely true, and I wish way back in the mid ’70s, I had understood what that means. Money went thru my dark green1950 Dodge half-ton panel van as fast as water went thru the floor boards. Before the flathead six started knocking, the transmission would jump out out of gear. That van was the last “builder” I ever bought. Screw up early and avoid the rush. I’ve repressed what happened to my $125 project. My next and final van was a 1964 former Hobart Co Chevrolet panel van, 6cyl with manual trans. Great fun! I sold it for much more than I paid.
I’m eligible to retire in less than five years but eligibility doesn’t equate to ability to do so. However, there is a reason I’ve been hanging onto our Econoline. It’s the only 20 year old vehicle I’ve known of that belies its ago so effectively.
If I were to do anything to ours, it would be quite minimal to start, such as throwing a mattress in the back. At this point, going all out would mean putting the mattress on a platform to provide storage beneath it. My biggest problem, although admittedly one I haven’t thought long and hard about, is I will need to have some AC current at night to power my recently acquired C-PAP machine for my sleep apnea. No doubt there’s a very easy answer to that.
I’ve been awaiting the chance to drive one of the newer Ford or FCA vans; I still haven’t even ridden in one yet. By all accounts the fuel mileage isn’t dramatically different (we are still getting 16 to 17 mpg on the highway with a 5.4) but drive-ability is. That is definitely worth something.
The simplest solution for AC power is something like these popular Goal Zero Yeti power stations. It’s a complete self-contained portable power station; you’d just need to know what your power needs at night are to size it correctly.:
https://www.goalzero.com/shop/portable-power/?gclid=CjwKCAiA1rPyBRAREiwA1UIy8HgtD1krCL70ZSuZFexG5iAhy6G3WmPH_nCx6G8y2UhQZb3jXmKfNhoCciUQAvD_BwE
Thank you. I had suspicioned something like these may exist. From the power draw I would need, a modest unit would suit me perfectly. The solar panel availability is icing on the cake.
There is room for a second battery under the hood and if you’ve got one with the factory 7 pin trailer connector use the existing dual battery relay to automatically charge it. Then just select the appropriate size inverter and accompanying battery.
Count me in as a fan of the traditional American van. I’ve had a Chevy G-van or two in my life for over 30 years. My first van , a Chevy shortbox received the retro 70’s custom interior treatment. My second van received a factory 8-passenger interior. I never owned an Econoline but I rented one of this vintage. I liked the interior layout more than the GM vans.
I never thought vans were boring or uninspired because they let you do so much fun stuff. Any kind of outdoor adventure goes better with a van, camping, boating, fishing, mountain bikes, dirt bikes, etc, or even doing chores around the house or farm, vans make it all so easy. Much more versatile than any pick up or SUV, there’s a good reason why van owners wring all those miles from their vans, they’re just so useful.
reminds me of the cosby show
“one of the least inspiring vehicles ever built”
Jason, 2 words:
Boogie Vans.
Now thats inspiring, lol. The 80s were fun to grow up in but I feel like I missed a lot in the ’70s
Boogie vans or whoopie vans? 🙂
We had a pair of cutaway 86 E350s at work with the 6.9 diesel and auto. One was well over 400,000 miles when it was removed from service and parked. It was sold years later to a local grower and it is hauling flowers to market some distance away. Wouldn’t surprise me a bit to hear that it was over the half mil mark by now. As much as I am not a Ford fan, those things are tough. And tough to keep front tires on with the twin I beam front end.
Interesting timing here, as my endless search for the perfect camping vehicle is homing in on a van. Though probably not an older Econoline. But I remember the first (only?) one I drove, on a mostly straight freeway, and enjoying the riding position and forward view.
I’ve had at least one Ford Van in my fleet for over 1/2 of my life.
My first was when I was still in college, a 62 Econoline Heavy Duty. It had the shag carpet on the walls, a set of mags and 2×12″ bumpers that at one time had been nicely finished. My now wife and I did take it camping a couple of times.
Then there was a ~3 year gap when I only drove my employer provided vans.
Then a number of Nantucket work vans that certainly earned their keep. I did finally give up on them a few years ago and modernized into a 2009. While it doesn’t see as much use as some of its predecessors it does still earn having averaged ~3500mi per year over the ~4 years I’ve had it, with some sort of a load in it ~50% of the time.
I guess because I’ve racked up so many miles driving vans for work, I just can’t see using one for traveling. As the wife and I contemplate retiring in a few years I’ve come to the conclusion that a CUV will be our retirement road trip machine for a number of reasons.
Sardis Baptist Church in Saluda, SC bought a 1979 model brand-new & used it all the way up to around the start of this past decade. When new the 15-passenger model was still called Super Wagon; why Ford quit using that name I have no idea. This one was also a two-tone with 2 different shades of blue–light blue at top & bottom with dark blue in the middle–in addition to being a Chateau model as it said on the front fenders. Square-headlight model that happened to have “FORD” spelled out on the hood & tailgate AND the Ford oval in the grille–I think it had the grille from an ’83-’91 as there was no oval before ’83. Being a Chateau the smallest engine would’ve had to be the 351 which this one DID have.
Of course with time mechanical issues began hindering it & it got parked under a tree up to very recently when a potential buyer found interest in it & finally got it running again after so long. During that time the insurance for it was used to pay for rental van trips as a way to remain useful. No idea what’s become of it now.
The grille I remember it having couldn’t have been the original if the van was bought new–I just now realized that.The example below is an ’84 but is the closest example to it that I can find–also an extended model. I remembered the colors well. 🙂
Vehicle history services indicate that this Club Wagon is powered by a 460 & has always called Missouri home.
Round headlight Econolines were from 1975 to 1978 and had no “blue oval” emblems anywhere until 1983. The white van in this article is 1983 to 1991 style. (Providing the rear barn door wasn’t replaced at some point)