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This 1977 Dodge Tradesman is THE coolest vintage festival campervan
Bought a van, got married, restored the thing. Where’s the party?
This 1977 Dodge B100 Tradesman is a cool vintage festival-ready camper van, arguably the coolest vintage festival-ready camper van. Complete with its own disco ball, lava lamp, leather table and orange shag carpet, the swanky interior is the epitome of glamping.
The passion project of a Chicago-based vehicle conversion company, the Dodge's Chrysler 318 V8 engine has been completely rebuilt. The team has even stroked it out to give the engine 450lb ft of torque. That’ll come in handy on the 930-mile schlep to Coachella, loaded to the gills.
Vintage van owner Winslow Bent always planned on taking the 'Legacy Tradesman' to festivals, having found and purchased it on a street the day of his wedding. Inside, there were cassettes in the tape deck and a video player on-board.
Now, the Dodge's external paint job has been restored in groovy ‘70s colours, moonlight windows have been added, and the Tradesman has a fancy new electrical system.
A chunk of lithium-ion battery powers the original TV/VHS, a beer cooler, two air-con units and a monster 18-speaker, 2,000W sound system. Supporting it all for two days on one charge, who even needs a festival? Sounds like an empty field might do.
Bent and his team have also adorned other surfaces with upholstery sympathetic to the period of the car, and plan to convert other vans via commissions... starting at £36,000 ($48,000). Woah.
He said: "Old school vintage vans command such goodwill in the vintage landscape for truck and car enthusiasts, but the space is in this weird in-between area that sometimes falls through the cracks of the marketplace's nostalgia.
"There are few things cooler than a super clean, well restored van. Our new Legacy Tradesman van restoration is exclusively made for partying."
That'll be heck of a do…
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