My Toys Past and present.

Hey guys I'll add a few photos up over the next few days of some of my full size toys, ones I've owned in the past and ones that are still lurking around my place! Hope you like them!

This is my daily driver '82 WB van, I love it! It only cost me $700! Its getting a custom front made at the moment(similar to The Buccaneers,'80's van) a respray and full rebuild in the next year or two.




I had to put it together when we bought it because the previous owner stripped it out to paint but got sick of it and we painted the front with left over paint from the shed to brighten the old girl up!

love the old vans, wb is my favourite. memories lol

Here's some photos of one of my other vans. Its called CHECKMATE and has been around since the late '70's. It was originally built by John Roach from Newcastle who took 8 years to build it and spent over $50000 on it by 1982! Which would have been a huge amount of money back then, it won the first official Australian Van Nats in '82 and won in excess of 400 trophys over the years. And still wins them now when we take it out! I saw it in a magazine when I was 14 and fell in love with it, 20 years later its mine! We're currently restoring it to the way it was in '82, Ive tracked down the original builder and purchased the original dash and chrome Jag rear end, it'll take a few years to do but will be worth it. Hope you guys like it, some of you may remember it from way back when!

Hey nice Rob, but tell me how do you get your legs to look like that? Nice wig you got too!

Told you I was growing a mullet!

Nice vans but HQs are my fave I had a HK until it got written off by a woman who thought that cutting in front of me was ok.
I always wanted a long wheelbase Bedford not enough money.
I used to go to the Van Nationals held at Mildura good times.
One of my Vic mates had a beautiful yellow HJ with a 454 chev in it ahh the memories.

Was his name Steve Abbott? Van Rat possibly?

Old age has set in and I have forgotten. Hi did live in Reservoir Vic though.

hey, you're a magazine star now. I saw a different shot of the 3 van's in the servo in the latest Street Machine. They look really cool, Congrats

Thanks spiritman, Jamie that owns the white sandman sent the photo in. The vans in pieces at the moment as we've started building another chassis for it to refit the Jag rear end. Also sorting out a new engine,gearbox aswell as a few body repairs. Have to try and make the bonnet close all the way too.

Got my new wheels the other weekend! Woohoo well worth the wait. Thanks to BBK for selling them to me and bringing them up!

Yes , my wheels have gone to Checkmate and I'm glad they have, because for years I hoped that they would go onto something special as the Striker wheels had a bit of a history when I bought them in Mid 1981 (I was living in Wagga Wagga at the time) to go onto a HQ Monaro Coupe that I was building ., called " Pearl Angel". It never eventuated after a storage shed fire claimed the rear wing ,the Turbo 400Auto and the complte F/glass front end plus many other small parts. Too devastated to start again, I took a few years off from building cars, so I will look forward the wheels on the "Checkmate" HQ Van.

wow nice one checkmate looks great

I hav ewondered for a while where roachy's old van went too,the last time I seen it was in 85 at a van in at mitchell park nsw it was then running a 6 with a set of triples and roachy was with us that avent it was far cry from it hey day.

I remember getting drunk with him that weekend and the thing is he never really went near his old van,I also used to be a member of the sundowners back then and my wife and I had vans for for our wedding.

It is good to see you putting it back to its former glory.

Regards Tony.

Tony I had seen Roach'ys "Checkmate " a number of times at shows during those years when I attended car shows all the time and I sort of hung around with Rowan Wilson who had "Witch Queen " in those days. Little did I realise that I,d meet Rob who turned around and aquired "Checkmate" AND that I would sell my wheels (which are identical to the originals) to Rob , which will restore it in a big way to its former glory . Its a funny world?
P.S. Was good to meet you online earlier this evening,on the chat line . Regards Ron

That is good that you sold him the strikers I had a couple of sets on different cars in the 80s and I still like them today.

I still have all the old custom vans and trucks mags I still go through them now and again,it was good to talk to you as well last night Ron as I said its a small world.

Regards Tony.

Roachy's over the whole van thing these days but still helps me out with info and stuff about the van and it's history. His dad Don has been a huge help with old videos from Mitchell park,Bankstown and the van nats. Stephen Haines(Buccaneer), Dave Marsh(Street Legal) and Craig Godbee(Innervisions) have also been great help with info and old photos to use as reference material. What sort of van did you have Tony? Got any wedding photos of those vans?

Gday mate,I have pics of the vans at the wedding but that was back in 87 I was suppose to use my van as the main wedding van but a day before the wedding a sheila in a sigma pulled up for a dog and I went right up her rear and I only took it out to fill it up.

So as Keith Pennays van dark crystal was in the wedding vans it bacame the main van and we got another guy in the club to replace mine that was missing,if my scanner was working I would post them.

Also a mate of mine from those day's is also the owner of stormbringer Stuart Marshall if you know the van, and at one time then again they still may be there in his massive garage is street legal and innervisons as I have not seen him in a while as I know he was storing them both there for the new owners.

My van was an HZ jade green in colour stroked 308 to 340 muncie and 1 tonner 10 bolt and it held up well I had the same style of flares that you have on checkmate front and back interior all decked out that was done by Ross Malouf that owned High sea's, wheels it was first running were chevoit armourlites with M50x14 micky thompsons on the rear and 245 T/As on the front then later I replaced them with strikers,14x10 and 14x8 and the name of my van was called desire.

Regards Tony.

I've met Keith Pennay a couple of times. Street Legal lives in Melbourne now with Brett and Kyles had Innervisions in Victoria for quite a while too. All of the good Newcastle vans ended up there! I know Stuart quite well although we no longer speak to each other due to a difference of opinion, his van was nicer with the original murals, the 253 and hotwires on it. I've got High seas on DVD and some bloke interviewing Ross at the 82 van nats.
Do you know Dennis Anderson at all? He's from Sydney also and his vans called desire. Its a blue WB, thats very nice.
Was your van in C,V&T? It sounds familiar.

G'day mate,my van was never in CVT unfortunatly,as I said its been a long while since I spoke to Stuart as well so that is where they went to at laest checkmate stayed in nsw.

I know Dennis and yes he does have a nice van but it was stated to him by others that I had the name desire before he did and when I met him I confirmed it.

It is to bad that he did not restore fuzz's old van the wizard but at least he used the one peice tailgate.

I heard a rumour that someone was restoring Gary Loftus old moody blue the last time I heard about it some guy had it in his backyard and letting his dog sleep in it as Dennis told Keith he went and had a look at it.

Regards Tony.

What are you guys doing at home ? I have an excuse ,I,m crook. I should have bought a HQ Van as one of my past 1:1 , although I spent a bit of time driving my two younger brothers HQ's. I would have built something like XX308 , Rob knows how I am keen about XX308 . Tony , you'll have to go to the NNL Tumut Show next year ,:Its a great show and you can check out Roachy's , now Rob,s Checkmate. The Moody Blue van is one I used to see frequently when I used to live down Bankstown way, a long long time ago.
Regards Ron

I think there's a few old vans out there still parked up in shed's waiting to come back to life. There was a muralled HR on ebay last week that looks like it's been in a shed for years.
Checkmate was in Victoria, I had to rescue it! Bloody Mexicans couldn't build decent vans so they bought all the NSW ones! The guy I bought Checkmate off owns Street Legal now and use to own the Judge too.
The thing that most people don't realise is the cost of rebuilding these old bombs, if Dennis was to redo Fuzz's van when he had it to the original standard, he probably would have had to chuck $50K at it, most people can't see the value in it.(I'm not most people though! )
It's sad that so many old vans got abused and driven into the ground, I'd love to track down Hainsy's van The Buccaneer and rebuild it but by all reports it got stripped out and crushed years ago.
If Stuart has photos from your wedding I've seen them I think??? He does have photos of someones wedding where they used vans, I remember him showing me a few years ago.(He also had pictures of Fuzz's van sitting in a backyard just before Dennis bought it!)

Rob you are right about the cost of rebuilding them,but as I said it would of good to see if it was and when Keith told me dennis had it I was concidering it as to do the paint and body would of only cost me time and materials so I would of saved there but I got out of the van seen in late 87 went back to street machines and have been working on rods as well for other mates but do not do much of it anymore.

But saying that there is one van that I would like to know if it still exists and that is midnght express man did I love the mural work on that van that is one van I would buy but who knows where it is or if it still exists like you said they could be sitting in sheds getting dusty or they have ended up at the crusher just like invader 2001 and seducer bugger flamo doing that to that van.

Regards Tony.

Rob & Tony I just happened to be looking at Midnight Express in one of my photo albums the other night . Being one of my favourite vans , simply because of the awesome mural work on it, I saw it a number of times when I went to many of the Sreet Machine Nationals. I spent about something like an hour or more one day looking at the detail and the features of the murals. Did either of you get to see Midnight Express up close? Good question is , now where is it? Here is a bit of a tickle, remember the Hunchback Monaro Van! In my past I had an association with "Lace & Whisky " and "Witch Queen" It would be great to see some of the legendary vans return (we know about Checkmate) My choice would be XX308 ( I know it exists ,sort of) and "Brain Damage" and that no longer exists. Such is life!
Cheers Ron

Midnight Express was a HG van, With a mural of a train on the side, XC headlights and RPB ??? on the number plates? If thats the van in question it's in a musuem in South Australia and still in top condition. If you were going to rebuild the Wizard it'd have to be with the 308(ex-Alley Cat motor!) not with the big block Ford, I think Fuzz lost the plot when he put that motor in.