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And now for the rest of the story...
While shopping the Jimmie Flintstone site for a 58 Chevy body I stumbled across the '61-'65 Econoline panel body. I was over joyed to find it as it is a major vehicle in the Cars I used to Own series of builds.
The Flintstone site does not ship to Canada and anybody that sells the body here charges WAY more I had a buddy in Vancouver Washington order it and he then shipped it to me. It is still in transit as of this writing.
Since the first generation Econoline's have never been kitted the body is designed to go with he chassis and interior from the Lindberg Lil Red Wagon/Dodge fever Dodge A100 pickup kit. After a long search for one of these available for a price that did not require a second mortgage on the house I managed to score one from a reasonably close toy store/hobby shop. As these have not been released for several years I was beginning to think I would have to sell a kidney to complete this project
Although it is a Dodge interior the basics are close enough for anybody but the most diehard early sixties van fanatic. In fact it looks like Dodge didn't even try to hide that they were copying the Econoline.
The knowledgeable amongst you are probably saying "But Tcoat the Econoline only came with a six cylinder engine and that is clearly a V8". Well that is actually convenient for me as my '64 had a 351W and C6 tranny from a 96 Fairlane crammed into that doghouse between the seats. So with some blue paint and a bit of squinting the kit318(?) now becomes a 351. It isn't like you are going to see much beyond the very bottom anyway
I bought the van already built in late 78 and it had already been done up in pretty much standard vantasic style. There was a bench in the rear that folded down to a bed, a cabinet from an early sixties RV with an 8 track player in it, an ugly (by todays standards) carpet and some early '70s house speakers mounted up in the rear corners The two pieces of foam for the bench/bed were hard to "sleep" on as they always pulled apart so I screwed the base down and threw a cheap RV sized mattress on it. I also wanted a chair so borrowed (forever) an old mid sixties bar stool from my parents and screwed it to the plywood floor. It of course would have meant instant death for anybody riding on it in the event of a crash by those were the invincible days.
So I had to make a bunch of stuff up
