Vanrat - anyone remember the history?

Hi all,

On the Sinbin forums there was a thread on Vanrat with posts and info by the guy who bought it off Steve Abbott when the guy was 17 or so, I remember he mentioned he bought it without the 454 and it had a 308 or similar fitted.

Anyone able to help? The Sinbin forum is inop

Thanks

Simo

i remember he sed something like he bought it with the 454 but his old man made him drop a 308 in it cos the 454 had to much grunt for a p plater ??

hope that helps some

Steve Abbot sold Vanrat to (can't remember his name, had a panel shop in Dandenong, I'll get back to it later) who owned Tangerine Dream. The 454 was pulled from van Rat and put in TD. Sway can fill in the blanks as he used to take TD to the nats and shows etc. TD was later sold and "stolen" under very suspicious circumstances. Van rat had the 308 from TD fitted and was then sold. Not sure where it went or what happened to it after that.

there is a pic somewhere on this site of what we think is the real Van Rat ( no 454 tho ) with a P plate on it and looked very tidy.

Skippy, The old brain cells are not doing thier job. It was Sam who owned TD and purchased Van Rat, swapped drive trains then sold TD another Sam from where it misteriously dissappeared from the back of the shed with no petrol. Last saw the Wheels at a speed shop in carrrum downs on the second hand shelf but don't know what happened to the rest of it. I believe Van Rat was sold to a young guy over in the West somewhere but not sure.

here is Van Rat in its day, i looked for the recent photo but could not find it

VR is still in Victoria and registered,it no longer has the full grille and it has those speedy californions on it now the SS CRAGER look a likes.

It is still a clean looking van and would not take much to make it what it was,but to put dragway's back on it you would go to 15s as we all know tyres for 14s are getting hard to get.

Buzz.

hemi4bbl wrote:Hi all,

On the Sinbin forums there was a thread on Vanrat with posts and info by the guy who bought it off Steve Abbott when the guy was 17 or so, I remember he mentioned he bought it without the 454 and it had a 308 or similar fitted.

Anyone able to help? The Sinbin forum is inop

Thanks

Simo

Gidday Simo

SinBin is no more.

Majestic Vanners have moved to their own Forum: http://www.MajesticVanners.com

Steve Abbott is also on the Forum.

http://majesticvanners.forumotion.com/van-register-f4/van-rat-steve-abbott-t180.htm

Regards

Rusty!

Buzz wrote:VR is still in Victoria and registered,it no longer has the full grille and it has those speedy californions on it now the SS CRAGER look a likes.

It is still a clean looking van and would not take much to make it what it was,but to put dragway's back on it you would go to 15s as we all know tyres for 14s are getting hard to get.

Buzz.

G day all Sam did sell the van to a young person & after a month ran sam to find out where he could get a new rear wheel as he smashed it in to something. the rears where 15" dragways.
as for the 454 from van rat it end up in td. The motor lost its tunnal rams three shows before Sam sold it to Sam as i showed the van for sam for 3 years. & with out the rams it was a wepon, it had to run on racing fuel. the new Sam put it on gas & about 8 months later it was gone never to be found what a shame i should of bout it & it would of still been a round. but 2 show cars was one to many. this only a small amount that happened to vanrat. but i would like to see vanrat back again.

So let me get this right,you are saying it is not around anymore well this is controversial as it is alive and well and how I descibed it.
The thing is there are a lot of victorian's on this forum and surely one of you guy's should know more about it with its present day form.
Or is it that the one we know about is a lot of crap and someone is telling us bull$#&@

Buzz.

This is what it looks like today.
<a href="https://s295.photobucket.com/albums/mm158/cruzers0/?action=view&current=yellowvan8-1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="https://2img.net/h/i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm158/cruzers0/yellowvan8-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
Buzz.

To the mods can you delete this last post of mine as something has gone wrong

Buzz.

think this is the pic buzz was after

That's the one,thanks for that wello

Buzz.

... seen @ toombul shopping centre QLD a year or two back now... and seemed to be in pretty great shape.

As you can see, the rear window is not green like the side ones. I saw the van in Bundoora a few years back now, some one had broken in to it i was told and got in through the rear window and the owner was never able to find a green bubble, never saw it again until those pics showed up in Qld

Hi Guys,

I came across this forum by fluke. Well this is what I know about Vanrat. I was the young bloke that you are all referring to who bought it from Steve Abbot. I was about 18 (43 now) and yes the old man freaked when he saw the twin holleys and the 454. Steve was kind enough to swap it over with the 308. I had to sell the high rise manifold because I was constantly being stopped by the police - who basically started telling me it wasnt legal. Anyways, I got a clear perspex scoop custom made for it about a year later, but was still being buggerised around by police, so ended up getting the normal bonnet scoop put on it. I left it pretty much like that for the time I had it which was around 8 years or so. Could still have put it in shows I kept it that clean throughout.
After an engine rebuild and 3 Aussie box 4 speed boxes that wasnt good enough. I left the interior complete as is, and eventually sold it to a young bloke near Portland. Never saw it again.
I loved that Van. dont know how to post a pic but I have it on Fbook here:
https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/photo.php?fbid=87024327020&set=t.1579346001&theater

Hi Sam (i guess it is)

Thanks for filling us in on the History. I havn't seen it for a few years now. Are you still interested in the Van scene? I tried looking on the link you provided but it didn't work, I think there is a Post here to show you how to post photos, would be great to see some more.
cheers
James

Hi James,

I dont know who Sam is or what he had to do with the history of Vanrat, but my name is Andrew anyhow.
Ill see if I can figure out how to post some pics. Back then we had nice looking Vans, but no digital cameras so only have a few I've managed to collect from mates over the years.

looking at the current photos provided I notice the murals are gone - obviously some time ago. From memory just behind the driver and passenger side windows we had the Rat flipping the bird on one side, and The same Rat crushing a Ford on the other.
I remember going to St Kilda ( I now live in Perth) one afternoon and parked the van in the main drag. Some old sheila/hooker came over and started going nuts at me. She claimed I was the pimp that bashed up one of her fellow co workers a few days earlier because he drove a Van as well. Well I high tailed it outta there because she was gonna take it out on the car. Punch me, but dont touch the freakin Van!!!
Another time, I was working in North Melbourne close to the homeless mission - not sure if it still there these days - and I got to know the homeless people quite well. I would park where they slept, and they were as good as security guards. One chap - a blow in - whom we never saw before, put a 6 pack of VB stubbies on the bonnet one day whilst I was in working. I came out to this commotion - all the regular homeless dude where kicking the crap out of this blow in because he wouldn't remove the stubbies from Vanrat!!! Needless to say, he never came back and he lost his beer. Good memories

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?op=1&view=global&subj=1579346001&pid=2231872&id=680292020

try this link. It seems to work for me when I click it?

hi, did you get my pm mate? cheers andrew

I did, thanks just registered and was having a look around at Steve's Posts. I got some photos coming over to WA from Melbourne so will try and post those ones as well

hi all,
For what it's worth I was involved with a lot of Steve's shows as his young polisher and helped a lot with the build of Vanrat from when it was a humble 202 sandman.
The 454 was an LS7 and with twin 700 holleys had plenty for the th400 and 12 bolt to deal with.
I have no contact with Steve currently and would like to get in touch for a catch up as he was my neighbour for a number of years and I spent a great deal of my late teens travelling to all the shows in Vanrat and have many memories, a lot of photos as well.
As a sales rep on the road a lot I did sight the van in Warrnambool 3 years ago and it looked in good nick but I worry about the salt air and Holden bodies not being good mates!
It was an icon in it's day as it competed with Alleycat at the nationals and came second that year. hard to beat a v12 and jag running gear in a holden van. I wonder where that one is today?
Just thought I would put my 2 cents worth in albiet late but I can post photos if anyone is interested.
Cheers Glenn.