ute to van conversion ?

[uterus]

Hi guys- New to here,congrats on a brilliant forum. I have a 78 hz ute (that always wanted to grow up to be a van) and was wondering if any members have done a conversion (if a conversion is at all possible) I do have a old companion fibreglass canopy for it but as practical as it is it also looks like a pimple on a bum.
any feedback would be greatly appreciated
cheers
scot

[HK1837]

Buy a van body. You'll need a good one to start with for the turret and sides, and normally if these are good the rest isn't all that bad. It'd be easier to fix a rusty plenum and front floors on an otherwise good van body than try to turn a ute into a van.

[uterus]

Thanks- didn't think it would be that easy,also the ute is mickey mouse so might just enjoy for a few years and maybe get a van after

Buy a van body. You'll need a good one to start with for the turret and sides, and normally if these are good the rest isn't all that bad. It'd be easier to fix a rusty plenum and front floors on an otherwise good van body than try to turn a ute into a van.

[HK1837]

Utes are better anyway! Is it a Sandman or non?

[HZSandman]

Always better to have a roof.

[HK1837]

Yeah, them convertible utes are a pain!

[uterus]

No its not a sandy unfortunatley, would love it to be an original i always remember sitting at Alexander headland Sunshine coast when i was 17 just got my old hg sedan and licence and cruised up there with mates to see if we could get lucky,pulled up in the carpark next to what looked like a brand new red sandman van (the year was 1979) not sure of the model but here's these two tanned blond dudes sitting in it with there girlfriends in bikinis (stunners of coarse) hanging on the sides,well it was just like a bloody add for one ,and then here's skinny old white me and my mates from Brissyland in a battered old hg.
You can guess what happened next ,we left of coarse,never forgot it and wanted one ever since
Another sad story,from about age 9 or 10 we used to go to the brisbane ekka in august every year after going through sideshow alley we would work our way over to the new car stands ( around 1971,1972 ) and always hit the holden one first we used to tell the salesman dad was thinking about buying a new car and then proceed to collect every sales brochure we could get our hands on you name it we had everything on hq through to hz from belmont,kingswood,premier,all the monaro's sandman and staesman deville and caprice
had them in two draws under the bed left home at about 18 returned about 12 months later to collect and
THE BLOODY STEPMOTHER HAD THROWN THEM ALL OUT !!!!!
still cry to this day and and i'm just about 50
cheers
scot