By Jim Brennan
Welcome to the Sunday Edition of Hooniverse Van-Tastic Weekend, and I would like to start with a great looking Chevrolet Beauville Van. Yes, I featured a Beauville not too long ago, but this 1972 version was just so nice, that it had to be highlighted.
Many of you asked about the Beauville Name. Originally it was a trim option in the 1955 Chevrolet Bel-Air Wagon. They were all 9 Passenger versions, and in 1955 they sold a little over 24,000. 1956 continued with the Beauville name only this time on both Bel-Air and 210 Wagons, and sold over 31,000. 1957 was the last year for the Beauville name in Wagons, only this time in 210 Wagons, and sold almost 22,000. The Beauville name was resurrected for the fanciest passenger version of the Chevrolet G-Series Van in 1970 (The last year of the Forward Control Van).
This 1972 Beauville is stunning, and according to the listing:
Chevy Beauville Sport Van 20. 1 Owner, 55K actual miles, 350 Cu In V8, Automatic, power brakes, seating for 5 passengers, finished in correct colors and original interior and radio. Exceptional condition! Extra clean interior and lots of storage space or room for additional seating. Ideal for a nostalgic tow vehicle for a classic car, race car, or motorcycle. Unique Ride that’s ready to Show or Go!
Current asking price for this Beauville Van is $15,900. Try replicating this thing for anywhere near that amount of money. See the Original Dealer Listing here, and the Cars Online Listing here.
Jeff Glucker
I'm totally digging the color scheme of this, but too bad it doesn't have air conditioning.
First order of business would be to lose the running boards, and those accident-waiting-to-happen Dynaglass bias-ply tires would have to go (how old ARE they anyway?). I'd tint the rear windows and use it as a vintage tow vehicle as the seller suggests.
Yeah, the running boards would have to go, along with those white-letter Maypops. I don't miss the woppata-woppata-woppata of deflating bia-plies. The only thing I wish it had is air conditioning. I do like that dash, though.
It was all great until someone opened the door. I'm not a fan of matching colors. Maybe if the seats were black, or black interior with those seats.
Beautiful condition and low miles, but the paint is too Earl Scheib for me. Doubt I could justify the pricing, myself.
WOW! That's a lot of coin, but this van does it to me. It's like a time-warp all the way back to the early 70s in full living color.
And those Bias-ply tires totally finish off the look for show at the local car meet. Not sure I would use them daily if they were original, as I have a set of NOS 1975 Radial T/As (Size "B"!) on Cragar SS 4 spokes for my Datto, and driving on them is akin to navigating on blocks of cheese (a bit on the hard/dry side) but they look cool as a static time-machine.
That's so rad. Dynaglass tires, amazing.
If domestic vans are in fact collectible this is the specimen to have. This is a period movie car.
We had one of these growing up except ours was brown where this one is blue and I'm pretty sure we had a second bench seat. Dad made a fold down table/bed in back and it was a camper! Traded it in on a '74 Dodge Maxivan camper conversion.
I had a '76 Beauville. It had a huge steering wheel that made it feel like you were driving a bus. It was about 20 turns lock to lock, with power assist, so you could practically steer by blowing on the wheel.
The doghouse had a nice big flat top. When being irresponsible and unsafe, one could put a bowl of cereal on it and eat while driving. The thing was so slow (6 cylinder) that driving style did not need to be significantly adjusted to prevent sloshing.
I miss that van.
I have a 1972 Beauville Sportvan 30 converted to R.V. called a "Lark". It has 8.00×16.5 Trans Rib LT 8 Ply tires newly installed. New brakes, air in cab and air roof top, 10' awning, heavy duty custom hitch and all the trimmings inside. As for the mileage, I do not know because the odometer only goes up to 99K. It is reading 49K so I am assuming it has 150K. It also has a built in 40 Lb. propane tank and a heavy duty trani. Email for pics h_**@****rs.com