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I recently bought an AMT Rescue Van model, but built it as a (more or less) stock van. Building it brought back lots of memories of back when vans were "the big thing". My parents had a couple over the years, both cargo vans purchased from my Dad's employer, and the later one Dad and I worked on together. I wasn't old enough to have a license yet, but sure enjoyed the time spent with him as we bought a bench seat from the wreckers and installed it at home- measuring, drilling holes in the floor and all. So, I decided to build another van. This time I started with the AMT Police Van, which is more or less the same kit apart from a few accessories. I'd never customized a model other than a few minor details, so I figured why not try a custom van 70s style. Or at least start out in that direction and see where we end up. I started by cutting the body into pieces (gasp!) and removing a section from the middle to make "shorty" van.

Looks like the 1/25 Revell Chevy custom van is being reissued soon:

I have a couple copies of the re-issued AMT Chevy Van kits, and I intend to build ambulances out of them. My only problem is how to do the raised roof. I searched around and saw a couple of people did resin aftermarket roofs for this van, but I don't think anybody sells those anymore, so I was wondering how I could do this on my own. I imagine one would have to use styrene sheets such as Plastruct, but I'm open to any and all tips.

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Revell's 1977 Chevy van built as a shag van. I had plans to do a lot more detailing on this kit, but chose to just stick to exterior enhancing.

Welcome to my first forum on this site. I've built a hand full of model kits in my 32 years of life, from cars to tie fighters and x-wings to vans, vans, and more vans. As an owner of my own custom van, I was thrilled to see the re-releases of the amt vantasy and the revell '77 chevy van, (have two in box). Trying to get them off ebay was getting old. Years ago, I built a custom model version of my real life van based on the 'custom chevy van', model as the platform and the 'brute force' model which was just kinda brutally ugly, I gave it all of the same accessories as my own. The mini me model was then built behind glass-plastic in the dash where the stock radio goes. You can see my whole blog in 'older posts' at pimpmyvan.blogspot.com I cracked open my vantasy kit and have been plugging away at it in the evenings. I havn't built a model in 4 or 5 years and even longer since before that so I didn't want to rush this one. The truth is that I've been really, really enjoying the build and it's been a great winter time thing to do here in the Yukon since it's been -40 and freezing. Having gone through my other van model, the '77 chevy van', I am using the plumbing van decals on my vantasy van and doing it up as an older, well loved contractor's van that is now for sale. There is plenty of surface rust on the underside of the van and some wear and tear generally all over it. I just recently learned of 'opening up your model' where you get the doors to open and decided that this 'old van' would be a great candidate to try it out on. So, this van has an opening driver's door, an opening hood, an opening rear passenger side door and a sliding side door. The hinges are not very suttle but I want to be able to see the inside of the van as I am putting some time in to it and it's interior. I'm also going to leave the engine cover off......it will likely be in the back of the van which I think is fitting as it is 'for sale'. Many old vans that are for sale have the engine cover off as people want to see what's under there in that ever so awkward location. ait for it....................................?..