amazing clubs

hi this is mike with backroads vannerand thanks for stopping by today i'm going to introduce you to some friendsof mine that have been vanning for forty years and not only have they beenvanning for forty years but they've been building custom vans not justnormal custom vans were talking radical vans... show vans and they've won severalnational championships and i don't remember how many three four five maybeten i don't know but today you're gonna get to meet these guys and we're gonnahead over to utopia customs so climb in buckle up and let's go check it out ok so we're here at utopia customs we'regonna go check and see what marty's

working on right now follow me anybody home? hey mike! what are you working on today marty? this is the van champion of the world. four time national champion. 1987, 1989, 2014, 2015 so twice with this van and twicewith another van. joyce, come on in here. looks like you'rebusy over here. yep. putting in a new motor? always busy well this is... the name of this van is what?mo-fo. this is mofo. world champion or national champion van. you'll have to tell us more about it. 2014, 2015 it's a 1969 chevy van. it got its name because it was a mo-fo to build. the old engine gave us a lot of trouble i want to get shannan to take a look at all these trophies up along here. itlooks like he's been kicking some butt at the competitions

yeah most of them are from utopia and badass so you've had three vans - utopia badass and mofo yes. okay and they've all won nationalchampion? this one won best radical van in the country. but the other two won overall - best in show. something different about this van that you'll notice is there's no doors on the side this van you have a tilt front end andright now he's got it all jacked up - the whole front end tilts up and it lookslike what you do marty cut the top down and shorten it? i angled chopped it. and no back door right? right, i welded the rear and tilted the front. work in progress. come around to the sidewe'll take a look at the inside. practical radical. no doubt!

as you can tell this isn't your typicalvan marty's known for building radical vans and marty let me ask you aboutthis store first was this a sliding door was just two doors that you convertedover to this what do you call this a goldwing door yeah this door was on the back. two doors that opened up to fit the back so i took those doors and put them on the back and welded the backdoors in so it's all solid back there and then you use this one here great. well, joyce why don't you give us atour of the inside. oh, okay. it's got everything every bell andwhistle you can imagine inside here tempur-pedic adjustable bed. the most comfortable bed. controlled by remote control there's a tempurpedic remote control

for it. so nobody can say keep sleepingin your van is uncomfortable you got the top of the line mattress and bed inthere and it ajusts and it goes up and tilts. so you've got a toilet in your vanand a shower in this van. yeah we do have snaps here, here, and here for a shower curtain. and we have switches here for our pumps. so, you have water tanks down below sothe water drains and goes into a holding tank greywater tank down below. hot water and cold water. and we have a fart fan over here it's a boat blower and gets all the unwanted odor out of the van. and then my beautiful peace sign that he made. that goes to the front. this is just a door that goes to the front here. we can come back and got one way glass on it so that we can see out but they can't see in. i have seen this van at night when you have all the lights and all the other things on

and it's pretty psychedelic. yea, it's nice colors that he picked. we love the royal blue. we can even brush our teeth. this is our mirror and this chrome one here is our drain. this is our smoke light. and over here is where we keep all of our bathroom needs. so you have a built-in medicine cabinet? and we have this fan, these are great portholes. i recommend these for vans. they've got the three lockdowns, they're made out of glass and they have screens and all you have to do is put inhere and get the crosswinds it's great that i recommend those portholes out of any portholes you can get wonderful but there they are both portholes so you have stored underyour bed or where do you get your clothes and stuff oh you're tilting thebed up look at each have our own side here can you see this one thing that hemade myself and then he also can put things in the back behind and we can putit underneath my problem we keep our

checks marty did all this would work east andand and and custom designed all the woodwork everything and led lightsappreciate it gets really we put years under there and your lawn chairs and andthings like that to take with you so nobody can say you can't take a radicalvan and make it practical right cuz i mean this is a radical then by all meansfrom the looks of the outside that till front end and everything but you've gota tempurpedic bed in the back toilet inside a television back here an inverter you know like motels so whenyou're traveling in your villain you

create your own you take your home withyou let's go inside look at some of yourtrophies and and check out check out some of your other things you got yourhonor this is a yeah still upset that truckwas still so you don't not only built street rods but you built custom vans riders everything yeah so do you did yougo to school for this how did you learn all this self-taught i saw that outbackwhich was more lets his guinea pig shannon that had a well you know how todo a lot of stained glass would work on the engine work he learned so much onthis man and what's the name of this man

was called utopia and this was his firstreal radical vannatter's his first real radical yet another van that had aradical paint job but the body was not modified all there was one like this one back inseventy six lanes on it and stuff so i take it you saw this fan or whathappened to you on this one for eighteen years eighteen years old so good friendwho was one of her biggest fans at all struck and killed gilbert up inconnecticut he owned it for approximately six months and burn upbomb he thought he could make it home we only at eight miles before he could behome but it started on fire and

and so that man's gone now no he said itback down to our shop bs he called us up and tell us what happened and we needwithout even seeing the family suggests because we didn't want to see this mango to the junkyard we loved it so he rebuilt the whole family weiss built at the first time in the wholething yeah well again in it and i have the pictures take a look at those yeahwe'll take a look at them later on and what is this man right here thats notthe same van know this one was actually smaller he built the three actuallyutopia of buying a brand new ban likely to be was likely chevy van wermer for400 bucks that's $100 van longer and he

told me that he should get the wholeover the side door took ten inches off the roof and it took 10 metres out ofthe park right here with the kids almost looks like the back into thefancy took a chopped up and off the back of a pickup driving to pick up thelinear that we do you can hardly see exactly one year it's one of my closestfriends that's your first man what year was that 61 was completed he boughtthats 174 and what years that man that looks like a 6766 6767 the onlydifference between life and death so this is a 69 69 that's great ok so this is another one of your customvans it's the same one you showed me

over there this one's called what thatwas badass when best truck truck truck seems we hurt together you built that look at that what year was this joyce 1990 1990 yeah there was a national intexas and texas but you guys when you go to your van shows you travel all overthe country to go to these banjos and you normally trailer your vans or do younormally would never trail your man and always drive your van to the show's wellthat's an accomplishment right there was a lot of people to build radical vansand stuff they put him on a trailer and interim to the show we can rebuild hishand to have fun in it includes driving

everywhere we go right to build thesewings are built on it as with all these man's hands on this planet here so is this where you do all themagic right here building in here is this your shop mytexts shop shop at my other locations i felt utopian pennsylvania we actuallybuilt this man and that's two car garage well since we built this new car garageand taking 22 shows everyone loved him one work so we converted a barn untilshop so it's not completely finish boats have to check the bar now see whatmadness going on down there yeah yeah come on in my k

california you know i had a brother to live incalifornia thought this would be a way that i can travel i'm gonna go see mybrother california he lived in la where are you living at the time levittown pennsylvania ok but where imet my husband but i always talk about it and i want to be able to followthrough and i tried out the california labor day weekend 74 and my husband hereof almost 40 years gave us the data from the bars a ride to where you actuallyhitchhiking and he picked you up and you could fix my bad i don't want to go withso you working on my 67 and

i don't wanna go half as i guess get itfinished and then do it the right way with a friend of mine yeah end up doing at sixty-one for real fastand going out there and then so you measure out in california that it tookhim three times i've moved to three different addresses but he found me andwe've been together since we are married another 67 i sold to my brother my brandnew 1980 chevy van telopea both own thing to raise room 501 bouldina man scoop and everything multan and even when i got done i waslike i thought that i was better than a lot of the bands and i couldn't winanything the best thing i got second

place and i i couldn't get beat thepolitics of the play like a lot of times a different show their friends or youhave to really do good get had to be just sore losers like losing especiallywhen i knew i was better than somebody told about the point system twenty-point you to this modified thismonth i that's what we've learned that you we have to go out we have to goradical mentally challenged guy come out by the picture this band called the omenhe said that babe each year would it take to build like that yeah i said shesays go get it you know i need electrical conduit sit by me to go getthe things i and you had

she's still get the world but the vistacruiser groupon from the station wagon it looks alright on a regular job butits wider and it just didn't look like a little to do with 11 rooms between allthe trim and all that he had abusing three quarters of two windshields whichwas great trip before you went and won the national championship with that andthat's after 13 years we want we want the best interior we have the wholeinterior done when i was in primary repainted it we won best with mynervousness first best in show and then after that the rest of us we wantbusiness however we took it as radical sixteen years back

camping gear in the middle where youfeel that one already had three children at that time 1983 they want to dancewith us so i can't help but think that song picking up a hitchhiker guysdriving a chevy van and he picks up a hitchhiker drop her off i was a keeper because icleaned his room and made the bed call you back there was a bid and youinspired him to you you inspired to that certain things that he did to the fansto keep going with it and fired in the world take the plunge never discouragedput it that way because she wanted something different with the doors icouldn't do the hidden hinges cuz you

know the room and you know that lookslike lambo doors when it goes up from the side she had to have no doors on thefront in the cold front will forward and i want to believe it we get people copy the original ideait's hard to come up with you know some people haven't already done to look at this thing you know wow soclean you should ya know and we did we went to nationalsin the rain and that one truck leaked through the way he designed the silverspur and everybody ask me how do you feel it

nationals did you just want this year2014 or 2015 last year the 42 we took our test rideto new year are from texas with a person down the road i v 1681 so badly hit by a day or a week daily idid that down the brakes brake system his workmanship obviously to jump inthat thing we have to have faith the whole time the whole way god god isthere yeah so what else can i ask you what what exactly does vanning me to youi mean what do you think of and everybody says oh, is it custom vans, is it sleeping in your van, is it traveling the world in your van? all of the above really. all that but mainly just going down the road you know? just cruisin' down the road? just enjoying a smile on every face that sees that van. going down the road they can miss it - it probably draws so much attnetion

pull into a gas station with the biggestsmile on their face and they treat you like you're giving them something reallyfriendly yeah we have to give every time you go somewhere with utopia coming backto the connecticut churkin do you have an idea for your next day and is theresomething in the works you got something cooking up in your head express express i don't know what kindof front doors for the back door open up as one piece and no wheels on it 22 what he said practical this is joycethis is joyce the expression for me when we first met and called me the practicalmanner and the party and and the one

thing about the current ban that youguys have mobile you said it's not only practical it said it's not only radicalget its practical treatable comfortable should be ok so the radical party handsdown ok practical is because you have themost comfortable bed in the back that you can sleep bathroom in there and thenwhat else did you say it's drivable so obvious treatable so you try the countrygo wherever what was the other one you said comfortable durable goods throughthe back door at the bath of watching movie a lot of people that are visagotten carried his big kitchens around with them with pots and pans at all atthe end up being anyway do you know he

did the restaurants or what not when you're down lay in bed right behindya think about shannon and i we go camping and we go into the backcountrywe go off the grid we can eat for three or four days but when we're travelingacross the country taking the backroads we enjoy stopping its diners andrestaurants and even the people and just that's part of america but you can eat ahamburger restaurant i rest areas texas truckerz go back and he backed are ya itook a shower and yeah that's great so he tell me these names and utopia come up with these names this issomething that you know before your bill

neither during the builders other peoplecome up with these names how you come up with these wild well when he came out tocalifornia he turned me on to this band called you to tell you just made me doit and i phone number and the name utopian mean the ultimate we felt like he was building theultimate intentions were so that's how i got it and then what about the next onewas badass just wow this planet or a lot of people would say bad as before weeven know no actor was well out there was named well we went out to the garage afterdinner when time and it was all metal he

just cut them doing although noobligations the whole still ground the pixi chopped up all the middle earth he was still have no clear vote he'sleaning down he comes down he's looking at it like this i got there i havereceived from the same view looking down the side of the bed like a badass butthen we move the texts everybody calls it texts so what about how we were i wason the internet asking people what should we name it some people said flipout cuz it perhaps until that time there was a bunch of things i wish i couldremember a lot more pretty good but anyway you know how i can hear him outthere the best person you know what what

what's the matter because we are goodfriends with a good friend uses that phrase around us and with that themobile he's always talking photo and those with sympathy said it i didn'tknow what he was talking about it first and then the more i realize my god itwas one thing after another custom van that nothing's lined up to vote togetheryou can't go buy a part that's when you chop something and done so much to itnothing is gonna fit the way it's supposed to you have to customize almosteverything you do to it but still it's just so throughout seem to give metrouble and everything was didn't believe itcould be in that motor switch the motor

now open on my changing they are takingthe heart of the van out now when you put a new hard and i don't know aboutthat right this is my background banner and we've enjoyed our today'sconversation with marty enjoys thank you for all the input and all the ideas andand tell us the history from when you guys get started getting here and we'regoing to have more with marty enjoy sand and talk more to them in the future sostick around if you haven't done so yet please subscribe give us a thumbs up ifyou liked this video and we'll see on down the road joyce you know the next race back