Building "The A-Team" Van From The 80s TV Show

One of the fondest memories I have of the 1983-87 TV series, The A-Team, is their souped up  van.  It was featured so much, it was like the 5th member of the team...and the one that rescued all the others  in every trouble filled episode.  When I think of vans, I think of The 70s Volkswagon van.  Yet, The A-Team TV show brought a resurgence in popularity for these vehicles in the 80s.  (beyond musicians, Deadheads and hippies in general...lots of overlap there. *smile*)  Recreating that van for the big screen, action-adventure, film version of the TV show brought car renovators their own troubles.
The van used by The A Team in the original series, a black and metallic grey 1983 GMC Vandura G15, went on to be one the most enduring pop culture vehicle icons.  It is most recognizable by it's characteristic red stripe, black and red turbine mag wheels, and rooftop spoiler.  One of the original six vans used for the show is currently on display in the Cars of the Stars Motor Museum (Keswick, Northern England).  In the TV series, the van endured countless accidents, gun fire, car chases and action jumps in every episode.  It would then be stripped apart and put back together by A Team member, and master mechanic, B.A. Baracus.
An entire fleet of identical vans were created for the filming of The A Team movie. Even though they took MONTHS to build, the van only appeared in the first 15 minutes of the final cut of the film. Rick Rasmussen, the movie's picture vehicle coordinator, took on the task of building the replica van with his crew.  (Rick got his start as a "picture car coordinator" with the TV show "Viper".)  He decided on the 1994 Chevrolet Vandura G20 as the "new" A Team vehicle.  "There is nothing," Mr. Rasmussen noted, "that is special about these vans." This way, moviegoers be upset when these vans are blown up, torched and literally  crushed. (Anyone who's ever OWNED one of these vans can testify to this.)  They started by stripping 3 cargo vans down to bare steel, then refitted them to look identical with lights, fender flares,  gun storage cases in the back and much more.  In the A Team TV series, the gun storage case contained Ruger AC556 fully automatic rifle, with folding stock and flash hider firing 5.56x45mm NATO rounds.  In the video below, you can see all the trimmings added to the replica vans to honor the original A Team van.  Rick's crew had huge task in finding all the spare parts (door handles, mirrors, etc.) that would certainly be destroyed during stunts.  "Everything was fabricated," Rasmussen claims. "The parts for these vans were so scarce, it was amazing."
The main 3 vans were photographed from the outside: one was a show, or "hero," van, the next was Stunt van 1 and the last was Stunt van 2. The fourth van served as the construction template and the fifth van was left with the role of testbed for the film's special effects. Each van was re-badged as a GMC and painted to replicate the van in the original A Team TV show, with a few exceptions.  "We changed the design of the stripe," Rasmussen says. The goal was to "pay homage to the original, but give it that feature-film update."  The original van had a more diagonal red stripe separating the black and metallic grey. The new van is a dark charcoal-on-black, with a "hockey stick" stripe.
As you'd imagine, these replica A Team vans got beat down while filming the action scenes...and shot full of 100+ holes.  What you might not realize is that, because the crew was dealing with multiple vans, each bullet hole in each van had to perfectly match every other van. For the record, I do NOT mean just punching a hole through sheet metal in the same place. I'm talking equal indentation and attention to detail to make it look realistic and "sell it" to the audience on a big screen.
All that just so The A Team van could literally have it's 15 minutes of movie fame.  The A-team movie was released on June 11, 2010 from 20th Century Fox.  It was directed by Joe Carnahan and stars Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Quinton Jackson and Sharlto Copely as the four member team of heroes, along with additional cast members: Jessica Biel, Patrick Wilson and Brian Bloom.  Following in the vein of The A Team TV series, the  movie plots the "team of wrongfully convicted commandos who escape a maximum security prison and become soldiers of fortune."
For those who wanted a closer look at the "hero" A Team van, it was on tour and displayed at the 2010 New York International Auto Show, the Memphis 2010 DUBS Auto Show and more. The "hero" van is the iconic vehicle you see in the production shots of the film as well as flying through the air in the action sequences.  It also made a cameo appearance in the 2010 Gumball 3000 road rally, driven by pro skateboarder Tony Hawk. "He said it was fun," Mr. Rasmussen noted. "But with that 15-gallon tank, he was forever running out of gas." Sounds just like the movie...  I'll leave you with a classic comment from my favorite A Team hero, B.A. Baracus, played by Mr T.  "I pity the fool" who has to buy gas for the A Team van!
VIDEO OF THE NEW A TEAM VAN: http://fusedfilm.com/2010/04/check-out-the-new-a-team-van-its-the-fifth-character-and-perhaps-most-iconic/
Check out the "Star Cars" section of http://GearheadDIVA.com to see articles on how to build all your favorite movie vehicles.