Classic Citroen Food Vans

A rare view in Berlin – here comes the Citroën H Van! I spotted the bright green one some two weeks ago, the gray one a few days later. This model never really made it in Germany. But is must have been quite successful in France where it was built for a full 34 years, between 1947 and 1981. The French nickname seems to be Nez de Cochon, pig nose. The side panels are made from characteristic sheets of corrugated metal. It seems now to become a trend to use these unusual trucks as food vans. The green one looks freshly restored and rebuilt into a food van with a fold up selling bar over the full left side of the van. The gray one is already on a mission as the “Kiezwagen Blank”, a van that sells vegetarian and vegane street food, making the point of getting completely away with packing material. So a cool classic truck now used to explore new ways to cook better food while generating less rubbish. Nice motto on the left side: “A tasteful world without pastic”. Cool!

Melbourne Coffee and Juice Van

Week of the Early Bays – here comes a coffee and juice van spotted at the arts center in Melbourne. Looks like a single cab pickup truck with the food van unit built on the cargo platform. Big thanks to our local correspondent Campbell for the photos!

Vintage Peugeot Food Van

Here is a French panel van I saw a couple of weeks ago in Berlin. l have never seen one like this before, but then we are quite far away from France. According to Wikipedia it is a Peugeot D4. The D4 and its very similar predecessor D3 were built between 1950 and 1965. This one is probably from 1959 and comes with a German classic car registration. Seems to have always been a food van, with the large fold-up window over the complete right side of the back. The interior in the back features two long stainless steel kitchen benchs with nice wooden bench tops. So still in use as a food van, nowadays with the Berlin-based company Wonderpots (“the frozen yogurt and other good stuff company”). Looks freshly renovated – almost a bit too tidy and clean. But still great to see such an old beauty in such a good condition!

Berlin Ice Cream Van

A T2b-based ice cream van conversion. The photos were taken on a somewhat rainy Berlin summer afternoon some two weeks ago, at one of the beach bars at the Spree river banks in Berlin Mitte. Looks like the basis is the high-rooftop type of van that was also used by the German Postal Service at the time, here not in postal yellow with a white high-roof but in the Italian tricolor colors. Big bell at the front to announce the ice man has arrived. Sticker on the back (“Berlin Bulli Eis”) suggests this bus belongs to Hippiebus-berlin.de at ClassicDepot, formerly known as Berlin Bulli.de, the local Volkswagen bus rental company. They offer 14 different T2b Westfalia campervans for hire, all in orange and white (see also previous post). Looks like this ice cream van is still used for its original purpose – great!

A Quite Unique Coffee Van

One of the things to look forward to at the Berlin VW Bus Festival is a good latte macchiato at LeCabu’s coffee bar. Which, true to the occasion, comes in the form of a Volkswagen van, and probably one of a kind: Originally built for a private canteen provider serving the German Army, she was designed to accompany the troops during their yearly maneuvers in the field. The basis was therefore a 1990 four-wheel drive single cabin T3 Syncro. I am not very good with T3s and Syncros, but apparently the Syncros came in two varieties, the more common 14-inch version (41,330 buses produced) and the much rarer 16-inch heavy duty Syncro version for more serious off-road requirements (only about 2138 buses built). And this one is one of the 16-inch buses, so the real thing for the hard core Syncro fan. The current owner bought her some years ago under the promise that he would keep the original food van conversion alive, and that’s what he did. She got this funky looking retro surfer paint job and is now a rolling coffee bar, based in Düsseldorf, but you can meet her on VW meetings all over Germany. The photos are from last weekend’s 5th Berlin VW Bus Festival.

Kombis as food vans

Project Taiga Lily is on-hold as project birth-of-our-first-daughter started 10 days early and is now in full swing. Here is something to bridge the gap: My sources in Barcelona report on an article in today’ issue of the newspaper Vanguardia. The article is about a T2 food van caravan on the fair Feria Mistura de Lima in Peru.
PS, added January 2012: This is an interesting bus: Most likely a T2 built not too long ago in Brazil. These more modern T2s are also called T2c, and differ from the T2a (1967-1972) and T2b (1972-1979) in a number of details, like here the more modern plastic wing mirror and the air intake vents in the back (which are actually still in the position as they were with the much older T1s). These T2c buses are still being build in Brazil and even imported to Europe, see the blog entry from November 21, 2011 (click here).