Does this van look familiar? It should, because if it rolled up to your front yard in the mid-1980s, your day was about to get a whole lot worse. This decked-out GMC served as transportation for The A-Team, and was inevitably piloted by that mohawk-bedecked ’80s super-icon, Mr. T.
Now you can terrorize your neighbors with a semi-official A-Team van of your own! Up for auction is one of six A-Team van replicas built under license by Hollywood Productions. These vans roamed the U.S. and Canada promoting the show for its 1983 to 1987 run.
The A-Team, for those unfamiliar, was an hour-long show about a band of roving Vietnam-vet bad-asses who had been court-martialed and imprisoned for a crime they didn’t commit. They broke out of prison and were determined to clear their names, apparently deciding that the best way to do this was to work as mercenaries-for-hire in Los Angeles.
The show was good fun, if totally predictable: Col. John Hannibal “I Love It When a Plan Comes Together” Smith (George Peppard), Sgt. Bosco B.A. “Bad Attitude” Baracus (Mr. T), Lt. Templeton “Faceman” Peck (Dirk Benedict) and Capt. H.M. “Howling Mad” Murdock (Dwight Schultz) would swoop in to help the helpless, then just barely escape re-arrest by the Military Police before the closing credits rolled. (This was the 1980s, the era of un-reality TV.)
Mr. T’s character was was afraid to fly, so he drove the A-Team (nearly) everywhere in a black GMC conversion van with red turbine wheels, a rear wing, and as many guns as seats. Though the replica van up for auction is labeled as a GMC, a quick decode of the VIN shows that the auction site is correct in referring to it as a Chevrolet. It’s a 1979 ¾-ton Chevy Van G20 (how cheap is Hollywood that it was bought used?) powered by an LS9 350 cid (5.7L) V-8 with a four-barrel carburetor putting out 155 hp (assuming it was equipped with California emissions; otherwise it’d be 165).
The van has four bucket seats, one for each A in the A-Team, a machine gun (presumably, and hopefully, a replica) where the passenger’s armrest ought to be, custom cabinetry, two more scary-looking guns within reach of the second row and a pedestal-mounted repeater at the back, perfect for a punitive perforation of your pursuers through the van’s rear doors. There’s a CB radio and a giant antenna that’s bound to take the paint off a few low-hanging traffic lights.
The ad doesn’t say if the van is running or not, but the old 350 is a fairly straightforward machine, emissions equipment notwithstanding. With just over 90,000 miles on the clock, it probably wouldn’t take much to get the van running well enough to strike joy into the hearts of 1980s children while filling villains (and probably your neighbors) with fear. The auction has no reserve and proceeds will benefit the J. Kruse Education Center. Do you need any more reasons to buy? Visit World Wide Auctioneers to start bidding.
