00:00A lot of people who first see the van say it looks like something from a horror movie.
00:16The centric car customiser Paul Bacon has created this weird yet wonderful vehicle to act as brand ambassador for his
00:25car customising business Cyclone Works.
00:28So the inspiration for this project was just to build something really quick. I needed a van. I wanted that
00:35retro sort of cool look.
00:36Initially I was looking at taxis just to use the chassis on a different project but then it occurred to
00:42me you know I could convert this into a van.
00:46So then the taxi van even though it looks like it's been quite heavily lowered it's not lowered at all.
00:51Suspension's totally standard.
00:53What I've done I've lowered the wheel arch from about just here down to there.
01:00I've really liked cars all of my life particularly sort of custom cars, hot rods that sort of thing.
01:06We've got the truck style wing mirrors and we've also got the swamp box at Econ there as well.
01:13Which is made out of the back box just from a scrap yard.
01:18I started off in my back garden. I basically cut the back of the old taxi off, built a timber
01:25frame and then started to construct the new shape of the van around that timber frame using dye bond and
01:32expanding foam that was finally covered in fibreglass.
01:37Built the taxi van in seven days. The reason it was done in seven days, I had seven days free.
01:42I needed a van. That was all the time I had so it had to be done.
01:47So inside the van, first off we've got the seats. It's the rear seat out of a 1974 Rolls Royce
01:56Silver Shadow and that just went in really easily. Just fitted like it was meant to be.
02:03Under the bonnet of the van, it's a really big heavy bonnet, 2.7 Nissan engine that loads of London
02:11taxis had.
02:15So the paintwork on the van is, it's sort of a fake rust paint and then it's got some white
02:22and then that was all tinted over with 2K matte lacquer.
02:27At the moment, I've only ever really been up to about 64, 65 but I'm hoping to break that magical
02:3365 barrier over the next couple of weeks.
02:36You know, probably on a nice downhill stretch of road.
02:40Whole process start to finish, came in at just over a thousand pounds. The taxi, I got the taxi for
02:48about 450 pounds.
02:49It's probably the most usable vehicle I've built. A lot of people smile, people wave, people come up, ask a
02:56lot of questions about the van.
02:58You know, but it always starts every morning. It always works and carry loads of junk in the back and
03:04you know, that's probably all you need from a van really.
03:07So, we'll see you later.
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