PennSilverTaco's domestic truck, SUV, and van photo collection thread!

This is a 1995 Astro conversion van, converted by a company called VanTique, which I've never heard of...

Some of the better known upfitters include Explorer, Mark III, and Starcraft, among others. Some companies are just subsidiaries of other companies (which I suspect VanTique may be).

My parents bought a brand new GMC Safari conversion in May 2000, and it was our family vehicle until 2004, when it was traded for a new Honda Odyssey EX. Our Safari was converted by the now-defunct Glaval Vans...


April 17th, 2013:

Doylestown, Pennsylvania

 

A while back, I told the story of the time I saw an immaculate Astro parked in a metered spot while driving in Doylestown on a brutally hot late summer day, and just had to get pictures...

The problem was not with taking pictures (as you can see I got plenty of those!), but rather with finding parking...

I couldn't find a place to park, so I pulled into a customers only shopping center parking lot, thinking I'd be in and out before anybody noticed my truck. There was an empty folding chair set up under a large tree, with a book, a towel, and a bottle of water sitting in it. Doylestown is full of transient weirdos, so I thought nothing of it. I found and empty spot and proceeded to pull my Tacoma in. At this moment, an older man came running up to my truck screaming that I couldn't park there. I was terrified, threw the truck into reverse, and squealed the tires as I hauled ass out of the parking lot.

With the parking lot still in my rear view, I put two and two together. The management at Doylestown Agricultural Works (the shopping center to whom the parking lot belonged) was probably paying this guy to guard the lot and keep non-customers out. I circled the block again (and subsequently failed to find a parking space), and decided to make an attempt at reasoning with the impromptu lot attendant. I drove back around, pulled into the parking lot, rolled down my window, and explained exactly what I wanted to do (take pictures of a cool van). Amazingly enough, the guy let me park my Tacoma in the lot for a few minutes to take pictures. However, it is still unfathomable to me that Ag Works saw the need to pay some crazy old man to sit at the entrance to their parking lot, when it was well into the nineties no less, to keep unauthorized vehicles from parking there!

Parking in Doylestown is not taken lightly. It's one thing to blatantly park in somebody's reserved spot, but I've had people go batshit crazy on me, a few times, for unwittingly parking in their poorly-marked spot...

Actually, only one person went batshit crazy, but all of them act as though they've caught me pissing on the grave of a deceased relative, and not simply parking my truck in their spot my mistake...

Anyway, here's the van!


September 2nd, 2015:

Doylestown, Pennsylvania

 

Doylestown Borough has proven to be an excellent source of decent 1990s Astros and Safaris over the years!


May 23rd, 2014:

Doylestown, Pennsylvania

 

Another nice find in the student parking lot at my college (can't believe this was almost 5 years ago)!


May 1st, 2013:

Newtown, Pennsylvania

 

Grocery store parking lots have also long been a favorite hunting ground of mine...

To date, this has been the only '95 Safari passenger van I've been able to get more than a couple photos of!


October 11th, 2014:

Warrington, Pennsylvania

 

This would be the only other '95 GMC Safari I've photographed!


November 5th, 2013:

Doylestown, Pennsylvania

 

The Mom's Flowers van, a 1991 GMC Safari which has since been replaced with a 1998 Astro...

One of the biggest decisions in replacing this van was that the air-conditioner did not work. I've seen the white '98 Astro that replaced it driving around on hot days with the windows up, so one can only assume the A/C works...

In the first photo, you can see my Tacoma (then completely stock) poking out from behind the black Nissan Sentra!


July 26th, 2012:

Jamison, Pennsylvania

 

The replacement van, photographed in Doylestown Borough just under two years later...


June 4th, 2014:

 

1993 GMC Safari XT (long-body) RWD. Base model with A/C (front only), cruise, tilt, power windows, and power locks...


May 25th, 2014:

Perkasie, Pennsylvania




April 12th, 2015:

Quakertown, Pennsylvania

 

It's a bit of a mystery as to why this van was just sitting here. There were two independent garages and a motel within a few feet of where it was parked, so chances are good that it either belonged to an out-of-towner staying at the motel, or one of the mechanics bought it out of state and hadn't transferred the plates yet. It sat there for a few days and then it was gone. I first saw it when I got bored on a Sunday in the summer of 2013 and decided to check out the local car dealerships. This van is registered in Florida, as shown by the license plate and the lack of Pennsylvania emissions and inspection stickers in the lower left corner of the windshield. Most curious about this van was that even though it has the top trim, and despite seemingly being from Florida, it only had front A/C.

Either way, aside from the typical GM paint/clearcoat issues, this van was in decent shape. The registration sticker was valid until March or May 2014 (Couldn't tell in the pics if the sticker said 3-14 or 5-14; These photos were taken in July 2013), so I'm guessing this van was just parked there and was not a non-running or otherwise disabled vehicle...

If you look closely in the last picture, you can see my Tacoma (which at the time these pictures were taken had the Pioneer sound system installed but was otherwise stock)!


July 21st, 2013:

Doylestown, Pennsylvania

 

While the GMC brand is still very profitable for General Motors, GMC models never have the same sales numbers as their virtually identical Chevrolet counterparts. The GMC Safari is no different, and as such there are few older examples still on the road (this one is a 1992 model)...


October 13th, 2015:

New Hope, Pennsylvania

 

April 18th, 2015:

Englishtown, New Jersey

 

1993 GMC Safari XT


June 23rd, 2015:

Doylestown, Pennsylvania

 

I think this one is a 1989 model...


August 6th, 2016:

Carlisle, Pennsylvania

 

March 8th, 2016:

New Hope, Pennsylvania

 

Perhaps a tree fell on this one and damaged the roof, and that's why's been converted into a pickup truck...?


September 23rd, 2017:

Englishtown, New Jersey

 

August 20th, 2013:

Yardley, Pennsylvania

 

Here's an interesting fact about early nineties Astro cans (at least 1993 and I'm assuming 1990-1992 as well).

Trim packages and Preferred Equipment Groups were separate entities. The "base price" for a new Astro passenger van in 1993 was a little under $15K I believe. The standard engine for 1993 was the 4.3L "Vortec" V6, producing 165hp and 230 lb-ft of torque. The only transmission was a 4-speed automatic.

By "base price" and "base model," I mean a vehicle with absolutely no options or creature comforts. For 1993, 4-wheel ABS was standard (I believe it became standard in 1990). All of the other stuff you'd expect at the time was also standard, including power steering, power brakes, heater/defogger, etc. Intermittent wipers had even been standard for a few years by 1993! What you got for around $15K in 1993 was a 5-passenger Astro with an AM radio and digital clock, vinyl seats, no A/C, crank windows, manual locks, and an open rear diff...

Suffice to say, I've never seen even a bare bones Astro passenger van without A/C (seen a couple older cargo vans without it though).

Still, picking options that most people today would consider necessities could easily push the final price close to $20K!

Air-conditioning alone added almost a thousand dollars! It's safe to say that people buying a van plan on carrying more than 4 passengers at a time (not including the driver), so a third row seat is a pretty worthwhile option. Add an extra $200 or so for that!

I have never seen a 1990-1995 Astro with an AM radio, so my guess would be that most people agreed with me on wanting a bare minimum of an AM/FM radio. However, while an AM/FM radio was included in the second preferred equipment group (which also included A/C, but few other options), the radio by itself was $120. Add another $30 to that if you wanted a tape deck...

I would also like to point out that the base price I first mentioned was for the "short body." The extended body cost more...

 

Let's say you just wanted a cheap, reliable, no-nonsense people-hauler...

A basic extended-body Astro would have probably started at $15K-$16K in 1993. Obviously if you planned on using the van to transport people, you wanted air-conditioning, even if for whatever reason you only opted for the 5-person seating arrangement. Add about $995 to the price...

Chances were that you wanted to haul way more than 4 people at a time, so you opted for the 8-person seating...

There's also a pretty good chance that even if you were too cheap to get the cassette player, you still wanted to the ability to listen to both AM and FM stations. The AM/FM radio by itself cost $120, but chances were that if you were buying a basic people-hauler with air, you just decided to save money and get the cheapest preferred equipment group (which included both A/C and AM/FM radio; this option group cost like $1,000 and was appreciably cheaper than ordering the options separately).

Even if you lived in a colder region and/or didn't really use A/C even if it was hot out, you wanted A/C for the comfort of your passengers, and for resale value if you ever sold the van...

A cargo van for work is one thing, but would you really want a rolling greenhouse like an Astro passenger van without air?

Front A/C is fine if you don't typically use the A/C, or live in an area where A/C is rarely if ever needed...

However, what if you live in South, or in Hawaii? It even gets pretty damn hot here in the Mid-Atlantic...

You're going to want front and rear A/C, which I believe only a few hundred bucks more than front A/C.

Now we are looking at probably $17,000-$18,000 OTD...

Say you live in an area where rear A/C really isn't needed, but on the flip side it happens to get really cold there (like Alaska, Maine, certain parts of the Midwest, the Dakotas). You're going to want auxiliary rear heat!

If you decide to go all-out for passenger comfort, you're probably looking at about $1,500 on top of the base price to have dual A/C and heat...

So in 1993, that would have been about $18,000 for a fully climate-controlled 8-seat van with a cassette player...

But in certain colder parts of the country, you might have needed more than just an auxiliary rear heater...

 

Let's say you live in Alaska, or go to the mountains a lot...

The optional $252 locking rear differential just ain't gonna cut it!

By the way, if you're like my uncle who just had to have a "posi rear" in every RWD vehicle he bought new, and were to order a base 2WD Astro with options I listed in the previous post (dual air, dual heat, 8-person seating, and AM/FM cassette) plus a locking rear diff, you'd probably still be looking at just a little over $18K OTD.

Let's say, however, that you need AWD...

That will add about $1,300-$1,500 to the base price!

So, a base model AWD extended-body Astro with dual A/C, dual heat, cassette deck, and 8-passenger seating would probably have cost close to twenty large in 1993...

And that is for a van with vinyl seats, no power windows or power locks, no cruise control, and no tilt steering!

Please read on...