6 Of The Most Famous Vans From Pop Culture

Car culture has been featured prominently in television and movies, from classics like "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" and "American Graffiti" to the ever-growing "Fast & Furious" franchise. "Breaking Bad" creator Vince Gilligan tried to match the show's characters to suitable vehicles, and the sequel film "El Camino" centered around a stolen W80 series Chevy ute. Vans have made plenty of TV and movie appearances as well, although perhaps the most famous one never appeared on-screen. In May 1993, Chris Farley introduced "Saturday Night Live" audiences to Matt Foley, a motivational speaker who lives "in a van down by the river." In July 2024, Esquire ranked the sketch SNL's second-best ever behind only "Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer," which also featured the late, great Phil Hartman. Farley returned to play Foley in several more sketches before his death in 1997, although the oft-referred van was never shown.

While the make, model, and condition of Matt Foley's van remains parked down by the river of viewer's imaginations, there are plenty of other vans that have had important on-camera roles in popular Hollywood productions.

Children of the '80s no doubt remember the action series "The A-Team," which broadcast 97 episodes between 1983 and 1987. The show's human stars included George Peppard and Laurence "Mr. T" Tureaud, a former bodyguard for Michael Jackson who broke into acting as boxer Clubber Lang in the 1982 film "Rocky III." Mr. T's "A-Team" character was B.A. Baracus, a mercenary who drove his A-teammates around in a gray and black 1983 GMC Vandura with red stripes and spoiler, bull bar, and a generous allocation of auxiliary lighting.

Craig Baxley, who served as the show's stunt coordinator, told Hagerty that there were at least eight vans used in filming. Two were "hero cars" used for slow-speed driving and interior shots, and the rest were smash-em-up stunt units. The A-Team vans were powered by GM's indomitable 350 cubic inch V8, which had minor performance modifications like an upgraded carburetor and custom exhaust. Fans have created multiple replicas of the A-Team Vandura, and United Kingdom residents can rent one for comic cons and other static events via theateamvanhire.co.uk/ A promotional unit used off-camera by Universal Studios sold at auction in 2021 for $84,000, which is more than 20 times the high retail value cited by J.D. Power.

The Volkswagen van has been known by many names since its debut in 1950. It was officially dubbed the Type II (Type I being the Beetle), but later became known as the Bus, VW Van, Transporter, and Kombi. A yellow bus was used in the 2006 dark road trip comedy "Little Miss Sunshine," which earned an Oscar nomination for Best Picture and a Best Original Screenplay win for Michael Arndt. The film starred Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Greg Kinnear, and Alan Arkin in adult roles, but Arkin and nine-year old Abigail Breslin were the only actors to earn Academy Award nominations for their performances. 

Breslin's performance as the beauty pageant-obsessed Olive led to starring roles in the first season of "Scream Queens" and the 2017 remake of "Dirty Dancing." The bus shown in the film is reported by various sources to be a 1971, 1978, and 1979 model, but one thing's for sure — it let the Hoover family down on multiple occasions. One of five vans used in the film later went on display at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.

Look! Out on the road! It's a dog! It's a van! It's the Mutt Cutts mobile grooming center from the 1994 Farrelly Brothers comedy "Dumb and Dumber." This van began as a 1984 Ford Econoline E-150 but was outfitted to look like a sheepdog, with tan shag carpeting covering the exterior, a tail in back, and a large pink tongue on the front bumper. The film starred Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels as Lloyd and Harry, two pals who drove from Rhode Island to Colorado in Lloyd's van in an attempt to return a briefcase of money to its owner.

The van reappeared in the 2014 sequel "Dumb and Dumber To," where it suffers heavy damage in a jump scene. The 2003 prequel "Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry met Lloyd" takes place in the 1980s, long before Harry had the need for a sheepdog van. Like the A-Team's Vandura, the Mutt Cutts van inspired several fan-created replicas. One such recreation sold at auction last Fall for $41,000. Underneath the carpet, that particular specimen was a 1993 E-150, which Kelley Blue Book values at between roughly $2,000 and $3,000.

Long before cannabis was legalized in much of the United States and all of Canada, Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong made a series of stoner comedy films and albums. Their first big-screen project, "Up In Smoke," hit theaters in 1978 and was a box office smash, bringing in more than $41 million (via The Numbers). In the film, Anthony "Man" Stoner (Chong) and Pedro de Pacas (Marin) head to Mexico to drive back a van that –unbeknownst to them — is made entirely of the valuable plant. The clueless and unwilling smugglers end up getting arrested and briefly jailed before continuing their hijinks. The illicit panel truck is based on a 1960s Chevrolet P-10 step van, which was commonly used as a commercial transporter.

The film is 1960s and 1970s vehicular gold, featuring several other vans, a multitude of classic Volkswagens, a 1964 Chevy Impala SS, and a 1949 Harley-Davidson Hydra Glide with a sidecar. A restored replica of the cannabis van is currently the property of the Green City Collective dispensary in the Playa del Rey neighborhood of Los Angeles, where it sits advertising the now-legal product.

In Season 2, Episode 2 of "That '70s Show," Michael Kelso (Ashton Kutcher) is given a run-down 1964 Dodge A-100 van by his uncle, and he and his friends envision nights of passion in the shag-carpeted cargo area, despite the fact that it reeks of cat pee. Bob Pinciotti (Don Stark) warns Kelso that the van could be the site of unplanned conceptions, but that doesn't stop the teenager from having his first van tryst with Laurie Forman (Lisa Robin Kelly) mere minutes afterward. Four episodes later, the gang takes the A-100 to Vanstock, but it is later wrecked by Kelso's on-again, off-again girlfriend Jackie Burkhart (Mila Kunis).

The A-100 meets its end in Season 3, Episode 10, "Ice Shack," when it falls through the frozen crust covering a pond.

In Season 4, Episode 4, "Hyde Gets the Girl," Kelso wins a brand-new Volkswagen Type II van in a radio contest, which he uses to drive Donna (Laura Jo Prepon) to California in the season finale. 

Zoinks! The most famous van in TV and movie history might be The Mystery Machine, the brightly painted model that first ferried Scooby-Doo, Shaggy, and their crew of teen sleuths from caper to caper in the 1969-78 animated series "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!" The exact make and model of the van remains a decades-old mystery that the gang has yet to solve. Hagerty's Jeff Peek speculates that the van from the original series is either a mid-'60s Dodge A-100 like Kelso's first van or a Chevy G-body model from the same era. The round headlights also suggest it could be a Ford Econoline, but the front-mounted spare tire throws off most van model sleuths. The story of the Mystery Machine — and the van itself — evolved over time. In Season 1, Episode 5 of "What's New, Scooby-Doo?" the Mystery Machine's origins are revealed. 

It once belonged to a band called The Mystery Kids, who sold it to Fred Jones after the death of their keyboard player Flash Flanigan. In the live-action movie "Scooby-Doo," which was released in 2002, the Mystery Machine was a 1972 Vauxhall Bedford CF. As with the A-Team and Mutt Cutts vans, the Mystery Machine has inspired many fan recreations. Jerry Patrick of AKA Junk built one from a 1967 Dodge van. He has also built replicas of the General Lee, Jurassic Park staff Jeep Wranglers, and Luke Skywalker's Land Speeder.