THE rumours are true – 35 years after the final issue of Van Wheels hit the shelves, the mag is back, as an 80-page supplement in the jumbo-sized June issue of Street Machine.

The original Van Wheels, though notorious, ran for just 10 issues before the title was phased out and replaced by Street Machine.

Although the popularity of vanning dropped fast during the mid-80s, it never died away. The vanning community is a resilient one and they kept on building vans, holding events and generally having a fat time.

Certain members of staff at Street Machine are old enough to have participated in the van craze the first time around, while those a little younger were starry-eyed kids during the vanning glory years, so the love of vans has always been strong in our DNA.

We’ve dipped into the Van Wheels archives in the past, with special features to celebrate our 25th and 30th anniversaries, but finally, we could wait no longer and have resurrected Van Wheels with an all-new mag, edited by dyed-in-the-wool van tragic, Simon Major. It was a lot of fun to put together, with a lot of effort going into giving it the look and feel of the trippy original. We hope you enjoy it!

Here’s just a few of the highlights:

Don’t know your Checkmate from your Innervisions? Our Top 21 Van Icons yarn will help you identify the most famous Aussie vans like a pro.

Didn’t make it to the 40th Van Nationals at Bathurst? Sit back and let us take you through the highlights of this historic event.

Every van needs bubble windows! With a bit of hard work, you can make your own, and we show you how.

The doyen of the automotive airbrush in Australia is Frank Lee. He has a fascinating life story, check it out!