Anatomy of a Photo: Campagnolo Candy Van
Every night I pray to Merckx that in the morning when I wake up I’ll have a Campagnolo Free Candy Van with a Super Dome.
And every morning, its a fresh disappointment that it didn’t come true.
This photo also serves as further evidence that Cool peaked some time around the summer of 1977.
You can keep the van, I much prefer the station wagon.
But if I had to have a van, I’d have a lady, on a cliff, with a giant fucking laser gun, and she’d sort of be…protecting.
http://www.michaeldowse.com/media/fubar_van.mov
Sweet Merckx, that thing is A-W-E-S-O-M-E.
I personally vote for the peak of cool being the summer of ’76 the Bicentennial Summer.
If vans could talk, ….
@Nate
That would coincide with my birth, so technically the peak was late September 1976. Downhill from there.
@Buck Rogers
The things that happened inside them would be a lot less interesting.
@frank
I’m just old enough to remember the Bicentennial. Years later, when I was pounding nails and painting houses after college, I found a box of old T-shirts at my parents’ house to use for work. I found a white T-shirt that had a few letters on it, like this:
UC
ENT
Parents explained they went to a 4th of July 1976 party thrown by some overly patriotic friends. There was a set of these t-shirts, and when the wearers stood in the right order, the letters spelled out “FUCK THE BICENTENNIAL.” By the time the host figured this out, he was more than drunk enough to find it funny.
I like/want everything plus this buckle, 1975 circa.
I never saw this van at races in New England in the late 70s. Not that I was racing but I was at a lot of them. I would have remembered that beast. Maybe it was a west coast and race week in the midwest apparition. Either way it rules. I hope Campy headquarters liked what they were seeing in the USA back then.
I’m pretty sure cool peaked a decade earlier.
Sorry. The 1970s were a kidney stone of a decade. End of.
That said, I’ve been mulling over the history of support vehicles for a little while, and the candy van (which I admit is rather cool) definitely deserves some consideration. My first car was a 1976 Ford Country Squire, which makes the Campagnolo Buick look like a SmartCar…
@Gianni
This.
@TBONE Why do you keep bringing back Cheech Marin???
Mr Pink Jersey in the foreground is rocking some serious deliberately casual. That ting had to be a chick magnet of the highest order – or did women not go to races back then?
@Gianni, @Steampunk
Sorry, but the evidence speaks for itself.
Exhibit A
Exhibit B
Discuss.
When I turned 16 all my friends wanted sports cars. I wanted a Peugeot 505 wagon…
@frank
To which we could add Jeff Beck, Carlos Santana, Larry Carlton and on and on…the pantheon of 70s guitarists may well be unparalleled by that of any other decade. It was a fabulous decade for music, especially guitar music.
Watching “It Might Get Loud,” I just about shit my pants when Page started playing “Whole Lotta Love.” That sound. There is nothing–nothing at all–like the sound of a Les Paul and a Marshall stack. A quintessentially 70s sound.
Give me Hendrix over the Harlem Shuffle any day! Well, maybe except this Harlem Shuffle…you may need some retinal bleach after this one…
http://youtu.be/nVxeBiD8ZE0
@PeakInTwoYears
Fuck Carlos Santana. Overrated douchnozzle twat.
Stinking links!!
@PeakInTwoYears
And I love that both White and The Edge walk over and are like “How the fuck are you doing that?”
@Pedale.Forchetta
Too cool. TOO COOL.
I’m not nearly cool enough to rock that bastard. But you’re Italian, so there’s no issue. I’m Dutch on my good days and American on the bad; not exactly the epitome of style or cool.
Except Hendrix was from Seattle, so there’s that.
Wow, one van, a few videos, and we’ve got ourselves a TGIF party! Nice.
Steampunk, Oooh boy, a Country Squire! Mine was a Caprice Classic wagon in maroon. Those would both make nice support vehicles.
I’ve been limiting myself to 1 hour rides lately, other stuff going on. I put in three hours today & damn, I forgot how tired that much riding can make you when you’re not training all that much. The weekend is here & I could use a bed, not a bar. Oh well, I’ll Rule V it.
@frank
I cant sand the dude. We share he same last name and since I was just a little kid I always got the “are you related to Carlos Santana?”
Fuck that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8szRgIcYlY
1977 looked like this – the glory days.
Want to climb a hill quick – get this on your brain…
@Tobin
what the FUCK was that???
Don’t know if it was the coolest or not, but 1977 also gave us: Star Wars: A New Hope and classic records from The Jam (In the City), Elvis Costello (My Aim is True), The Clash (The Clash), and Television (Marquee Moon)…..just saying
@graham d.m.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
@the Engine
Was “A Tale of Two Cities” also released in 1977?….seriously, you are an amazingly quick with the literary, my friend
@frank
White had more class. He just put his instrument down and sat quietly before the Master, his smile saying, “Yep, that’s the bad old motherfucker, right there in front of me.”
You guys can hate on Santana if you like. He music was…uneven, but he had the capacity for a melodic and textural subtlety that few could match. The man could play a grace note. There was another guitarist of that era, from England, Bill Nelson, who fronted a band called Bebop Deluxe, who was similar in that some of the songs were unlistenable, but sometimes his playing could rip your guts out with sheer melodic gorgeousness and virtuosity.
The 70s definitely ruled. Punk, disco, post punk… awesome cars, a great era for motor racing, fucking cool.
@Skip
I owned a 504 wagon and a 505 sedan, the 504 was a big beast of a wagon. I couldn’t kill it, until I drove it without any oil and water for a couple of weeks. That killed it.
@the Engine
Was it really always thus? I’m told the 1140s pretty much sucked ass except for a couple of smoking hot manuscript illuminations.
@frank
There is a Scottish-Italian waiter at a well known Stirling café popular with cyclists, he wears big ass buckles with eagles and snakes and stuff, he would go for that buckle. The same café also has a photo of COTHO and signed jersey on the wall.
Dude, where’s my bike ?
@graham d.m.
1977 – 79 was the closest we ever came to revolution. Great art, great music, great literature – and what did we get for our efforts? COTHO and the X Factor.
@PeakInTwoYears
Yeah that whole Second Crusade thing wasn’t anyone’s finest hour.
@strathlubnaig
COTHO’s picture is no more – I think they have one of Sir Chris’s signed Scotland jersey’s in its place. You up for a ride tomorrow?
So, having been first a non-cycilist (with a bike), then a commuter for several years (16km each way every day. 17-18 when it snows), I finally got myself a “proper” bike. £1200. Influenced by here, that included an upgrade from a basic Shimano groupset to Veloce.
This has left me with one question- why would you buy american or japanese when you could have Italian?
@Al__S
Or British….
@Al__S
I, for one, don’t have an answer to that question.
Campagnolo: It was the standard to which all others were compared. Shimano was barely gaining a foothold at that time.
I remember my first serious bike, a Raleigh International with all Campy Nuovo Record components (except for brakes), Reynolds 531 lugged frame, and Brooks saddle. It was a nice ride.
Led Zeppelin was in its heyday. Best rock band of all time (sorry Stones fans)…
These topics that produce all of these differing, yet related threads are what makes this commmunity so interesting.
@PeakInTwoYears
HUGE BeBop Deluxe fan here! Bill Nelson was amazing, way ahead of his time.
Neil Young and Crazy Horse did this in 1977, Santana can lick my salty balls.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HLwm9P-n194
@Sauterelle
This makes me happy. The owner of the head shop slash record store who sold me their LPs in the backwoods of Oregon, USA in the mid-70s is the only other person I’ve ever heard from who has ever heard of them.
His playing on “Adventures in a Yorkshire Landscape” on Live! In the Air Age can still reduce me to tears, sentimental idiot that I am.
Love Neil Young. Still don’t quite get why people are so in love with hating Santana. Is it some sort of “I’m not gay” thing?
@PeakInTwoYears
THAT is my favorite BBD song!! In fact, after I posted this earlier I went looking for it on YouTube. Beautiful!
R.I.P. – Bill Woodall
@PeakInTwoYears
I saw Santana some 20 odd years ago at PIR (since you’re a Oregon guy) and as far as I can remember (I may or may not have been under the influence of something stronger than IPA) he blew our doors off. Carlos is no Hendrix, Page or Ray Vaughn, but it was good music and a good time.
@PeakInTwoYears not that there’s anything wrong with that. I find him a bit ummm bland for my taste. And there was that thing he did with the arsehat from Matchbox 20……
@scaler911
Well said. This is the problem, for those of us who were there.
@Daccordi Rider
Cf. Abraxas. He learned his trade playing in Tijuana bars and whorehouses. Later, things became less interesting.
@Buck Rogers
This is what happens when you are at stuck at home with a wicked bout of Norwalk and a laptop…apparently the latest trend…the Harlem Shake, not Norwalk. Makes the day fly by at 30 second intervals.
@PeakInTwoYears got a utube for us? I’m prepared to be swayed.
Just watched
@frank
I just watched “It Might Get Loud”, Page makes playing air guitar look fucking cool.