Steve McQueen's Chevy camper van

November 2015

Chevrolet | Dust Tite | Mecum Auctions | 235ci
 

Is interest in the late Hollywood actor Steve McQueen ever going to wane? It doesn't seem so. As with the relentless and morbid fascination with Elvis, or the Titanic, or John Lennon, the legend just grows and grows, and there's no end of stuff being dredged from the Atlantic or rediscovered in a cardboard box at Sun Studios or found under a desk at Abbey Road.

Right now it's Steve McQueen's custom built 1952 Chevrolet camper van. Known as "Dust Tite", this vehicle was built by a guy named Harold Van Hoosen. We don't know anything about Van Hoosen, and we wonder if the name is real or a sly play on words ("van" and "Hoosen", like "house"?). Makes you think, huh? But a plaque on the truck reads: Northern Sheet Metal, Yreka, California (ex-gold mining town at the top end of the state).

Anyway, this vehicle allegedly also has the dubious distinction of being the last vehicle in which McQueen ever travelled. There's a grim story which accompanies this claim, but we ain't going there because McQueen was dying, and we figure that's very personal stuff.

However, we can tell you that the longbed stepside Chevy is fitted with a 235-cubic inch straight-six motor driving through a four-speed transmission. There are five-gallon gas tanks on the running boards. A driver's spotlight is fitted. The colour is Forest Green. The camper compartment is fabricated from aluminium. And we hear that McQueen particularly loved this vehicle. But then, they say that about pretty much all his stuff.

We don't know how much touring the Hollywood superstar did in this wagon, but it's certainly been touring the auction sales looking for a long term home. It was flogged by Mecum Auctions in 1984 as lot 626 at the Steve McQueen Estate Auction at the Imperial Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.

In July 2013, Mecum Auctions had another go at selling it at Santa Monica, but it looks like that failed. Then in August 2015, this truck appeared on eBay with a starting bid of $50,000. And now it's on the block again, this time at Anaheim on 12th-14th November 2015. It's lot number S112.

So okay, it's not exactly a sexy machine, but the provenance is unimpeachable, and you could enjoy a lot of weekends cruising around wherever in this truck. If anyone out there is seriously interested, they'll need to do a little deeper research into the sales history. We've simply sketched it here because life's too short and we've got a desk full of stuff to wade through, and a lot of work to do in the garage.

And then there's some leftover beer from last night to dispose of, you know?

www.mecum.com

— Dexxion