Van vs Wagon --(Morgoth)

[old forum]

Differences please

Sorry for being so blunt and rude :)

Thanks,
Derek

[old forum]

Differences are very few. Wagons came in two seats and five seats, while vans came only in two seats. Vans normally have more basic dash and vinyl floor instead of carpet. Vans only had hood lining back to the centre light, where as wagons go all the way back. Suspension, diff etc was all the same between vans and wagons.
It is extremely easy to make a wagon to a van, but hard to turn them back the other way. The windows in the back are removed, remove the seals, and then you have to weld sheet metal to fill the holes left by the window, and then you bolt on the panel van sides, which bolts to the sheets youve just welded in. To turn a van into a wagon involves very precise cutting. Pain in the arse.

[old forum]

TD:
Vans came standard as a base model 'Gemini' (similar spec to base sedan). No centre console, no gearstick surround console, no clock (blank instead), vinyl seats and externally, grey plastic hub caps (not wheelcovers), round headlights with TC surrounds rather than square TD items and no plastic strip down the side of the car. Colour choices were a little less varied, and most of them came in the tradesman's choice; chamois.

Obviously, the panelvan had no rear seats. Nor did it have any brackets for rear seats. The floor is welded into the body of the car (except the rearmost section covering the fuel tank) and a short load barrier runs across the front of the load area, preventing the seats from reclining fully.

Rooflining stretched only to the end of the cockpit - the load area missed out. Full trim throughout both cars, except the panelvan had no carpet in the back and no vinyl over the rear wheel arches.

The standard panelvan had sheetmetal spot welded into the 4 windows and fibreglass panels bolted over the 'metal windows'. In South Australia, the RAA (SA's RACV/NRMA etc) version of the panelvan had glass windows like the wagon.

Gypsy variant was a special edition with tacho and black grille (I think). They may also have had SL/E alloys.

Wagons were called 'Gemini', but had a spec closer to a Gemini SL. Including all of the stuff the TD panelvan is missing, including wheelcovers, plastic strip and full rooflining. Still had vinyl seats. Full colour range was available.

TE
Similar for TD. TE van had base model round lights and different grille (Japanese designed). The wagon and Gypsy optioned vans had the Australian designed square headlight front end. The Gypsy, now a production option, also had a tacho and TD SL/E alloys (a smaller Sandman!).

Base model tradesmans colour was a weird egg-yolk orange. You'll notice it on some Kingswood 1 Tonners, panelvans and utes as well.

Both wagon and van had big TE chrome bumpers with rubber ends. Neither had the rubber strip running across the bumper (although the wagon might have).

TF
Similar to TE but no Gypsy option was offered. All models had the new square headlights with egg-crate grill. Wagons had TF wheelcovers, vans had similar hubcaps to TD/TE, but in black.
TG
Similar to TF. Base model cars such as the panelvan (base sedan also offered) had a TF front. Wagons had the TG front.