Tell someone you plan on buying a van and they'll think one of three things:
1. You're a tradie or a roadie or some other job ending in 'ie' and you need it for work.
2. You're planning on cruising it around suburbia handing out free candy.
3. You're going to give it a psychadelic paint job and drive it around the country with your friends and dog solving mysteries that almost exclusively involve the creepy owners of abandoned amusement parks dressing as ghosts to rob banks.
Ok, maybe not that last one. Unless of course you're meddling-kid-at-heart Jerry Patrick, owner of AKA Junk, a customisation company that has built an impressive resume of movie and TV car builds.
The AKA Junk Facebook page is loaded with different builds which are rented out for events and taken to pop-culture conventions, one such build being a replica of the Mystery Machine, the vehicle of choice for those meddling kids who keep losing their dog.
The build is more than just a groovy paint job, though. From the Scooby tag door handle, the adorable "what would Scooby-Doo?" question on the back door, the light show inside and the mural of the gang on the inside wall of the van that sort of makes it look like they're checking out one of the passengers. The project is clearly a labour of love.
I mean, you don't go to the effort of transforming an obvious murder van into a real life piece of your childhood without some love of the source material.
Oh, and if you think I'm joking about the whole "murder-van" thing? I'm totally not. Check out this before and after transformation:
Pretty incredible, right?
If you want to see the Mystery Machine in action, YouTube channel Barcroft Cars interviewed Patrick last year. In the interview Patrick talks about how important it was for him to have his Mystery Machine look as close to cartoon real as possible, and it looks like he succeeded.
According to the AKA Junk Facebook page the Mystery Machine is, unfortunately, not for sale. So for now you'll just have to settle for solving mysteries in your Corolla.
What would be your dream car for a mystery-solving road trip? Give us a clue in the comments below.
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