The Blue Mosey got it's name because it's BLUE (or it was) and i don't drive fast or quick. So i just MOSEY along.Feather touch on that gas pedal to go faster, never over 60 mph on the freeway. They were less concerned about gas milage in 1974 when they built the van. 15 mpg goes down to 10 if you drive like you had to be somewhere fast.

I bought him/her in oh, 1989 or so, for $650.00 off my friend Chris. Been with me like, jeez, 13 years. Had a few regular passenger cars along the way - couple of VW Rabbits, a Toyota pickup, a VW bug, VW Van, - might have forgot one or two. The passenger cars were just run-abouts i picked up along the way. They all went away sooner or later. The Mosey was never far away.I've spent maybe $1500.00 total on repairs or tune-ups for the Mosey during the whole time i've had it. Otherwise it's been just gas and oil - so i made out quite well all in all. Everybody i know who has "new" cars have spend thousands and thousands of dollars for the car and fixing the damn things.

The steering is way loose - 1/3 turn play at the moment. the brakes would have to be stood on with full force to get the tires to schreech. It's noisy, doesn't have a heater, water leaks in around the windshield seal onto your knee. The tires leak air from "rim rot", and the hand-me-down tape player eats tapes. But it's like the energizer bunny - just keeps going.

The Mosey had little rust spots all over for years. My friend Chris kept bugging me about it. "Just sand them a little, primer and repaint" he'd say, everytime he saw the car. I didn't really care for a long time. One summer day i was feeling energetic and my dads shop had the tools so i went to work. Ground off the rust with a grinder - i didn't care about making smooth the paint - sprayed red primer on the grindage and tried a light blue over coat. as you can see from the two pictures above, it didn't look so hot. The mosey had measles or some kind of rare tropical disease. I thought it looked crappy - worse than the rust spots. Then i saw a truck that had a kind of mottled spray pattern all over it. I thought that might work on the mosey, so i got some dark blue spary paint...

and sprayed the whole left side of the van. I liked that effect. Kind of cloudy, aethereal, fuzzy looking. I went round to the other side, and with out thinking to hard about it, applied the first dark blue to the right front corner. Except instead of doing the sort of dippity fog i used on the left side, i sprayed a swooping line. Then added another to make a pointed wiggle. Gee, that kind of looks like a tongue of flame... so i made a few more sprayed strokes, and a few more, until i had the dark blue flame motif going .

Liking that, i went back into the shop and found some yellow and sprayed in the outline and backround. Tada! I drove around for a few weeks like that, then decided "what the heck, may as well go all the way". Got more blue and yellow paint, did the front of the van, added in the red and yellow around the bumper, then the black fadint to light green. I was using whatever my dad had left in his paint cabinet. i went to paint the back and was vague about what to do. Just couldn't come up with a solid idea, so as i do with my doodles, i just made a few lines. Then tried to fix them up but it was looking crappy, so i got another color - orange - and went to cover up the first mess. But it started to look like fire again, so i just went with that.

the Mosey July 2002

the Mosey October 2004