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Oh this is oh this is so nice welcome to movies garage the dumbest automotive channel in all of youtube and it’s pretty obvious that i am a huge van enthusiast my last van purchased this 1991 chevy g20 van conversion was recently restored by the car wizards and now everything works inside of this beautiful oak and foamy padded interior including the tv
And vcr but i’ve had many other vans in the past on this channel starting with the wood paneled dodge caravan as well as the toyota previa supercharged that was a really cool van and the nissan quest so obviously i have a little bit of bias when it comes to vans but when i saw this a chevy 2500 express long wheelbase nine passenger explorer conversion it
Made me think everybody should be looking at these things especially if they’re shopping for say a new suburban a new denali or a new escalade because this is less than a fully equipped suburban denali or escalade but it offers a lot more basically this thing is like a private jet on four wheels and in some ways it’s even better it’s really amazing now
While it is less than a new denali or escalade it is still very expensive you got to realize a new fully loaded escalade now is over a hundred thousand dollars a denali 80 90 000 so this with a suggested manufacturer price of eighty thousand dollars is quite a bit less but that’s just a suggested retail price if you look online you can find these brand new
Advertised for around seventy thousand dollars which is way way less than a new escalade platinum and you get a whole lot more but the chassis that it sits on is a chevrolet cargo van that you would have bought for 35 000 for work they take that and completely transform it into this this crazy high top conversion van with a fade paint job custom wheels body
Kit basically buying one of these is like buying a really high quality version of a pimp my ride episode and they do start with a dinosaur of a van this express van is actually the successor to my g20 it replaced it in 1995 or six and they’ve had a few upgrades a big one in 2003 but it is the same chassis basically the same van from the mid 90s going into
2020 and under the hood is a six liter vortec that you can’t see because it’s a van but the old school six liter vortec with 340 horsepower that you get in trucks and suvs 10 years ago they can use that old engine that doesn’t have cylinder deactivation and a lot of the complicated stuff so it lasts a really really long time these things were built to work
They weren’t built for consumer use now you’re probably thinking this 30 year old design with all this extra stuff tacked on it and weighing it down just drives terribly but you couldn’t be more wrong this is probably the last of the dinosaurs that offers this old school luxury experience that i love so much which i shall show you now the tour of this amazing
Private aircraft on wheels basically before we go inside where the real magic happens on this explorer van let me show you the cool stuff on the outside first much like the g20 custom vans of the day this one does have a custom paint job it is a fade from a brown to a uh a lighter brown which brown is wonderful of course these wheels are not factory oversized
Alloys and this body kit is just hilarious a body kit or a giant conversion band but it does look really good now explorer is a company their own independent company they’re not owned by gm or anybody else and they’ve been converting conversion vans for probably 40 or 50 years they’re one of the few last surviving ones and what makes them really special is
They do everything in-house just about everything in-house so these show up as basically basic cargo vans they don’t even have windows in them yet so they do all the work in-house of putting in these windows and all the molds for this body kit they also saw open the roof and they make this high top conversion which this is actually a giant window that spans
All the way across and they managed to do this without taking out any of the structural safety things including the side impact airbags which they put a giant curtain all the way down the side of these things as a safety improvement they don’t compromise any of that but the look of this thing is just ridiculous and it is on a three-quarter ton of a 2500 truck
Platforms so it has a hitch and these things are rated to tow up to 9000 pounds i think probably a little less since there’s some stuff in there but still these things can definitely tow one other thing they add on the outside is power running boards which go almost to the ground i mean it’s like three inches off the ground it’s not really necessary but they
Put that in anyway on this side it’s a full size and on the driver’s side obviously you don’t need a big one so it’s just a little mini step up which it’s just so low to the ground it’s not necessary but then when you look at this seat and see how high up it is i can see why they think you need a staircase to get up into this thing if you’re not six feet tall
Like me but the seats are another thing that they completely make in-house they’re power operated the leather well i think it’s fake leather but it’s so soft i think they call this ultra leather and honestly it feels nicer than real leather it is so soft and they make these in-house just like how you used to make car seats with lots of thick foam padding
Tons of adjustments it is so so nice it is definitely the most comfortable seat that i have ever sat in in a new car in a very very long time now when you look at this dashboard it looks like a general motors product from 10 or 15 years ago and that’s because it is it is an ancient gm product that they barely upgraded because they haven’t really needed to
The steering wheel is out of something well probably 10 years old these climate control tops easily 20 years old front and rear climate control but they did try and dress it up a little bit now keep in mind they do everything here in-house and the only gripe i really have of this interior is they don’t do the real oak or real wood like they did in the old
Conversion bands they actually take this plastic off and they dip it in their own dipping machine whatever they have to make it look like wood now it does look pretty good as far as automotive finishes go but there’s no replacing it for the the real thing the real wood yeah but look at this key also something out of a 2007 the fob and the key but uh the
Noise too it’s like going back in time and same with this infotainment screen it does feel very very dated but if you’re into the old school luxury experience where you don’t care about technology like me this is the perfect vehicle it still has power windows locks automatic headlights cruise control all that stuff all the stuff you need but not all the crap
That you you never knew you needed then when you had it it’s like vibrating seats in a denali to know you’re about to hit something why do you need that when you have a backup camera and sensors but in the front you can see some explorer custom touches you have a little reading light here there’s an upgraded stereo you can see it’s a rockford fosgate little
Tweeter there so the speakers are upgraded but this is the controls for the rear and that’s where things get really really fun one more thing before i go though this cup holder down here the center console setup is also a cooler because why not it’s absolutely brilliant to have a cooler right where you can reach it and then you have five cup holders for all
Of your drinks just absolutely brilliant let’s head to the back the first time i stepped in the rear my mind was absolutely blown because just look at this look at this are you kidding me the mood lighting the captain’s chairs this thing is basically like a limousine meets a private jet and the lion king is playing on the tv right now but it still has the old
School mood lighting throughout like a limousine and then look at this roof panel with that side skylight that goes all the way around and for some reason they even fitted a sunroof back here which is just crazy why a sunroof i have no idea other than to be like a limousine so i can stand up here if someone’s driving me and be like richard gere and pretty
Woman looking for my uh prostitute that i fell in love with but we can close that up and close the shade and speaking of shade all the windows back here come with their own blinds that you can raise and lower because you could camp out in this thing you could almost live out of this thing mostly because of what i’m sitting on but i’ll get to that in a bit
These seats despite being captain’s chairs and keep in mind this is nine passenger you have three rows in the back too in the front they are very adjustable and these seats can also spin all the way around as you pull this knob and you can spin all the way around recline it back the other way there you go and that seat will move back as well to where you
Can have kind of a conference in here and it becomes much more like a private jet seat belt-wise this disconnects and then attaches to the seat as a lap belt so they’ve figured out everything they’ve made it all legal so the seats have a lot of configurations but the coolest one is with this bench in the back and look at all the speakers everywhere and all
The cup holders which are lit in the center console that has all the plugs you could ever need and a blu-ray player which is what’s going on right now up here this is like a 28 30 inch television now as we move to the rear keep in mind that most three row suvs when you use the third row the rear cargo area is completely compromised you have zero room and this
Explorer van has four rows of seating and despite that with everything in place look how much room there is there is a ridiculous amount of room for luggage for your nine passengers and there’s even a vacuum in here a little dirt devil so you can clean up messes in the van as you go another power plug but the coolest part back here is the transformation of
The seat i hit this button and look at this look at this i’ve just converted the rear bench into a full-size bed a very very comfortable very nice full-size bed now i’m a little tall so my feet hang off the edge but when you take the headrest off and close the doors i could fit if i laid diagonally and basically i have an apartment an apartment with mood
Lighting a sunroof and a television which when i hotspot it to my phone i can i can watch youtube i can’t actually watch youtube in this van so you’re probably impressed but you’re also thinking well for passengers this is an amazing experience but if i was stuck driving this tugboat i would be absolutely miserable and that can’t be further from the truth
These things are great to drive yes they’re big but they’re great which i’ll demonstrate right now it sounds the part just listen to this vortech yes all right on the road and yes this is a big giant wallowy conversion fan it is as big as they make them but it’s not that much bigger than say a full size long wheel base escalade or denali but the ride in my
Opinion is better than the newest escalades or denali and that’s because of this old-school suspension setup that dates back to the 90s driving this thing really feels like you’re driving say an older escalator denali from you know 2003 or so it’s just something you can’t get with new cars even though they have magnetic ride control that adaptive suspension to
Try and soften it up quite a bit but still make it handle well it just doesn’t feel the same that means for sure in a slalom course this thing would lose and it is slower because it has the old school 6 liter vortec but it doesn’t have all the things that go wrong with modern general motors products that cylinder deactivation and the 6.2 liters it’s plagued
Those engines for years now they sludge up and you have to tear down and replace the entire engine that’s not an issue with these old things the lq-9 i believe the old 6 liter vortec it is slow but who cares it gets up and goes it gets on the highway just fine and it tracks really straight really smooth i mean it doesn’t have auto driving features but it
Drives so straight and smooth that really is driving itself right now i’m not giving it any steering input right now but whatever it was 10 seconds before i had to correct because of the slight curve of the road to the right they’re just that good and the seat as i said before is so oh this is oh this is so nice but there are a few drawbacks the size of
This one does make it a little bit harder to park but if you don’t need the nine passenger long wheelbase you can get one a normal seven passenger one also that high top roof it’s a few inches under eight feet which means taller garage doors you can fit under but if you have a seven foot tall garage or most car washes it won’t fit inside automatic car wash
None that i found but you can get one of these without the high top roof and you probably lose the cool tv and some of the mood lighting setup which i would never give up but even without that this thing is way nicer for passengers to ride and you have more room you have more space and for a driving standpoint just going down the highway or driving the kids to
School this is way better than a denali or escalade if you don’t care about technology and if you care about what’s important with luxury cars quality custom work craftsmanship and comfort comfort most importantly and this thing has all the comfort the styling may be a little much for some uh but for me i think it’s great there is one other thing does it
Do burnouts which is why i’m on this deserted road right now just kind of curious myself let’s see traction control off power braking i don’t think so no sadly there’s too much weight back there to pull off a burnout but an escalator denali probably can’t do a burnout either without some serious modifications so it’s a draw in that respect but you’re probably
Also thinking well a denali or an escalade has four wheel drive and all-wheel drive for when it snows that two days a year and i need it uh but you can also order one of these with four wheel drive they used to make express bands with four wheel drive they don’t anymore but explore the conversion company can buy all the parts and put it on this van and it
Looks exactly the same as a stock tool drive like this but really with all this weight you you don’t need four wheel drive so i’m really having a hard time figuring out why anybody would buy an escalade or a yukon denali over one of these maybe it’ll come to me when i park right next to one for comparison okay when you do park the zoo next to each other the
Van does tower over the denali and that’s just because of the high top on this thing it does look ridiculous but lengthwise it’s about the same i don’t know exactly but it looks to be within a foot of each other this yukon xl denali versus this long wheelbase van so if you got the shorter wheelbase one it’d probably be just a bit shorter but when you look at
These things side by side you sit in these modern gm seats look at the kind of bland interior now don’t get me wrong the interior of this thing is way nicer than most modern cars today it still is very comfortable and there is some technology that i like that this one doesn’t like the keyless go the heads-up display and it is easier to drive and park of course
But then when you look inside of this thing you see the hand built quality of this van the custom coach work that you really can’t get anymore outside of something like this there’s really there’s really no comparison it makes this denali look cheap and that’s why when i saw this 2016 explorer van advertise for sale for less than half of what they go for new
I couldn’t help myself i didn’t hesitate i bought it this is this is actually my van so now i have two giant conversion vans i mean can you blame me thank you for watching
Transcribed from video
This $80,000 Chevy Explorer Conversion Van Is A Private Jet For The Road (Makes Escalade Feel Cheap) By Hoovies Garage
