You can’t be a successful crack commando team (who survive as soldiers of fortune), a group of crime-fighting mutant turtles or a teenage mystery-solving squad without a great van. It’s just science. And it can’t just be a competent van. It needs a relevant paint job. It needs cool wheels. It needs to house a veritable magician’s hat of items to exploit across adventures. And no van was cooler than the Mystery Machine from Scooby-Doo (which has run almost continuously for the last 50 years, I just learned).
Scooby lore has it that the famous medium blue van with green accents and orange flowers was previously owned by a traveling family band known as the Mystery Kids. It was painted by lead pianist (and noted hippy) Flash Flannigan and was eventually sold to a neckerchiefed Fred Jones, leader of Mystery Inc.—a group of meddling teenagers that always seems to back its way into solving seemingly supernatural crimes.
The back of the ’60s-era panel van is filled with all of the stuff you might need to figure out who the specter really is at the old amusement part and why an inanimate suit of armor is terrorizing Mr. Johnson’s creepy mansion. You need ladders, lanterns and ropes, obviously, sometimes a long bench for sitting and either computer equipment or kitchen cabinets on the walls. An extendable satellite dish is recommended but not required.
The question of what van the Mystery Machine IS, has been its own mystery for years. In the early run of Scooby Doo, Where Are You!, which started in 1969, the van was either a mid-’60s Chevy G-Body panel or a Dodge A100 (that’s the one at the top, built by AKA Junk). There’s no “official” consensus. They both look similar to the Mystery Machine, and both have round headlights. The Ford Econoline is also mentioned by fans—it had round lights—but also a distinct headlight housing that disqualifies it from mystery duty. The forward-control cartoon van also sported a spare tire in front with a flower-power graphic.
In the late-’90s Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, a direct-to-video animated movie, the van looks more like a minivan, maybe a Chevy Astro or a GMC Safari, painted up as a news van for Daphne Blake’s fictional show, Coast to Coast with Daphne Blake. In that reboot, Fred is her TV producer and cameraman. (They still chase ghosts in the van, in case you were wondering.) In 2008’s direct-to-DVD animated movie, Scooby-Doo! and the Goblin King, the Mystery Machine is turned into a monster by The Amazing Krudsky called the Monstrous Machine. According to ScoobyDooFandom: “Krudsky was a simple stage magician who became a real one by absorbing the magic from Fairy Princess Willow.” Princess Willow is the daughter of the Goblin King. This rabbit hole goes deep, but I think we’re nearing the end.
In the 2002 live-action movie, Freddie Prinze Jr. takes on the role of Fred and owner of the Mystery Machine, here portrayed as a 1972 Bedford CF. Bedford was a brand manufactured by Vauxhall. No word on who imported it. I also didn’t see the movie. Maybe his overseas shipper is referenced. If the series hadn’t jumped the shark already, Matthew Lillard as Shaggy drove the Mystery Machine off the ramp.
Update: At one point in Coast to Coast, the gang goes to Australia; that must be where they find the Bedford.
The moral is, every group needs a cool van. If it can be shrouded in subterfuge, intrigue and mystery, even better.
