Recreating The A-Team van was a daunting task

The A-Team Van

Unquestionably, one of the most revered features of The A-Team television series was the trademark black van with horizontal red stripe. Of course it would have to not only be recreated, but recreated well for the full-length feature film, and that proved to be a daunting task.

Rick Rasmussen, the picture vehicle coordinator for the film, was charged with the task. He created the three-vehicle fleet from a set of 1994 Chevrolet G20 cargo vans, which were all stripped to bare steel so that they could be fitted with identical parts and accessories such as lights and fender flares. The scarcity of the spare parts that were lost during the filming of stunt scenes also meant that the team had to fabricate many items such as door handles and mirrors.

Conditioning the vans to match after the on-screen van took a beating proved an arduous and painstaking task; in the film, the van is pumped full of 100 bullets, and every van had to have matching hole patterns complete with indentations around the bullet holes.

All of this may not seem too over-the-top when one considers that a feature-length movie is about two hours long. The van however, does not appear after the first 15 minutes.

– By: Stephen Calogera

Source: USAToday