Holden Sandman

This article currently deals with an Australian panel van from a cultural point-of-view. Contributions on technical details of the van would be very welcome.

Holden Sandman is a panel van and ute produced by Holden in Australia between 1974 and 1985. Externally similar to a station wagon, save the lack of side windows, it gained notoriety during the latter half of the 1970s as a mobile venue for sexual intercourse. It earned such nicknames as shaggin' wagon and fuck truck, dreaded by the mothers of teenage girls (fearing their daughters would be seduced by the young male Sandman drivers) and by the teenage girls themselves (fearing they would be raped). To the young men who drove the vans, however, the Sandman represented a lifestyle of freedom, sun, sand and surfing.

By the mid-1980s, however, the Sandman had largely lost its place in the contemporary Australian culture, and became merely a trade vehicle, and an icon of a bygone era. Holden has lately made a concept Sandman based on the VU Ute. They made it in conjuntion with the surfwear company Mambo.