The A-Team van: how a 1983 GMC Vandura became TV's toughest ride
Black and gray with a red stripe and a rooftop spoiler, B.A.'s van was the star of NBC's Tuesday nights.
Every great team needs a ride. For Hannibal, Face, Murdock and B.A., it was a black and gray 1983 GMC Vandura with a red stripe, black-and-red turbine-style wheels and a rooftop spoiler. If you were a kid in the 80s, you could spot it from a mile away.
The show
The A-Team ran on NBC from January 23, 1983, to March 8, 1987: five seasons and 98 episodes. Stephen J. Cannell and Frank Lupo created it, and it starred George Peppard as Hannibal Smith, Mr. T as B.A. Baracus, Dirk Benedict as Face and Dwight Schultz as "Howling Mad" Murdock. A team of Vietnam vets on the run for a crime they didn't commit, helping people nobody else would help.
It was a monster hit right away. The first regular episode pulled in 26.4 percent of the audience, and in its second season the show was the fourth-ranked series on TV.
The van
The van was B.A.'s, and he didn't let anyone forget it. It was the getaway car, the battering ram and, more than once, the raw material for whatever armored contraption the team welded together in a barn before the final fight. When the movie version came out in 2010 with Liam Neeson and Bradley Cooper, the filmmakers built a customized 1994 GMC Vandura for it and showed it off at the New York International Auto Show.
Building one now
Early-80s GMC and Chevy full-size vans are still around, simple to work on and parts are easy to find. Plenty of fans have built A-Team tributes. Check values with Hagerty and real sold listings, and look hard for rust in the rocker panels, wheel wells and floor.
The Radazoid take
The A-Team was the most fun show on TV because it never pretended to be anything else. Lots of explosions, nobody ever really got hurt, and every problem got solved with duct tape, a welder and a plan that came together. Peak American ingenuity.
And let's be honest: every one of us wanted that van more than we wanted a Ferrari. A Ferrari doesn't fit four guys, a cabbage cannon and a fear of flying.
🛒 Born in 1983? Get the “Back in 1983” birthday poster → Radazoid Shop
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Where this came from
This story was compiled from the reporting below, then checked against it.
- The A-Team, Wikipedia
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