The Sears Custom Van, also known as the Taiyo Thunder Van, is a radio controlled vehicle manufactured by Taiyo (Japan), and released into the US market in 1979.
At the dawn of the toy radio control age, Taiyo was making highly detailed full function toys of a quality that's still lasting to this day - over 40 years later.
Cultural Phenomenon of the 70s
In the mid-late 70s, custom vans were a big part of pop culture, with the real life-size vehicles customized to have all sorts of creature comforts inside.
They all followed a similar style, with bed in the back, perhaps a table in the middle, porthole windows to let in light, and often highly detailed fantasy paint work on the exterior.
Features and Performance
Like all 1970s vehicles, the Taiyo Custom Van isn't about speed, it's about the cool factor... and baby... it's cool!
The van features headlights that turned on/off with a large switch at the back, and the upgraded 3xAA+9V batteries for the car itself, which was the 2nd generation Taiyo 'full function' chassis.
Availability and Collectability
The vans are not readily available on eBay, but do pop up occasionally. If you want one we'd recommend searching for "1979 sears van" and then saving that key search if you don't get any results - ensuring it gets emailed to you when a car does pop up.
As for collectability, I think the item speaks for itself.
