Hi, my name is John and this is my astro. All comments and sugestions are welcome. Tell me what you think. The reason for this page is to get inputs and to hear comments, sugestions and opinions.

********************************************UPDATES COMING SOON WITH DETAILS & PICTURES OF THE PNUMATIC OPERATION OF THE TAILGATE AS IT IS DEVELOPED AND A WILD MULT-COMPUTER, MULTI MONITOR SETUP WITH AN ONBOARD NETWORK AND MAIN SERVER WITH WIRELESS BROADBAND CAPABILITIES. CURRENT PLANS FOR EMBLEMS ON THIS TRUCK WILL IDENTIFY IT AS AN "ASTRO XP" CHECK BACK TO FOLLOW ALONG AS THIS THING IS BEING BUILT, ALSO LOOK FOWARD TO SEEING SOME SHOW CIRCUIT ACTION AS WELL( TIME AND MONEY PERMITING, OF COURSE).********************************************

I love my astro. It is the perfect vehicle for me: spacious, rear wheel drive, good towing capacity, great fuel economy, relatively low center of gravity etc... It has more room inside than ANY suv could posibly have, including the biggest excursions and suburbans. It also has Its drawbacks in stock form, from not being a great riding or handling vehicle to being noisey and unrefined (read "cheap") in many ways, not to mention slugish and underpowered.

Initial plans were for a 2 wheel drive sub/ tahoe/ yukon/ denali/ escalade/ whatever. there build quality is quite a bit higher than an astro and a cadillac escalade would definatley fit the bill nicely, but impossible to get in 2wd, and not as big as I would like INSIDE although huge outside. I have since fallen in love with the astro. One of the things that steered me away from building an SUV was the fact that 95% of the time four wheel drive is actually a performance NEGATIVE, robbing you of horsepower, raising your weight AND center of gravity, not to mention destroying at least some of the ride quality. I prefer rear wheel over 4 wheel in a street truck.

although the astro is an awsome vehicle it is by no means a high quality luxury vehicle. It was originally designed as a cargo van, and cherolet did a pretty good job of "passengerizing" it, what with the uppgraded "dutch" rear doors and a very atractive (I think) body cladding uppgrade, two tone paints, deluxe captains seats, ETC.. BUT! it is still very utility like in many ways.

The first thing that comes to mind is the exposed rear door hinges. I mean come on, There isn't a decent luxury vehicle out there that would even THINK of using EXPOSED (not to mention UGLY) HINGES. Even chevy realized that in order for this van to be considered a main stream passenger vehicle they would have to do something with the rear barn doors, they came up with the dutch door setup. it gave you a 1 piece rear window with a wiper arm and a rear hatch type opening. Definately a step in the right direction, BUT they left the ugly hinges as-is. Then there are the door handles, definately designed for a cargo van or something, not even close to being acceptable on a true high quality luxury vehicle.

The list goes on and on, from the square box tail lights(even the so called custom clear type replacements don't help that much) to the flimsy stock plastic "rattle panel" interior. Now I know that the astro was never intended to be a high dollar luxury vehicle, but that doesn't mean that I can't "upgrade" this thing a little, and kind of rebuild it into a true world class (o.k., maybe I'm pushing it a little) luxury vehicle, with agressive styling and much better looks to boot!

this van was actually completed by me the first time. Complete with a custom body kit, chromed 17" wheels, custom grille, full custom jet black paint job, etc. and it looked great. However it still wasn't my idea of what I would consider truely awsome, and since I loved it so much I decided that I wanted it to be AWSOME, so I took my mint astro apart and turned it into the mess you see here. The plan goes like this; cut, shave, alter, restyle and customize, Add a few hundred pounds of sound deadening material, cover the whole interior in black leather, add a full blown computer install, complete with in dash touchscreen lcd(10.4"), navigation,(co-pilot 2002), mp3's, dvd, drop down screen for the rear( 17" widescreen), and a little thing I like to call "heavy bass"(powered by a few chromed "old school" rockford power 650's). Add a little intercooled turbo set-up (that I just happened to pick up on e-bay) and you've got something wicked starting to take shape.

I,ve positioned the second seat midway between the stock and third seat position. That gives me a HUGE rear storage area for sub's, amp's, mountain bikes, misc. gear, whatever. This config. also gives me an interior cabin that is like a walk through limosine sized rear seating area. When you sit in the custom tilted back buckets you've got over 5 feet of legroom and the 17" dropdown screen ensures you of an awsome view even though the distance is greater than it would be if the seats weren't pushed back so far. Add dolby digital surround and your in a mobile rolling theater.

Forget about adding bolt on goodies like "clear" tail lens replacements, so it can look like every other astro with "clear" lenses. I want something totally different. I want the average joe to look at it and say "what kind of truck is that?". I want it to look totally different, but then again I want it to have a definite factory look to it. I want it to look refined and not gawdy. I will add details and more info soon, but for now I will just upload a few pictures of this "WORK IN PROGRESS".This is NOT going to be a trailer queen, it is being built to be my daily driver(o.k., mostly just a weekend driver). It will be used and abused much the same as if I went out and bought a new truck. It will wind up costing about as much as a new deluxe SUV, but to me it will be so much better in many ways, not to mention totally unique and definately one of a kind.

the headlight assy.s are bmw X5 units that have been gutted and modified. grille is still undecided, either a speedgrille or billet or I've got a crazy idea of building a custom grille out of welded bicycle chains, then chrome plating the whole assy.( I'm also heavy into mountain bikes)

the rear door (was 3 pc.s, now just 1) is being designed as a full liftgate, self opening and closing with air pistons. tailights are maxima units to give it a little japanese flavor, these astro's are huge in japan! After the truck is painted I may change out the tail lights to the '02 design which is chrome and clear with red and yellow lenses. Licence pocket is from an '02 c-class mercedes

the whole interior is gutted to bare metal to dynamat it, and to modify the dashboard to accept a P4 motherboard with 10.4" touchscreen. Front seating position will be moved back about 5" to add some room to the lacking footroom up front. Everything will be redone in black leather with either carbon fiber, or polished aluminum trim.

awkward shot of the new door handle set-up. right side kinda' has the suicide doors look, with front and rear handles mirror imaged of each other and facing each other. handles will be '02 lincoln LS units, similar in design to the new grand cherokee handles, only a little more rounded and sleek. this little addition makes a dramatic change in the overall apearance.

P.S.: this caddy picture is of a "test computer system" that I put together to work out the programing bugs and test computer config.s and stuff, plus, untill I finish the van, it is my daily driver with test system in progress. (Notice the little astro on the dash, that serves as a daily reminder to finish the van!)

UPDATE!! THIS CADDY IS BEING SOLD ON EBAY AND ENDS FRIDAY EVENING!!! IF YOUR IN THE MARKET FOR A CUSTOM CAR OR JUST A NICE UNIQUE RIDE WITH A FULL COMPUTER SYSTEM ON BOARD, THEN CHECK IT OUT