If you don’t know who Lyle Brown-John is, you’ve probably seen his red 1951 Austin panel van if you’ve been around Burnaby long enough.
You can’t miss it. It’s the one with a pink stuffed elephant wearing a Montreal Canadiens jersey and a cardboard Mountie strapped to the roof.
Brown-John, a Burnaby native with family roots that go back a hundred years, has taken the Austin all around these parts since he bought the van a decade ago. But this fall, he and his faithful truck set out across the western Unites States for a six-week solo journey culminating with a stop at the Desert Trip music festival, or also affectionately known as “Oldchella” in Indio California. The festival is similar to the popular festival Coachella, but for an older generation.
It was an opportunity to see the musical heroes, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney with 85,000 fans. While there were a few mechanical hiccups with the van, Brown-John and the Austin made it back in one piece, and as he would describe it, “collecting smiles” and giving a few back in return along the way. Back at home in Burnaby, the NOW recently caught up with Brown-John to chat about the trip and the one-of-a-kind Austin.
Why did you do this trip?
It’s a bit of a challenge to myself…the rock festival, that’s why I went. The truck really made it special. People would come up behind the vehicle and they were really interested in it. I built all this myself, so it’s an art vehicle. I did it for entertainment, for laughs, for personal pleasure and to give other people pleasure. I just get personal gratification that I’m entertaining people, that’s what I do in my job now as a tour guide.
Was it your plan to customize your truck?
Long story short, I went into a few car shows and met a really eccentric individual… he has this car, and older Chrysler woody kind of thing that’s falling apart. … It’s got a roof rack on it and some trunks on it … and I say ‘I love it and the biggest form of a compliment is copying you,’ and he says go for it. I just went over the top with the chair and the pink elephant and the Mountie and everything else, I say it’s evolving as it should. I never got stopped by the cops once.
Do you want to do another trip like that with the van again?
I did it solo because you have to have patience. It really only fits one person comfortably in the back. Honestly, if they had another big rock show and I was able to acquire a ticket, I think I’ve got some of the bugs out of it. It’s proven it can do it once and as long as you’ve got a time frame to compensate for the breakdowns, I’m OK with it. The parts are available, if they weren’t available and you had to wait weeks at a time or something, then the answer would be no.
Do you consider yourself a hippie?
You know, a hippie lived a sort of an alternative lifestyle in they didn’t want to work and moved out to a farm or whatever. I always worked, I did take a whole year off and hitchhiked around North America, early back then. (An) alternative lifestyle? A little bit, as I’m a bachelor again for the last 15 years, I do have gal pal, but I’ve never been quasi live in suburbia and fit in that mould.
How long do you expect to keep the truck?
I won’t sell it; it will be a lifelong thing. I probably paid more for it than it was originally worth, but now it’s starting to form an art piece.
More than just a car?
Exactly, I go to these shows… and a lot of these vehicle (say) don’t touch, sit on it… these cars are more of an interaction vehicle then just to look at a $50,000 paint job, there’s many of them. Now this car has become rarer and rarer, people are interested in what it is.
When you put something on the car, what influences you?
More entertainment basically. To enhance the attraction of it… for conversation. I say it evolves as it should. I take pieces off, I put pieces on, I was going to go all Canadian, but I couldn’t acquire a moose so my pink elephant did a good job for me with the Montreal Canadiens sweater it has some Canadian content to it.
Do you drive the car around town much?
I’m a busy guy, and that curtails a lot of using the vehicle. I take it to a few car shows, always Burnaby’s Hats Off Day, number 1 because I’m a Burnaby guy. Other than that, I don’t have more than a day or two break in between and I might take it to a car show but I’ve got a 20 year-old daughter, a 62-year-old girlfriend and a 95-year-old aunt are the three girls in my life, and so everybody needs a bit of my time.
