This Forgotten 1970s Conversion Van Was Supposed To Be A Truck, Sports Car, Convertible, And Motorhome All In One

The conversion van was one of the greatest automotive trends of the 1970s. So many people kitted out their vans with groovy interiors, murals, chrome, and snazzy bolt-on parts. The van was sizzling hot, and all sorts of companies and builders made some of the coolest vans in America. One of them was the Sportswagon and the Majestic SL-18. This van was supposed to be everything. It was supposed to carry motorcycles, handle like a sports car, drop its roof like a convertible, and camp like a motorhome. This crazy idea actually made it into production, and then just disappeared.

Information about these vans is hard to come by. I feel like I ran the poor Internet Archive ragged, sifting through hundreds of pages of stories, several entire issues of car magazines, and mystery car forums. However, I believe I have pieced together most of the story. Somehow, there’s more drama surrounding this van than you’d ever expect. Then you look at the names involved and realize that this van was the work of some guys who had a real impact on the car industry.

What do I mean by this? Among the creators of this van is a man who designed a monorail, a space station mockup, and the 1989 Cadillac Eldorado, plus the man behind the design of the iconic Tucker 48. The van they created would be wild, even by today’s standards. The Sportswagon, later renamed to the Majestic SL-18, was 18 feet long, 7.5 feet wide, and low-slung. By day, it was a rockin’ custom van that was supposed to drive like a sports car. By night, its roof popped up, and its huge body allowed its occupants to sleep transversely in its back. This van sounded like the future, but then it seemingly disappeared.

A Man Who Designed Everything

According to the records that I have been able to find, the van first appeared in the media in 1973. It was called the Sportswagon (with an ‘o’, not an ‘e’) and was being marketed by Sportswagon, Inc. of Irvine, California.

Sportswagon, Inc. was co-founded by engineer Ronald “Ron” H. Powers, the CEO of Powers Design International. According to Ron’s resume, he attended the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, in 1970. He also had a background in Architecture and Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Ron’s work caught the attention of the mass transportation industry before he even graduated from Art Center. While at the institution, Ron designed a complete mass-transit system for Los Angeles that involved a mix of high-speed trains, buses, and passenger vans. Los Angeles passed on Ron’s idea, but that didn’t stop him from dreaming.

Ron’s work after school was simply mind-boggling. He joined Kawasaki Motors Corporation of America after graduating, and he served as a Chief Designer. In that role, Ron says, he was largely responsible for taking Clayton Jacobson’s personal watercraft invention and turning it into the Jet Ski. His resume claims he was also responsible for the creation of the Yamaha WaveRunner and the Wavejammer.

This resume looks like it was published in the 2000s. His company’s website has since gone offline. This wasn’t all that Ron did. According to his website, his company built tools that GM Truck & Bus used to create a raised-roof GMC Brigadier truck. His company also worked on the Space Shuttle upper forward fuselage mockup for Rockwell International, a U.S. Space Station Freedom prototype for McDonnell Douglas (illustration for the planned station below), a convertible K-car for Chrysler, a redesign of the Datsun 510, an instrumentation van for Boeing, and more. If I attempted to list all of Ron’s projects, I would be here all day.

Ron even created the Powers Motor Corporation, which served as the brand for his crazy car projects, like the PMC AEV (Alternative Energy Vehicle). Like seemingly all serial vehicle inventors of the 1980s, Ron made at least one three-wheel car. Ron also says he was involved in rail projects that included Maglev and linear induction trains. Two more notes in his history include motorhome design work for the FMC Corporation and design work on the 1989 Cadillac Eldorado.

Ron had a real knack for motorhomes, boats, and buses. His company’s portfolio mentions design work for Apollo Motorhomes, Chinook RV, Xplorer Motorhomes, Revcon, Tiffin Motorhomes, and Vogue Coach Corporation.

The Sportswagon

This love of motorhomes didn’t come from just anywhere. One of his earliest ventures happened a year before he even opened his own design house. That was Sportswagon, Inc., and the grand idea was to create an aerodynamic van that did everything. This van hit the auto show circuit sometime around 1973 and caught the attention of the automotive press.

In March 1973, Motor Trend wrote an article detailing how the Sportswagon came to be. In it, the publication does not mention Sportswagon, Inc., but O’Brien Enterprises. It’s unclear where O’Brien Enterprises came into this or the full extent to which Ron was involved in the design of the van. What I can say is that O’Brien Enterprises was located in Irvine, California, the same city that Sportswagon, Inc. was in.

Motor Trend says that O’Brien Enterprises started with a concept Sportswagon and then conducted market research by sending a 54-question survey out to more than 6,000 motorhome owners. These questions asked them about their ideal motorhome. The design of the Sportswagon would change based on trends detected from evaluating the questionnaires. O’Brien Enterprises found out that motorhome owners wished they could buy a vehicle that had more power, better handling, better safety, and a footprint small enough to fit into a garage. Really, survey participants more or less said they want a van that they could sleep in and park anywhere.

O’Brien took these answers and changed the Sportswagon prototype. What was shown by the automotive press was an impressive beast. It was 18 feet long, 7.5 feet wide, and had an interior big enough that a tall person could get comfortable sleep in a transverse position. The van was also filled with two queen beds.

The van was marketed as having four main configurations. Its simplest form was a station wagon, and it had seating for up to eight people. You could then take the seats out and use the van as a cargo van. Imagery shows a man loading a Sportswagon up with two enduro motorcycles and a minibike. Then there’s the camper setup, where you can either have a dining area with a table, benches, stove, sink, and refrigerator, or the same setup with two beds rather than a table. There was also a chemical toilet and a shower. The roof of the Sportswagon popped and raised by 22 inches, giving occupants six feet and three inches of standing height.

All of that was pretty cool, but the Sportswagon was meant to be more than just another conversion van. The van sported a meaty 400 cubic inch Chrysler V8. This was backed by a TorqueFlite automatic. The chassis was not an existing van platform, but a bespoke creation by Sportswagon Inc. for use in the van. The chassis is a low-riding ladder frame with square tubing. As for the suspension, the O’Brien team designed a suspension that was inspired by the suspension from an Imperial, which gave the van a torsion bar setup up front and leaf springs in the rear.

The structure of the van was steel and was coated in an ABS plastic called Royalite from U.S. Rubber.

The headlining feature for Royalite, at least as applied to the van, was that it was nearly as strong as steel while being 20 percent lighter. Yet, unlike steel, when it got dented, all it took was a heat gun and a little finesse to erase the oopsie.

O’Brien Enterprises said the van would be sold at regular car dealerships, and by early 1973, dealers spread across more than 10 different vehicle brands were signed on to carry the RVs. So, the Sportswagon wasn’t married to Chrysler. The company was willing to let just about any dealer sling them.

O’Brien said that you’d get all of this for the princely sum of $7,600. For comparison’s sake, that was roughly double the price of a Chevrolet G-series van of the era.

Amusingly, O’Brien Enterprises wrote a strongly worded letter to Motor Trend in June 1973. That letter called out seven major inaccuracies with the Motor Trend article:

Among the complaints was the fact that Motor Trend called O’Brien Enterprises “O’Brien Industries,” repeatedly called the van the “Sportwagon” and not the Sportswagon, failed to mention that the van did have a steel structure, and claimed that the Sportswagon would be sold specifically through Chrysler. Weirdly, Motor Trend also claimed that the Sportswagon was shorter than every other van on the market, which wasn’t true, and then still spelled it wrong even though the publication published the van’s logo in the piece.

I included this part because it’s a fascinating look into how car journalism used to be. Typos and small errors are not a new thing! Here was Motor Trend getting the name of the van wrong despite publishing the van’s logo in the story.

Aside from the media and auto show push, Sportswagon/O’Brien Enterprises also published a three-page brochure. It’s unclear how many, if any, Sportswagons were sold. At least two were built with the Sportswagon name. But now, this story takes an interesting twist.

The Sportswagon Evolves

I spent a lot of time wondering why the trail for the Sportswagon went cold after 1973. Through some digging, I connected the dots. The project fell into the hands of Majestic Motorhomes, Inc. of Irvine, California. It’s unclear when Majestic got involved, and it’s possible that Majestic was formed by Sportswagon/O’Brien Enterprises employees. Trademark filings suggest that Majestic had been around since at least the early 1970s.

What I can tell you is that, at first, the van that Majestic Motorhomes had was just the Sportswagon, but with the Sportswagon badge ripped off and a Majestic badge in its place. A user of AutoPuzzles.com uploaded some alleged letters from 1975 between James D. Bond and George Bennett, executives of Majestic, and designer Alex Tremulis. Alex was perhaps most famous for his work on the iconic Tucker 48. He also worked on the Sportswagon, but it was unclear when he got involved and what, exactly, he did.

However, the letters between Tremulis and Majestic’s executives suggest that Majestic didn’t actually own the rights to the Sportswagon, and so Tremulis was tasked with changing the design enough so that Majestic didn’t have any legal trouble. Tremulis apparently achieved this by giving his version of the Sportswagon design a higher beltline, a squarer profile, and different windows. The roof design and the graphics package remained largely similar, but the name was now changed to the Majestic SL-18.

Many of the details of the SL-18 were unchanged from the Sportswagon. The van rocked a custom frame, an 18-foot length, and a 7.5-foot width. Majestic had the frame built in Taiwan. The rest of the platform was a mash-up of parts from different brands. The powertrain came from Dodge, the brakes and suspension came from Ford, the steering came from General Motors Saginaw, and the rear axle was of Dana-Spicer variety.

Majestic said that building the van in America from parts imported from Taiwan meant that the price of the van would be lower. Yet, the price was $13,850, or a significant hike from the Sportswagon. At least you got more for the price. A Majestic SL-18 was more like a real motorhome and had all of the features noted earlier, plus a space heater and water heater. If you paid $4,000 more, you could get your SL-18 with a bar, plush seats, and a color TV.

Majestic apparently thought that its buyers would be women who are intimidated by large RVs and car enthusiasts who want a van with the look and handling of a sports car.

Amazingly, Majestic did sell some examples in the latter half of the 1970s. I could not begin to figure out how many were built, but there is a Facebook group with people posting pictures of what their Majestic SL-18s looked like back in the day. Sadly, the trail goes cold from here. Despite all of my digging, I could not figure out when this van left production or why.

The Internet is also littered with vans that look similar, but were built by different companies. One was the Laser Club Car, which had completely different windows, was said to be completely hand-built, and was marketed to people who like sports. I found no further information about this van.

I Need To Know More

Sadly, I could not find any drive reviews of the van. But I hope this is where you can help me. If you know anything about this venture, please comment down below or drop me a line at mercedes@theautopian.com. I would love to know more about the minds behind the project. I’m also curious about how many were sold, what they looked like inside, and if they really did handle. Of course, I also wonder what happened to them.

Despite not finding any more information or any examples that were ever listed for sale, I’m still blown away. I love this idea of a van that does everything. It’s a truck, it’s a sports car, it’s a people carrier, and it’s a motorhome! I adore how they made the van low and wide, made it look like a spaceship, and actually sold at least a few. It’s amazing who was involved in this thing, and that they were so dedicated to the concept that they made their own frame. It’s a multi-purpose vehicle in every sense of the word, and I think it’s a great embodiment of the 1970s.

Top graphic image: Sportswagon, Inc.