Decommissioned government vehicles, you might picture cop cars you’d never want under a black light, aged-out nondescript sedans driven by managers from meeting to meeting, and maybe the occasional Humvee. However, every so often, you stumble upon gold. A former federal surveillance van is up for sale in Chicago, it may have been used by NASA, and you can actually buy it. Just don’t do anything illegal with it.
From the outside, this 2006 Ford E-250 looks like your typical mid-aughts conversion van, minus gaudy graphics. Sure, you do get a champagne pinstripe as a flourish of style over this van’s silver-blue paint, but that’s about it. Perfect for blending in with residential neighborhoods at the time, although a bit of an outlier in urban and commercial environments. Maybe that’s part of the reason why this van’s only covered 1,863.3 miles since it was new in 2006, although idle hours could be a completely different story.
Unsurprisingly, power comes from Ford’s 5.4-liter two-valve Modular V8, an excellent engine for largely just sitting around, given the challenges involved with spark plug replacement. Hitched to a four-speed automatic transmission, it’ll move a van from one location to another location, but not with much spirit or vigor. That’s okay, though. It just gives you more time to admire the questionable woodgrain dashboard face that’s oh so period-correct.
A plaque in the cabin claims this van was upfitted by Innovative Surveillance Technology out of Coral Springs, Fla. for NASA. Yes, the space guys. According to NASA’s website, its protective services “safeguard our facility, properties, personnel, visitors, and operations from harm,” so there’s a chance this van was used for either monitoring of NASA property or protection of NASA assets. That’s a little bit cooler than most mid-aughts paranoia-driven uses for surveillance.
So how was this van turned into a mobile spying center? Well, let’s start with how it has more LCD monitors than a Counterstrike LAN party. They can be used to monitor any of six different video inputs including a videoscope camera. A videoscope and a borescope are very similar as they’re both cameras on the ends of optical fibers, so the same tech you’d use to inspect cylinder walls is also useful for surveillance. Kind of cool, right? Multiple Sony DVD-based video recorders store footage captured by cameras, audio recorders by high-end equipment brand Marantz capture sounds, and time and date generators sync gathered media up for accurate analysis. Circling back around to audio, this van features seven different audio inputs including a body wire channel.
It’s easy to wonder how on earth a fully-equipped federal surveillance van makes it out of government hands, but this isn’t the only one ever sold on the internet. Mashable reported that back in 2017, a North Carolinian seller listed an actual FBI surveillance van for sale on eBay. The 1989 Dodge Ram Van 350 was reportedly purchased from a government auction, and even included a toilet because stakeouts are often long and boring.
If you have $26,795 burning a hole in your pocket and want a genuine surveillance van, your options are probably slim. I doubt you could build one this nice for that sort of money, and finding another would be like hunting for hens’ teeth. Whenever 2000s car nostalgia kicks into a high enough gear for a series of shows, this van perfectly captures the zeitgeist of the decade of terror.
Hat-tip to Andrew!
(Photo credits: Chicago Motors)
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