SPRINTER VAN

Tatsuya and Sprinter Story

I was a drummer and percussionist living in NYC, then Easton PA. I loved my small car. I had a Honda Element which ran amazing and was great for hauling instruments. I was very happy about it. One tour, I replaced all of the tires, put roof rack on for additional storage area for my tiny Element, and I was so proud about it. Cross country trip to West coast and then multiple times up and down, a lot of driving mileage after coming back home to PA. I looked at the tires, it looked completely like new when I left home three month ago. It was so strange and I craw under the Element to check tire. I saw a very strange thing. Basically the car was too heavy and sunk down, strut was looked like ‘八 ‘ by Japanese character 8. Outside edge of the tires were not really touching but worn a lot inside. I needed to replace the tires again. But at the same time, I started to think about getting a professional vehicle. It would allow me to start new project, the Nakatani Gong Orchestra. All aspects of traveling on the road would be improved; ability to sleep, cook, carry more merchandise, go nature camping during tour, decent gas consumption. I found one solution was T1N Sprinter with a 5 cylinder diesel engine made by Mercedes, imported by Dodge and Freight Liner. There is thousand of kind of car available for purchase but I decided I needed only this one with this specific model.

I found my Sprinter through an ad on Craigslist. I contacted them and there was more than a dozen people interested already. The van was owned by young Chinese family, young papa ran his own construction company. He was in love with this Sprinter, but unfortunately he passed away by a sudden heart attack. So the van was just parked in front of their house for a long time. Van odometer was only 38000 miles, it was not clean but a pretty new van. I told his wife that I am going to put all of my musical instruments, travel all over the USA… she didn’t speak English but her friend PhD scientist translated, and she seemed to like the idea that I can buy this van and deliver happiness and love. I purchased, gave her CD and email note some times after too. Since then I converted everything by myself. All routine maintenance and repair I have done by myself. It’s been a very important part of my life since then. I research all over the internet, watch YouTube clips, and asked many stupid questions at Forum site (some were very mean answer, I was not happy…) . Now I have had my van for 10 years and driven over 300K miles. The Sprinter is still in great shape, runs amazing and probably I can drive it forever.

At the time when I purchased the van, the Nakatani Gong Orchestra was very deep thought. I had very strong vision of living as a specific way of changing myself as “live and work” artist and I am doing it.

I would like to share information and tips if you are interested. Van is just Van but there is whole a lot of story inside, carrying dreams and love. I know some of you experienced it already. Everything has transported by my Sprinter van.