Vans

A 42-year-old man burned to death in the back of his van in a residential neighborhood late Tuesday, apparently while he was freebasing drugs, sheriff's officials said. A resident in the 19100 block of Country Hollow called police at 10:30 p.m. Tuesday to report that a van parked on the street was ablaze. When fire officials arrived, they found the body of Andrew McDonald Tancredi in the back of the van.

Anaheim is getting a new tool to wipe out graffiti: a van equipped to paint over marks made on any surface, matching any color. The van will be bought with $85,000 in state funds presented to Anaheim Beautiful on Wednesday by Assemblyman Jim Morrissey, whose district includes a portion of the city. Anaheim Beautiful will donate the van to the city for its graffiti-removal program, President Esther Wallace said. The van will be custom ordered and is expected to be on the streets by January.

Ford executive Joseph Gilmore felt strongly that there should be an arrow on the instrument panel of Ford and Nissan's new jointly developed minivan to help the driver remember which side of the vehicle the gas tank was on. His Nissan counterparts felt otherwise. Nissan won. Nissan executive Duane Miller thought it preferable to have a knob on the van's sound system that would both turn the power on and off and control the volume.

Thirty-nine new vans intended for severely disabled Californians have sat idle in a Sacramento warehouse--some for more than two years--even though the state has a backlog of applicants for them, a prominent Democratic legislator said Thursday.

A recent string of deadly wrecks has raised alarm about the rollover risks of 15-passenger vans, which become more unstable when used for the very reason they are purchased: to carry large numbers of people. Four people were killed and eight others injured on a church outing last month when their 15-passenger van flipped over near Wichita Falls, Texas. The same week, two members of a college fraternity were killed and 12 others injured in a van rollover in Arkansas.

Backed by the Highway Patrol and police, the state Public Utilities Commission on Wednesday conducted surprise safety inspections of 45 shuttle vans at Los Angeles International Airport, ordering 26 off the road for safety or paperwork violations. One van was so dangerous that authorities refused to let its operator drive it out of the shuttle-van holding lot near the intersection of Sepulveda Boulevard and 96th Street. It was towed back to its garage instead.

Lacking health insurance, Cristobal Acosta's parents hoped home care would heal his earache, sore throat and upset stomach. Once the symptoms had lingered for days, making it hard for the 3-year-old to eat and sleep, his worried father carried him to a clinic they'd heard about. Inside the 38-foot van of Children's Hospital of Orange County, Dr. Mark Colon gingerly touched the boy's belly, probing for clues.

Federal officials Thursday ordered that manufacturers of minivans, light trucks and other multipurpose passenger vehicles begin phasing in front-seat air bags or automatic safety belts starting in 1994--a regulation already in force for automobiles. Extending the "passive restraint" safety requirement to the increasingly popular classes of vehicles could save as many as 2,000 lives a year, according to Jerry Ralph Curry, administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

In an effort to avoid dashing the hopes of would-be visitors who arrive at the Getty Center via a tour operator's van only to be told that the museum is full, Getty administrators today will begin requiring that shuttle vans have special permits to drop off passengers.

Brand shout-outs in hip-hop songs are nothing new -- but most focus on luxury names. Kanye West tells of a cutie with a "baby Louis Vuitton under her arm" in "Gold Digger," Missy Elliott raps about a Cadillac Escalade in "Lick Shots" and anyone who has heard Busta Rhymes' "Pass the Courvoisier" knows his Cognac of choice. Few songs, though, make a product or company their main focus. There was Run-DMC's "My Adidas" in 1986.