Vansploitation is a term and film genre used to describe American independent films from the 1970s, in which a van or vans are the main key element to the plot, and feature comedic stories about young adults.
Central to the theme was a young man who gets the notion to forget about college and buy an expensive Dodge van.The genre follows two earlier ones that also dealt with car-related topics popular in youth culture at their respective times: In the 1950s, films featuring Hot Rods became very popular, and they were followed by motorcycle films in the 1960s (for example, The Wild Angels and Easy Rider).
As the popularity of vans in youth culture increased in the early 1970s, the first vansploitation films were created.
[4] Multiple factors are credited with creating the "customized van craze".
Coffman names six films as "essential texts" for the vansploitation genre:[4]