The Endangered Sampan

There was a time when one of the treats that tourists looked forward to when visiting Hawaii was a ride in a sampan. Not any more. For starters, these jaunty, colorful people-movers were never very plentiful, and they apparently never strayed from the environs of Hilo, located on the Big Island of Hawaii.

While popular with tourists, sampans were gradually replaced by more modern and comfortable modes of public transportation, such as vans and buses. Today, only about a dozen sampans are known to survive, and many have been disbursed to other places. Three are known to be in Southern California.

Building the sampan

The sampan was born in the blacksmith shops of Hilo to meet the city’s need for mass transportation. Turning a Ford Model T or Model A sedan or coupe into a bus that could carry 10 or more passengers entailed removing the body aft the cowl and building a longer, open body with bench seats along the sides.

“Sampan” was the name previously given to small, flat-bottomed boats that provide personal transportation in the harbors and along the coasts of Southeast Asia. Since Japanese and Filipino residents of Hilo were the first to use similar construction techniques to convert motor vehicles to ferry passengers around the city, they also adopted the sampan name.

A brochure promoting sampan rides said that, on days when a ship arrived, “there was a big demand for hired cars. It was such a sight to see all the drivers dressed in white shirts to greet the ship.” Besides carrying tourists, sampans offered personalized door-to-door service to city residents.

After starting with Ford Ts and As, Hilo blacksmith shops that built sampan vehicles later turned to other makes and models. Plymouths, Dodges and De Sotos became favorites, because of their sturdy chassis and drivetrain, and their reasonable prices as used cars. Some Chevrolets and others — even one 1953 Buick — were also converted into sampans.

Restoring a sampan body

Ken Yoshimura, who owns Ken’s Auto Fender body shop in Hilo, backed into the sampan experience about 10 years ago when he bought the body of an old sampan that had once been mounted on a Dodge chassis and restored it.

“The frame is hardwood, and it was in pretty good shape,” he said of the body. The wood ribs are spaced two feet apart and rounded to the sampan’s typical “bathtub” shape. The side and rear panels are formed from 10-gauge galvanized tin and attached to the frame.

The canopy that shades passengers is built like those of early station wagons on which longitudinal slats attach to horizontal ribs with padding added, all of which is then covered with grained vinyl. The roof mounts on four hardwood pillars, and vinyl and Plexiglas side curtains are provided “in case there’s a change in the weather” (remember “Surrey with the Fringe on Top?”).

Yoshimura saved the original structure and springs of the bench-style seats and reupholstered them with foam padding and tan vinyl. The original tubular hand rails were reattached.

The life-long bodyman found a 1948 Dodge, complete with six-cylinder engine and Fluid Drive, and restored the sheet metal and trim. He removed the doors and trunk lid, cut the roof at the A-pillar and removed the rest of the body. “Then the sampan body just slid into place and we bolted it down,” he said.

The vehicle was finished in a two-tone with tan and brown paint. Original taillamps mount to the panel below the body, and Dodge bumpers, grille and trim complete the package.

Yoshimura occasionally drives his sampan and takes it to shows.

“I had 12 people riding in it for one parade,” he remarked, “Many people who see it tell me they had ridden in one” back when they were plying the streets of Hilo.

Sampans that left the island

Charles Furman, owner of a 1950 De Soto Sampan that he has restored, related that the vehicles ran on the Big Island of Hawaii until 1976, when transportation service had transitioned to air-conditioned vans. In 1994, Furman said, “the Hilo Sampan Bus Company tried to make a comeback with five restored sampans carrying tourists and locals around Hilo.”

Hilo Sampans provided that experience until 1999, when its five sampans were purchased at auction by the National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG) and were put into service transporting small groups of visitors into the south shore gardens on Kauai, and to promote the attraction in the annual local parade.

California resident Gordon Cline, who was influential in establishing the Hilo sampan connection with the mainland, saw the sampans when he visited the botanical gardens. A few months later, when the NTBG offered the vehicles for sale, he bought a 1941 Dodge and, a year later, a 1951 De Soto. He shipped them to California and later sold the Dodge to two fellow National Woodie Club members.

Cline restored the 1951 De Soto sampan and sold it some years later. Unlike Furman’s 1950 De Soto, which began life as a U.S. production sedan, Cline’s sampan was built from a 1951 Plymouth body with a De Soto grille and trim that was manufactured in Canada and exported to Hawaii before the islands became a state.

The sampan Cline sold to Mick Carolan and Jim Cocores also originated as a 1941 Plymouth export model titled as a Dodge when it arrived on the Hawaiian shore. Sometime later, it was converted to a sampan and eventually wound up in the NTBG fleet. Cocores and Carolan have restored it and attend shows and parades with it in Southern California.  

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