Introducing the Winners of the 2026 WFB Truck & Van Contest

Road-ready, strong and steady, this year’s WFB Truck & Van Contest winners brought their A game. These wood flooring pros took us for a ride, showing us every detail of their trusty steel steeds, from shipshape Chevys to disorderly Fords. Thanks to our sponsor GameTime (Little Rock, Ark.), the winners will receive a 70-quart rolling Igloo Trailmate Journey cooler, four one-quart samples of GameTime’s residential products and an assortment of GameTime branded merchandise.

Before you read on to find out whose work vehicles won Best Exterior Graphics, Most Organized Interior, Most Unusual, Biggest Disaster and the new Exterior/Organized Combo award, remember: It’s not about the destination—it’s about the floors. Let’s ride!

Think you have a winning van on your hands? Enter the 2027 contest at https://bit.ly/tv27enter.

Best Exterior Graphics

Dustless Floor Sanders | Malden, Mass.

“This is a rolling billboard that gets everyone’s attention without a lot of words or clutter,” is how Eric Nylin, owner and operator of Malden, Mass.-based Dustless Floor Sanders, describes his work vehicle. Winner of Best Exterior Graphics, the wrap on Nylin’s Sprinter 3500 cargo van was the first update he made last year when he decided to take his floor refinishing business to the next level.

As a Boston-area firefighter of over 24 years, Nylin had always split his time between putting out fires and his wood flooring business. Recently, he made the decision to channel all of his firefighting work ethic toward wood flooring. “I worked two days a week at the fire department. I wasn’t always 100 percent full-time on the business, but now I’m really pushing it,” he says.

To make a bigger effort in promoting his wood flooring services, Nylin worked with branding and design specialist Jennifer Stank of Stankin’ Good Design to execute “a complete rebranding of the business,” he says. Initially, Stank wasn’t exactly familiar with what dustless floor sanding was, but once she got it, she really got it. “She nailed this after quite a few tries and not having a clue about the floor sanding industry,” Nylin says. “She went back and forth with me and came up with a whole bunch of different things. Then she came up with that and it was great,” he adds.

In the past, his work vans were never eye-catching, Nylin describing them as “regular work vans” and “boring.” Now, he gets comments all the time on his wrap: “People love it,” he says. The vibrant colors. The easy to read typography. The friendly, vintage look of the cartoon character. The catchy copy—even the license plate communicates Nylin’s “no dust” selling point. Out on jobs and on the road, his work vehicle not only broadcasts Nylin’s “eco-friendly floor installations” and dustless sanding, but also the friendly, professional service customers can expect.

Equally important, the van points people to the Dustless Floor Sanders website. “The van gets people to the website and they learn some stuff, see some pictures and then contact me,” Nylin says. “Advertising like that is working,” he says.

Nylin's van attracts people to his website, where pictures of past wood flooring jobs get them to contact him.

While his website gets the job done for now, it’s the next focus of his company’s rebrand. “I still have a standard website. It’s not too bad, but I want to upgrade it and get it a little more efficient,” Nylin says. “That’s the next thing I gotta redo,” he adds.

Most Unusual Vehicle

PawPaw's Custom Flooring | Knoxville, Tenn.

As the solitary work truck left of the original company fleet, this 1959 Chevy panel truck was always destined for greatness. Even when it was collecting dust in the shed out back, Steve Hall of Knoxville, Tenn.-based PawPaw’s Custom Flooring knew that someday he’d haul it out and restore it to its former glory (or, rather, far beyond it). “We had a fleet of those. We’d sold them all off years ago and kept that one, and I always wanted to fix it up,” Hall says. “Like with everything else I do, one thing turned into another, and all of the sudden it was getting fancier and fancier.”

Hall’s parents first purchased the truck to make deliveries when they started Greater Tennessee Flooring in 1963. “It was a typical family business. I would work in the summers between school or in the evenings. I grew up in it and started doing it as my full time job in 1982,” Hall says. As the years went by, Hall took over his parents’ business (eventually renaming it), and the Chevy put on 129,000 miles before making the shed its home for three decades.

In 2021, Hall finally brought the truck to Mike’s Street Rods in Knoxville, where it would be fully restored and customized with every modern convenience Hall could think of. Air conditioning. Power windows. An LS6 crate engine from GM. A new six-speed automatic transmission. A swanky new sound system and Bluetooth radio made to look vintage. Cream-colored leather seats and lining. And a stunning natural cherry wood floor in the back. “You know it had to be something special since we’re in the flooring business,” Hall says.

With some parts for a 60-plus-year-old vehicle being hard to come by (e.g., door handles, hinges, taillight parts), the truck wasn’t fully restored until the summer of 2025. Complete with a branded wrap made to look hand-painted by Knoxville-based Jim McMichael Signs & Truck Painting, the Chevy was, at long last, ready for the road.

Hall has put 1,600 miles on the truck since it was completed, but not all of those miles have been business-related. “One modification we did that makes it a little less of a workable van to deliver was putting two seats behind the front seats. I’ve got grandchildren and I thought if they ever wanna go for a ride, this way there’s a place for them to sit,” he says.

Hall's restored Chevy panel truck features aluminum and cherry wood flooring in the back, with leather lining the sides.

Hall wanted to add every modern convenience he could think of, including a top-notch sound system with a modern radio that looks vintage.

Originally, 1959 Chevy panel trucks came with just the driver's seat; the passenger's seat could be added on. Hall added two seats in the rear for his grandkids to ride.

The Chevy includes an LS6 crate engine from GM; an engine that might've gone into a Cadillac.

Hall's daughter loading flooring into the truck. The restored Chevy is still used to make deliveries.

Restoring the truck took time, effort and money, Hall says. But it was all worth it in the end.

See more of Hall's panel truck here:

Most Organized

Tadas Wood Flooring Inc. | Naperville, Ill.

“Work smarter, not harder” could be the slogan for Tadas Sadunas’ Naperville, Ill.-based Tadas Wood Flooring Inc. The sentiment reflects not just his wildly efficient sanding process, but also his work vehicle, making Saduna’s van one of the most organized WFB has seen.

A wood floor pro for almost three decades, Sadunas has organized and modernized his system significantly from when he began. “I started with an old-school guy. Everything was really hard work. Now I’m working much easier and I don’t even use that belt sander that is sitting there,” he says. “It’s all about efficiency and not wasting time. I’m on the jobsite from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., sometimes even 2 p.m.,” he adds.

While his Pallmann Spider makes sanding speedy, Sadunas’ stackable Milwaukee toolbox system keeps things running smoothly. “I hate running back and forth to the truck, so I put most of the stuff in Milwaukee boxes with the wheels, and then I stack the other things on top. I just load it once, and it makes it easier to take tools to the jobsite,” he says.

Sadunas uses stackable Milwaukee toolboxes with wheels to quickly load in his equipment once, without having to go back out to the van.

Sadunas’ guys may poke fun at his preparedness, but getting home before rush hour is no laughing matter. Neither is that much-needed lunchtime coffee: “I take the extension cord to my van and make coffee during lunchtime, because running to Starbucks, I’m gonna lose at least half an hour,” he says.

When he’s on the go, Sadunas’ toolboxes stay secure in the shelving unit he built because of small screws he put in each shelf: two in the shelves with Festool boxes, and one in the middle of the shelves with Milwaukee boxes. Instead of wood bumpers, the screws keep the boxes in place while driving. Plus, they allow Sadunas to easily slide the boxes out when he needs them. “I put screws everywhere, just a quarter-inch sticking out, and that holds the boxes in place,” he explains. “It’s simple stuff, but it works perfectly,” he says. Additionally, a bungee cord hooked to the top and bottom of the shelving unit keeps the gray tubs of extra supplies—all neatly labeled with their contents—in place.

While Sadunas doesn't normally use the big machine pictured, he still has plenty of space to bring it with just in case.

When asked about the future of his van, Sadunas plans on adding a generator for his coffee maker and microwave. “I’m trying to improve on it all the time. It’s a work in progress,” he says.

Best Exterior Graphics / Most Organized Interior Combo

Winona FloorCraft | Winona Lake, Ind.

Ben Rankin, owner and operator of Winona Lake, Ind.-based Winona FloorCraft knows it’s not what’s on the outside that counts … it’s what’s on the outside and inside. Winner of the Best Exterior/Interior Combo award, Rankin’s van-trailer rig impresses from all vantage points.

Rankin recently upgraded from a rusted van with 350,000 miles and 12-foot trailer to a 2007 Ford E350 cargo van and a 16-foot 2026 Power Line cargo trailer. “Toward the end of ’25, I decided that I need to have a little better presentation pulling up to the customers’ houses and around town,” he says. So, he moved on from what he describes as a “slam the door and rust falls off type of deal” to his current rig, complete with custom graphics done by Warsaw Tint & Wraps in Warsaw, Ind.

When Rankin upgraded his van and trailer, he decked out the rig in a professionally designed wrap.

Rankin had a carpenter friend help him build shelves for his trailer, creating a place for anything he might need on the job (including a snack crate and microwave). “The trailer is fully built out with two shelving units and a large toolbox on the driver’s side, and big machines and buffers on the passenger side,” he explains. The shelves include wood bumpers to keep crates and boxes from sliding out when he’s driving, while ratchet straps and built-in anchors keep the sanding and buffing machines secure. The large toolbox on the driver’s side is from Harbor Freight and features locking drawers so everything stays put.

Rankin's carpenter friend helped him build his storage system, including a rack along the passenger's side to hold all his buffer pads and hooks for cords.

The back of his van is just as organized: “If we run out of anything in the trailer, we can go and grab it from the van. I have a whiteboard in the trailer, so anything we grab out of the van, we have to write it on the whiteboard to make sure I reorder it,” he says. That includes any snacks he’s running low on: “Gotta have PopTarts on the list,” he says.

All of Rankin's sanding machines are strapped down, secured with built in anchors.

Rankin’s flooring business has come a long way considering he only went full-time two years ago. Before that, he worked for his family’s medical equipment business for 10 years. “I always wanted to have my own business and do things my way,” Rankin says. “I learned a lot from my parents and the way they ran their business. It was just time for me to move on,” he says. When a friend asked him to refinish a wood floor, Rankin found his calling. “I ended up selling my truck and buying a trailer full of flooring equipment,” he says.

Though he’s relatively new to the trade, Rankin’s professionalism and organizational skills make him seem like an old pro, but he says, “I’m just learning as I go.

Rankin goes into detail on his van and trailer organization system here:

Biggest Disaster

Cardona Flooring | Stamford, Conn.

“No showroom shine. No fancy wraps. Just real life in the wood flooring business,” is how Cesar Cardona of Stamford, Conn.-based Cardona Flooring describes his Biggest-Disaster-winning work truck. “From the outside, it looks like a disaster. Inside, it doesn’t look much better,” he admits. The customized vehicle is a 2011 Ford Super Duty in the front, a 2005 Ford Excursion in the back, and stuffed to the brim with flooring equipment in the middle. “You can seat eight people inside, but right now you’re lucky if the driver can get in,” he says.

The Ford Excursion typically fits eight people. Cardona's fits one on a good day.

Cardona purchased the Excursion 10 years ago with 80,000 miles on it and had a friend help him modify the front to look more like his dream truck. “I changed the front to make it look like the Ford from 2011,” he says. “We call it a Transformer.” Now with tape keeping parts together, a cracked windshield and a pile of tools that threatens to squash anyone who dares to open one of its doors, the Transformer boasts a legendary 320,000 miles. “You open it at your own risk, because the second you do, something’s coming out: tools, pads, samples, maybe a random piece of wood from a job we did six months ago,” he warns.

Cardona's truck is a 2011 Ford Super Duty in the front, a 2005 Ford Excursion in the back, and stuffed to the brim with flooring equipment in the middle.

Opening one of Cardona's truck doors puts you at risk of a piece of flooring equipment landing on your foot.

Cardona knows it’s a mess … but it’s his mess. “The Excursion isn’t just a vehicle—it’s a timeline from where we started, to where we are today,” he explains. “This truck has been there for everything: the jobs that went perfectly and the jobs that didn’t. It’s not organized. It’s not pretty. But it’s real,” he says. Despite the sentimental value the truck and its contents hold, Cardona admits that it’s sometimes hard to find what he needs, and oftentimes, his guys opt to go to the store and buy a supply rather than search for it in the truck.

Cardona’s upkeep of his work vehicle is in stark contrast to his detail-oriented floors, such as his intricate mosaic floor that recently won Bona’s Sponsor’s Choice award in the 2026 WFB Design Awards and another floor that won a NWFA Wood Floor of the Year award. Because of his high level of craftsmanship and respect in the industry, Cardona has no problem accepting Biggest Disaster, and says that he’s happy to be featured for the spectrum of awards.

When asked if he plans on ever upgrading the Transformer, Cardona says: “Yeah, one day we’ll probably replace it. But no matter what we drive next, it’s going to be hard to replace 320,000 miles of experience.”

See more of Cardona's Transformer here:

Does your work vehicle stand up to the 2026 winners? Enter the 2027 WFB Truck & Van Contest here: https://bit.ly/tv27enter.