I Bought a Hippy Van!! (Classic VW Kombi)
I have always loved old classic cars, and in particular old VW's. I belong to a Whatsapp group off old VW Air-cooled cars, and one day one of the group members, posted that a local school for the deaf had a few retired cars for-sale out on tender.
Among the cars on tender was this old VW Bus that was used as transport for the school kids!! I did not let any grass grow under my feet and obtained the tender documents and put in a tender for this for this bus. As I only saw the bus on photos that was posted on the whattsapp group, I only put in a low tender of R37 500. (About 2300)
Well the gears of administration turns quite slowly here in South Africa and after more than a month after the closing date of the tender, I received a phone call, informing me that I was the happy owner of a new classic VW Bus!!
This brought about some problems of its own - as I still had to inform my wife!! Luckily she took the news well and to my surprise actually liked the idea!!
The bus actually stood for six years parked and was not in a running condition, my friend and I had to tow it home. This was also easier said than done as the rear brake drums has rusted solid, we had to remove the wheels and brake drums to get the wheels turning again!! The journey home was uneventful and we arrived home to be met by the happy family!!
Luckily for me there was not much wrong with the bus, as it was just a few wiring issues that prevented it from starting. The wiring, I could fix myself, and after changing the oil we were good to go!!
Being a retro bus, we decided to take it on a test drive to a Road House about 30 km away. On the photo below you can see some of the menu, which is displayed on the wall, through the wind screen.
Below you can see my beautiful and happy wife receiving the food on the tray, hooked onto the window!! When last did you go to a road house for a bite to eat???
This bus is a real conversation starter wherever we go - specially the hand painted logo on the sides. Everybody has an opinion, I must keep it on, I must remove it, I must repaint the entire bus - and so it goes on.
I actually received an offer of R65 000, from a person dealing in classic cars, for the bus as is. According to him the hand painted logo is making it more valuable to collectors - as it show something of the history of the car!!
In the meantime, I am just enjoying the bus as is, and drives it as much as possible on weekends!! I just love my purchase, I am having fun with it and it seems to be a great investment
I hope you enjoyed the post as much as I enjoyed writing it.
The photos were taken by me, in Pretoria, South Africa, using my Samsung Phone.