As I alluded to in my last COAL, on my way back home from Albuquerque I picked up a four-wheeled hitchhiker in Springfield, Missouri. I have no idea if it is still the case but in the late 2000s, Albuquerque was teaming with air-cooled VWs of all flavors and I really enjoyed that. The community farm where I worked borders a busy east-west artery over the Rio Grande and the distinct sound of those air-cooled machines always caused me to look up. Biking around the city, I recall a few caches of old VWs including one with several split-window buses just north of downtown. All of this, plus the friendly people of TheSamba really had me wanting to dive in and join this community.
And now you know the rest of the story…
In hindsight, the timing of all this, plus my lack of wrenching skills really makes me look back on this venture and shake my head but here we are. Oh, to be young and spontaneous, I guess. Our subject bus came from the classifieds section of TheSamba and was recently unearthed from downtown Tulsa, OK. In fact, looking at the address on the title on Streetview clearly showed our green friend here up against an abandoned-looking commercial building. Anyway, the seller brought it home to Missouri before deciding to sell it.
The bus was very rust-free and straight, it was a nice example of the split window “Kombi” bus. The seller also included an early 2000s Mexican 1600 single port engine he had around as he said he was getting out of AC VWs. By the time I took delivery he had removed all the windows in prep for new seals but got no further and had buffed the paint from very flat to very shiny. I was less than enthused about these quarter-assed attempts at “improvements.” And wished he’d have either left it alone (as pictured/as I bought it) or finished what he started.
It’s hard to clearly see but I liked the beltline pinstriping and some of those cool details.
It was fun getting to learn the ins and outs of the air-cooled VW world and it was a welcoming community. I learned that my bus was built on June 20, 1960, in Hanover, Germany. It was delivered to the Chicago, IL port, was originally L345 light grey and had minimal options on the “M-plate”, I think the only option was the 6 popout windows. It was a very basic bus, likely sold to some commercial transit company for moving people or maybe a frugal household?
Of course, its original and very valuable middle seat was missing when I came along. The rear seat was replaced with a “Z bed” out of a bay window Westfalia. Once back in Iowa, I had dreams of working on the bus on weekends and when I could but my last semester of college proved to be more grueling than I factored and there was little to no forward movement on the bus. The rental house I lived at had no garage so with winter coming, I pulled the bus home to my parents’ acreage in NE Iowa as they had ample garage space.
The bus sat at my parents’ place for about three years. In that time, I’d grab little “subassemblies” and try to move forward back in Ames. This included recovering the front bench seat, sourcing all matching “Sigla” branded glass and blasting the popout frames, repainting them and installing seals/assembly. Finally, in 2013 with the pending sale of my truck, I decided to rent space in a garage under an apartment high-rise building and hopefully could move forward on this project quicker.
The bus in my parents’ lower garage. This photo still strongly triggers the smell of horse-hair interior and mouse urine.
Amateur upholstery job using Wolfsburg West’s seat cover kit. We likely overstuffed…
The reality is life still got in the way. My job at that time required working some weekends and other obligations and so forth. I did meet some friendly local airheads and occasionally we would alternate working on other’s projects and learn together. The knowledgeable guy who was heading all this up had a rusty but running 1963 splitty and the less experienced other guy had a 1961? Bug cabriolet that was in nice, restored condition. So that was fun while it lasted but as you can imagine with three adults, overlapping schedules were rare.
Back in Ames, under a large apartment high-rise.
After a while, I think I began looking at the bus as more of a liability than anything I was excited about. I was increasingly bummed it was not original paint and stripping some sections proved that finding whatever may lie underneath was not going to be easy. My lack of any real mechanical skills meant I couldn’t do much myself and spending any time in that dirty, dimly lit concrete garage was not enjoyable. Plus, each month the rent was due for the expensive garage space.
In hindsight, I should have leveraged one of the two local garages that specialize in older and/or European cars to at least get it roadworthy. I had savings but I guess I feared the cost would be astronomical. Also by this time, I had acquired another project car in an even more spontaneous fashion and I was more enthused about that project. I woke up one Saturday morning in late 2013 and determined that was it, I was selling. I listed it on TheSamba and Craigslist and within a day or two had more than enough interest. A guy from TheSamba out in Washington state was quickest on the draw with payment and lining up transport so it sold to him for my ask. I helped load it up on a flatbed semi-trailer one blustery December afternoon and never heard so much as a peep back from the buyer. I wonder what became of it…
There’s this deaf guy who has been working on his Kona bus for a very long time. He documented the process in cinematic quality and showed how much work involving the ground-up restoration and modifications to his Kona bus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coyel_A_QQk
Enjoy!
Very cool to see their dedication! Makes me feel very lazy given mine was rock solid and straight!
I never noticed that many air-cooled VWs in Albuquerque, but I also lived on Central and tried to leave my apartment as little as possible.
As far as impulse buys go, you could do worse. My impulse buy is still sitting out somewhere in the desert by Moriarty. It’s a shame you didn’t ever get to drive it.
“As far as impulse buys go, you could do worse.”
Exactly – at least it was something that lots of other people want. How many guys make an impulse buy of something with a far smaller pool of potential buyers.
Yes, and I did not lose a dime on it. And even at that I probably underpriced it but didn’t feel like it was something I needed to make money on.
I had a history teacher in high school with one of these. It probably gained more value just sitting there in the auto shop parking lot over the years than if he’d restored it and sold it in a timely manner. I’m happy to hear you didn’t lose anything on it. I’m down nearly a grand on my impulse purchase, if only because I continue to register it every two years.
While I’m not much of a VW Bus fan, your story really hits home with me, because I had a similar experience of rather naively buying a non-operational old car, and thinking that I’d eventually get it fixed.
My experience came earlier in life, when I was a teenager. Back then I used to mow people’s lawns in our neighborhood, and one day I noticed a 1966 MGB sitting in an older couple’s garage. Then, I did the one spontaneous thing in my life – I bought it from them for $250. It had belonged to their son, who parked it in their garage about 10 years earlier after “something broke,” and it hadn’t moved since.
I had no mechanical skills or experience, but in my teenage mind, I figured I’d get those skills that I dearly wanted by buying an old car and restoring it. My father knew what was in store for me, but gamily went along. He had all the real-world skills that I lacked, and he made an ingenious rolling platform for the MG to sit on, so it could be stored in the corner of our own garage, and then I could roll it out when I worked on it.
I quickly went to work doing similar stuff to what you started with… disassembling and cleaning things, ordering some new parts from MG catalogs, etc., etc., but I soon ran into a cash flow problem. And then I bought an actual operational car (you know, one that could actually take me places), which of course cost money to buy and keep running… money that came out of my tiny MG fund. Then I went to college, so more years of minimal cash flow. Then I had a few years of low-wage jobs… more minimal cash flow… and the MG just sat there.
Like your Bus, I began looking at my MG as a liability, and silently wanted it to go away. Then one day, when I was in my mid 20s, someone knocked on my parents’ door and said he heard we’d had an old MG in the garage (he was a friend of my mechanic, who knew my MG story) – he offered to buy it for $500. Needless to say, Dad took him up on that offer without even wasting the time of asking me.
Well, lesson learned. I’ve managed to avoid doing any such thing in the 30 years since then. And I enjoyed reading your story here.
Yes, agreed. There was certainly some level of stress associated with something like this. Unfortunately you’ll see in another COAL or two of mine I didn’t quite learn my lesson with this one…
Same story, different car. Mine was a 61 Thunderbird hardtop. It at least ran and would drive, but nothing about it was good enough to ignore. Over about a 5 year stretch I got as far as new brakes and a rebuilt rear suspension, all on my own. Then a client’s kid was looking for a project in his high school auto body/paint class and it got turned into at least a decent 20 footer that was enough to get it sold for about what I had in it.
I bought a 57 ford Custom series two door post on impulse around ’98, in Tulsa, OK as well. haha. I had the mechanical skills, but like the impulse Ford decision, I got married to a cute girl with several kids. Keeping our family going took up all my time and all my money. I eventually sold it for a nice profit to some guys with a body shop. Hopefully they got it back on the road.
Nice! Yeah, being from the land of road salt the Tulsa car was quite dry and solid. Good starting point!
Is this one of those rare mid engine models?
Seriously, don’t feel too bad. Fell victim to the same siren call a few times myself. Results have varied from good to “what was I thinking.” Looking forward to your next installment
Impulse buy, indeed! My brother was/is into AC VW’s, but I had to admit there’s something to be said for an engine that you can test run while on the ground, and swapping one out is easy. Also, they can be hot rodded as well! I wonder what you’ll spring upon us next?!? 🙂
Good story, and sorry you were unable to stick it out with that bus; it’d be worth a small fortune today. I know what it’s like to have that ambition to tackle a big project like this only for reality to get in the way and put a dampener on things.
I wrote about my own purchase of an AC Westy and the work I put in after getting way in over my head. If you missed it, check it out!
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/coal-mini-series-1981-volkswagen-westfalia-pt-1-if-cars-could-talk/
Hi Scott, yes I enjoyed reading your series! I could only help to think I wish I had as much gumption as you did with yours!
At least you didn’t get into a wreck this time around! That could’ve gotten nasty with the driver position and the lack of any bumpers for impact protection. Microbuses must not be that relatively heavy if a 4-cylinder pickup was able to pull one on a tow dolly; the gearing your Hardbody had no doubt helped also.
If you ever feel a need to get another VW van, I would hold out until the production version of the the ID Buzz becomes available within the next few years. Being fully electric means it won’t need an engine with 2 AC motors powering all 4 wheels! Oddly enough, the initial concept’s body color is similar to that of your ’60 Kombi.
Old cars are like that they eat up time whether you drive them or not I sold one Ive had many years it died and the logistics of fixing it were beyond me but I’d bought another which is rarer road legal and runs and drives really well but its 80kms away from where I live in a free garage so it gets driven maybe once a week and doing anything to takes forever, fortunately it needs little in the way of repairs just minor enhancements and for a 66 model has done little mileage 125,000 flicked over bringing up to Auckland from the bay, My English Kombi owning friend wanted it too but he didnt know the car was beimng sold sand since he has now sold his 66 Kombi likely he needs another project car,
I should write it up but cant seem to load pictures anymore but when was the last time anyone else saw a 1966 MK4 Hillman SuperMinx estate in factory paint?
Contact Paul through email to sort your issues, and upload and write it up. I’m not a big fan of the Superminx sedan, but the wagon’s a cool machine, especially as an original, and needs to be displayed here. Now!
Egad! I’m flashing back!
Why, this is the exact colour (of half) the van that blighted my youth, that made everything many tedious 45mph hours distant and that caused immense head-ducking embarassment as teenhood arrived. A white-and-Kermit rusting stinking popsicle, with no chance of anonymous attendance anywhere local ever, and an oblivious mother piloting it with casual abandon as if it was all ok.
Your initial impulse was wrong, wholly so – these are not vehicles for normal people and there’s no evidence that you’re not that – and your impulse to sell was an act of intelligent reason, to be applauded.
I must go and lie down, a wet towel on the forehead, but know you please sir that the thing you did at the end was the right one.