Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude! We’ve had so many CCs on old air-cooled Transporters, gnarly as they are, it would require something pretty, like, out there to justify one more. And not to bogart my own joint, but I think this one, like, totally does that, man.
I’m not, like, totally sure this is a ’75? But it’s at least a ’73, and those were built until ’79, so I, like, picked a year, you know?
So like, someone took this VW van and made it into a shrine to, like, Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, but like really intricate and artful and colourful and wooooaaah I just noticed they even painted the wheels, dude! That’s some Deadication to the craft, man. Mind officially blown.
This bitchin’ bus is, like, legendary. It’s even Internet famous. If you image-search “VW Transporter Grateful Dead,” this guy shows up pretty high up in the results. It’s been going around Tokyo for, like, even longer than a Grateful Dead live performance. They paint a different year on top of the left headlight probably, uh, every year. But otherwise, it’s the same it’s always been, kinda.
The paintwork does look brighter in Daniel Stern’s 2018 pictures – that’s the price you pay for not getting any younger, man. But the body of this Transporter is like a temple, or the Sistine Chapel or something like, really really cool like that. You can’t repaint it or you’d lose the stickers, and they’re, like, sooooooooo awesome. It just wouldn’t be groovy without them.
Gotta say though, it’s a good thing the pigs here don’t read English so good, ‘cause weed’s, like, really super illegal here? This bus is narking on itself, but the Man can’t even figure it out. Full respect.
Dig that cabin. They didn’t stop at decorating the body, they went, like, full acid trip on the whole thing. Pretty sure you have to fire up a minimum of two bowls to drive this the way it was intended. And make sure you got some tunes to go with it, though the flat-4 will be drumming away in the back pretty loud.
“Oshino Dead” is the biggest Deadhead music festival in Japan. It lasts three days and they do it at the foot of Mount Fuji. So, like, this is probably the organizers’ ride. It doesn’t look like the festival has been taking place after 2019, which is a total bummer.
With all that Corona thing sorta being in the rearview mirror now, hopefully that festival will be revived.
The bus certainly looks ready and, like, up for anything. It would be so cool to ride it to Fuji and chill out for three days with Japanese hippies. What a long, strange trip that would be…
Related posts:
CC Twofer/QOTD: 1965 & 1977 Volkswagen Type 2 Transporter – The T1/T2 Kombilemma, by T87
Curbside Classic: 1960 VW Bus – On The Bus, by PN
Curbside Classic: 1965 VW Deluxe Micro Bus “Samba” – Tinnibus, by PN
Craigslist Classic: 1972 VW Westfalia Camper – “Annie Is For Sale”, by PN
Curbside Classic: 1978 Volkswagen Westfalia Campmobile – Vanifest Destiny In Plaid, by Jon Stephenson
The End Of The Road For The Last Classic VW Bus: Brazilian VW Kombi Production Wraps Up, by PN
CC Outtake: VW Type 2 and Rabbit Pickups — Zwei Kleine Lastkraftwagen, by GGH06
VW Bus: The 12 Passenger Version, by PN
In-Motion Classic: VW T2 Truck – Still Being Worked!, by Yohai71
Curbside Capsule: 1962 VW Type II Single Cab – Not Your Typical Daily Driver, by Ed Stembridge
Vintage Magazine Article and Brochure: 1955 VW Westfalia Camper – The Beginning of an Icon, by PN
Cars Of A Lifetime: 1977 VW Type 2 Westfalia – Concrete In The Console, by Heath McClure
That poor bus….
Amen and Halelujah to that!
I just found this on Facebook Marketplace (for sale in Farmingdale NJ):
Having spent some time in a Typ II’s driver’s seat sans upholstery like this one I can tell you this isn’t a daily driver .
-Nate
I had a ’71 the last year of the “rounded” rear engine vents. 1972 had a bigger engine and “squared off ” engine vents which the one you feature has. 1979 was the last year before everything changed.
It seemed hippies and Deadheads loved the first generation bus with the split front window and standee windows out back. They were alright with the 2nd gen bus shown here, but all but ignored subsqent generations. So the big question is, will the I.D. Buzz bring the heads back together again? We shall see. One thing may help: remember when every grocery store, bowling alley, bar, pharmacy, etc had a cigarette dispenser machine you couldn’t miss upon leaving the store? Those are long gone, but what do I now see at the local mall? it’s a Chow420 vending machine that dispenses THC and CBD products, after verifying age. The times, they are a changing.
I only once saw the Grateful Dead, around 1989, and most concertgoers didn’t have a VW bus including me. Try as I did, I just couldn’t get into most of the music; but occasionally they’d get into a trance and the music would be mesmerizing.
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The side windows seem to be cut in. I’d guess this started life as a panel bus before being morphed into this hippie bus
That’s what was determined when this bus was last on CC last month 🙂
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/in-motion-classic/in-motion-classic-hippie-bus-as-interpreted-from-afar/
Still, it’s fun to see the interior and more of the details on this thing. Personally, I feel that whoever did up this bus went quite a bit overboard to the point of parody…but having seen some other “tribute” vehicles from the non-US part of the world, this seems in keeping with that.
Should have referenced that post. Fixed now — cheers for that!
W 😮 😲 T 😯 F 😳 ? 🤔
PRNDL approves! Although not into the hippie lifestyle, I always respect well done tribute and art vehicles. It’s been a while since one of this quality has graced these pages.
Love this bus! Seems to be quite famous in Japan.
I was at the Run To the Sun VW show in Newquay, UK a couple of weekends ago. Most enjoyable, relaxed, friendly car show I have ever attended – no “numbers matching”BS there!
Great cars – not only VWs, but Hot Rods and US cars as well – great music, from R&B to rave, lovely, relaxed people and a slight smell of weed in the air!
This show has been resurrected after a 10 year pause and I will definitely be attending the next one. There is a very touching story behind it covered in an episode of Car SOS I watched on a flight between the US and UK that alerted me to the revival of RTTS, which my then girlfriend, now wife had attended in the ’90s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fMncF5cujU
It was my pleasure to meet two of the people in the show – Lee, a personable and talented guy, who introduced me to Keith Seume, a renowned VW and Porsche journalist who happens to know some of my ex-colleagues.
The RTTS Beetle is finished to a standard you have to see to believe – not a “just for TV” creation- and a credit to all involved. They also genuinely cared for the effect that their efforts would have on Andreas and his family – as you can see the revival of this Wizzard VW became a mission.
To me this shows how our hobby can help to bring something positive out of a bad situation – Andreas was beaming with pleasure during the show…..
For a minute I thought you must have been visiting my hometown in California, T87. It’s easy to stereotype these things, but T2’s and air-cooled VW’s in general seem to be the oldest common daily drivers here, even a bit more than ‘60’s-70’s Ford and Chevy pickups.
Hey, neat; more and closer pics of that same bus!
Great stickers. Bobby fans are people too!
Could be fun to hang with the Japanese hippies for a few days
That is far out, man. Really!
Thats the last effort model VW van when they finally made something that could keep up with traffic 1.7,1.8 or 2.0 pancake engine were a massive improvement over the old upright versions, Disc brakes up front meant they stopped like a real van, my favourite version of the Kombi breed.
Is anyone besides me surprised by the forward slant of the rear edge of the sliding-door window ?
Like, man, I’m so confused . . . Was this a North American vehicle decorated before exporting to Japan where it was converted to RHD, or is it a RHD vehicle sold new in Japan, and decorated later, in honor of the Dead?
The latter, I’m pretty sure.
The only item it is missing is a psychedelic lawnmower strapped to the top rack. It surely needs one due to how much grass this goes through every year. Better yet, install a hitch so it can tow a hay/grass baler behind it.
Doobious assumptions? I think not.
The devil’s lettuce is very, very illegal here. They don’t kid around with that stuff in this country. But stickers are fine, I suppose…
You missed one: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-european/my-ex-curbside-classic-1971-vw-bus-the-mayfield-belle/
My first contribution to CC, from late 2011.