Date:         31 Oct 94 24:59
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         L.S.Griffiths@physics.salford.ac.uk
Subject:      Barn finds

     Hi all,
     
     Just gotta tell you about my Barn find this weekend. It's my first
     Barn find so I'm all excited about it.
     
        Sunday Morning and I went to the Gas station to fill up my '64 
     Samba and there is this young lad driving a yellow Beetle how can't 
     take his eyes off my bus. As I am filling the gas tank, up he comes 
     over and tells me how cool the bus is. I had the sunroof back and the 
     popouts open - so it looked good. We got taking about split buses in
     general and he says "I've heard that there's this Bus in a farmyard 
     not far from here". I said "wow". With that I sped off to my mates 
     house (Danny with the '67) and we checked out the local map for 
     possible farm sites. There were about six farms in the village where 
     the bus was supposed to be. We drove down to the village and started 
     with the first farm which we couldn't even find. We moved on to a dirt
     track which was supposed to contain more farms, we passed some houses 
     and then moved into open ground. 
     
        A little house was visible in the distance. As we passed it I 
     looked back and there it was - a split in the back yard next to an old 
     barn. We parked up and I got out and knocked on the door. There was no 
     answer. A few minutes later a little old lady came from behind the 
     house - I knew instantly that she had last her marbles coz she was 
     coming out with some weird statements. She said if you want if it'll 
     cost you 100 pounds (she sounded like a witch!). 
     
        I proceeded to have a look around the bus which turned out to be a 
     '65 Devonette camper conversion. Most of the interior bits were 
     missing but she said something about another camper so I assumed that 
     the bits had been installed into a later camper somewhere. The bus had 
     the kind of rust you would expect in the UK, ie no body left, but it 
     had parts like steering wheel, dash clocks, wheels, suspension. engine 
     doors etc. 
     
        With that I left and drove back down the dirt track towards the 
     little group of houses we had passed earlier. A guy came out of one of 
     the houses and stopped us. He said "did you get it then?" ie he knew 
     where we had just been. I said no but we might go back for it. He 
     began to tell us about some things. He told us that he moved in about 
     six years ago and the bus was working then and that the lady was the 
     original owner since new! He also told us that there was an oval 
     window beetle in another field further on down the dirt track - but we 
     didn't investigate that any further.
     
     
        So will we get the bus? Maybe - watch this space.
     
     
     Lee.
     L.S.Griffiths@Physics.Salford.ac.uk