Date:         Mon, 27 Feb 1995 11:02:49 -0500
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         michael.heron@utoronto.ca (Michael Heron)
Subject:      another old bus story (long)


just had to share my story with you good folk

about 10 years ago a friend of mine bought a 65' Velvet Green Panel Van
from Idaho and drove it back to Canada. Drove it for a few years and then
blew up the engine! So the bus got parked behind a barn and sat and sat,
waiting for repairs. That barn eventually got swallowed up by urban sprawl
and it came time to move the van. Well as the engine was dead and the
brakes had rusted together, they decided to tow it out of the mud with a
bulldozer!! In the process of towing it the blade of the 'dozer crinkled
the back door and the engine compartment! So now the bus had a vertical
crinkle on its' back end.

Finally the van was moved to another farm where it sat for another 3 or 4
years. I kept bugging my friend to do something with the van (i.e. put it
back on the road). This guy moves at the speed of a glacier so nothing
happened. Every now and again i'd bug him about and ask him if he wanted to
sell. "No" was always his response. Well for the last two years he has been
living in Seattle , WA while his bus settled in for the long rest. But
wait, this is not a sad ending. After years and years of bugging him, last
Friday a small letter arrived in the mail.

Inside the letter was the ownership to the van! Yep he decided to give me
the van (complete with two boxes of engine parts, gaskets etc.) The body is
in very good shape all things considered, but will need lots of mech. work.
The only work to do on the body is to find an engine access lid, and the
rear hatch.

If anybody out there has a nice engine access hatch, i would like to hear
from them.

Moral of the story, Persistence does pay off! Those vans are still out
there, keep looking!



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|michael.heron@utoronto.ca                              |
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|65' Westfalia and 73' Westfalia (with Automatic)       |
|94' Baby Girl (kailash seguin heron)                   |
|
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|"well maybe, just maybe with a lot of work...."        |
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