Date:         Mon, 27 Feb 1995 15:39:54 -0800
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         bmoran@auspex.com (Brendan Moran)
Subject:      Re: 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!
>
>
>
>________________________________________________________
>|michael.heron@utoronto.ca                              |
>|                                                       |
>|65' Westfalia and 73' Westfalia (with Automatic)       |
>|94' Baby Girl (kailash seguin heron)                   |
>|
>|
>|"well maybe, just maybe with a lot of work...."        |
>|
>|
>________________________________________________________
>

Michael,
I can appreciate your story.  A couple years ago my friend out in Montana
found a rare 1958 Binz/Carrisse crew cab with factory Safari windows and a
lot of neat factory accessories on it.  He had been trying to sell it for
sometime but had no real takers.  I told him if he didn't sell it by the
following summer I'd come out from Calif. and tow the bus home.  Well, the
following summer came around and my friend just happenend to be engaged and
needed some quick money for his wedding.  He told me he'd give me the bus
and a bunch of other pre '68 goodies for 900 bucks.  What a deal, since the
bus was in restorable shape and very rare!  I went out to Montana, picked up
the bus and towed it home.  Since then, I've taken out the safaris and
installed them in my '66 21 window (even used orginal safaris can be as much
as $500)installed a motor and drove it for a while.  Now I've got something
that everyone else wants, in fact, I got this guy coming down from Oregon
next month, I'm going to trade the Binz for an early semiphore bug.  What a
deal!