A few years ago I was at a friend's grandfather's farm who has been collecting vehicles in his fields since the early 60s, and took a few photos. I posted a few VW ones on thesamba.com, including one of a mangled VW Microbus. Private messages started pouring in but I was sworn to secrecy on the location. It IS a goldmine of rusty classic cars, but even as a VW lover, I thought this van was just scrap. If that. Turned out it was what's called a "Barndoor"- big engine lid and no rear access into the interior. Rare as rocking horse poop.
One message around Christmas of last year caught my attention- it was polite. It explained why he wanted this van so badly and the rarity of the van. So I gave him an address, but no phone number because I know Bill is picky about dealing with people.
Florian (guy interested in the bus) found Bill, and after months of negotiating, he actually agreed to sell it. The price Florian offered was about 20 times what I thought this bus was worth and the fact that Bill had to think about it is insane... especially considering he's about 200 years old.
So here is the bus, which Florian had to built a wooden frame underneath to pull it out of the vegetation from. As of today it should be in a shipping container and headed to France where he is going to restore it.
The plastic wrap is structural...
I'm pretty excited to see what becomes of this beast, I've seen Florian's work before and it's incredible.
The bus has a cool history, too. It was shown at a VW booth at the 1952 Canadian National Exhibition, before VW of Canada even existed. I was provided with a list of VIN numbers at the show, and sure enough, it's there. Bill bought it in 1953 and was hit head on in '61- the bus has been sitting in the weeds ever since.
Anyone ever see anything this bad get rescued?