Battered, Beige, And Brilliant!

“We know that our bus left the Volkswagen factory on 17th October 1969 bound for San Francisco”

- Dave Richards

“Unfortunately that is absolutely all we know about its first 45 years of existence other than it was discovered in California, 2014 in a pretty sorry state. From there it was shipped over to the UK” Daniel Edson & Robyn Haywood had spent the last 10 years dreaming of owning their own bus, and were finally in the market for one. Dan spotted an advert on the ‘early bay forum’ where the seller; Leon Taylor mentioned that he was importing two vehicles, bit of which would soon be for sale.

“Because Savanna Beige was our colour of choice and the other bus was blue, we messaged Leon almost immediately and asked him about the beige. We only had a short journey to visit the bus for the first time in April 2015 where we instantly fell in love with it, even though, to be honest, it did look a little the worse for wear. In no particular order, we found missing trim, a black tar headlining - we’d not seen that before! A filthy interior with ripped cab seats, no rear seats, perished window seals and door rubbers, no engine... And of course it was covered in dents and scratches

“In spite of everything, we could see its potential and the fact that the bus was solid. We called the damage ‘patina’ and thoroughly believed that it added to the bus’ character. It just shows that it had a tough life.

As we’d been looking for a bus we wouldn’t be scared to use, she was perfect.