1958 walkthru standard

 I had known of this bus sitting in the woods for about 10 yrs,i had bugged the fella who knew of it about once a yr.   Well we finally came to an agreement and i was finally able to go unearth the poor devil. 

  This is the summarized version of the journey. 

This bus has been sold and was to be restored here at our shop,the buyer opted to send it to a shop he felt could handle it faster,its a huge project that I truly hope will be saved someday.

   So heres what i arrived at,scary huh?  I should mention that my 56 truck

was the only vehicle used on this "expedition" the drive just to get where this

 poor thing was is an unbelievable little steep ungroomed hill/trail? Needless

 to say there isnt a towtruck made that could've fit thru some of the spots.

  Isnt that a pretty pic? I might be crazy but i love a good "from the woods"

 unearthing.  This was on a 100 acre farm somewhere in oregon,trails

 everywhere,the dog and i tried to walk to the edges but we were too tired.

    Fun...

     Ok so about 3 hrs later i had managed to dig....yes dig all 4 wheels

 out,pull and free the drums,and replace all 4 wheels/tires with good spares.

Then it was just a matter of snatchblocks and comealongs,hooked it up to

the ole mule and be scared to my wits end coming down the super steep hill.

  Unfortunately i was too tired and half scared the 2 buses would roll down

the hill to get a pic from all the way down at the bottom.  Im kicking myself

about it now,but it was just too scary at the time.

   Found this poor thing out there too,1965 deluxe,the tinworms hadnt left

 enough for the transaxle or front axle to hang on to.

    Ahhh....This is the end of the mile or 2 jaunt it is from up top,i remember

 just being so happy nothing bad happened.

    Isnt this a fun pic? This about 15-20 miles from where the rescue went

 down.  I hit up a few antique shops on the way home too,it was pretty

epic,everytime i stopped there would be a small crowd upon my return. I

think most folks thought i was crazy and they probably arent too far off with

 that judgement.

    After its first carwash in many many yrs,it doesnt look so bad to me

anymore.  Now when i rolled in the carwash with this thing i half expected

the police to be coming any minute,but the kids who ran the wash were just

in awe of the whole ordeal,they didnt care at all!

The next day the dog and I made a reconnaissance misson back to the farm (250 mile round trip) to pick up some stuff we werent able to get with the bus extraction.

   1956 "wolfsburg" kombi

I got tipped off to this bus from a buddy of mine,its a bus built when vw was transitioning to the new hannover plant. There were a bunch of neat leftover and "wolfburg" only features to buses built in this timeframe. This bus was in a junkyard and was the doghouse to several "junkyard dogs".

    To get the bus out we needed to move at least 6-10 cars just to get to where we could attempt to get a rear axle installed (there was none) and make 4 wheels turn. The old man running the yard couldnt understand why we couldnt just cut off what we needed and leave the rest behind.

  Sorry for the bad pic,time was a killer here,we only had an aftoon to pull off getting it out.

Just some of the madness we were up against,you can barely make out the roof to the bus from this pic way in the back. This is the only way out of the yard.

So we started moving cars and junk

This very unflattering pic is of yours truly while being pushed by a forklift at full speed! The truck im "driving" has 4 foot tall flat tires and the old man is yelling "dont hit anything".......insanity

 Well we got the bus out that afternoon but I had mistakenly brought the wrong towball. I came back the next morning and towed it 35 miles back home.

This was just a great day,very neat drive and great weather.

Back at the shop,I took it to the carwash and the resprayed paint just blew right off,it revealed original paint and some logos that I havent been able to read yet. The bus has pretty typical rust sprinkled with some typical hacks. I plan on doing something with it in the next few yrs.

August 1958 nonsunroof deluxe

Here is a very rare beast,its a august built 1958 nonsunroof deluxe or "15 window". What makes it so rare?  Nonsunroof deluxe buses built before 1959 are very uncommon by themselves but in august the color change for the new 1959 models was incorporated. Deluxe buses thru the 58 model yr were painted sealing wax red/chestnut brown,these august buses were the new 1959 sealing wax red/beige grey now with silver white bumpers instead of sealing wax red.

  This bus was built in this timeframe that had old bodystyle but the new colorscheme. This bus was built with the old "pressed bumpers" and high placement of the tailights. There are only 2 of these august "pressed bumper" 58 nonsunroof deluxes known to exist,this one and another on the east coast. There are also a small amount of august 58 standard buses that have been found that keep the old bodystyle/bumpers but have the 1959 mango green/seagull grey colorscheme.

  Unfortunately this one is in very bad shape,its been in a junkyard in north dakota since the late 60s. I purchased this bus from the pictures below of it in the junkyard.  

The biggest challenge was getting it safely on and off a trailer,the frame has literally rusted away the roof is whats holding it together......insanity

The guys in the yard did a great job,there was a little damage to a corner,but it probably couldnt have been helped.

My parents were tricked into trailering the rust from north dakota to oregon,they live in minnesota but it was well out of the way. They made the trip without drama but i dont think i would ask them to do something like that again. They are the best parents a guy could have I love you guys.