Please help me find the current owner of our old 1958 VW Bus

[Ultramoron]

THEN


NOW


AMAZIMG!!!! Looking at the wear on the bumper paint, that is definitely the same bus...JUST WOW

So glad the bus escaped its fender bender and the 90's with out being repainted.

[DanM]

behold. the power of the internets.

[EverettB]

Wow, that was a fast identification!
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[raffi]

Awesome!!!!

This is just fantastic!! I will send an email to the owner and let him know. Thanks to everyone who helped out here. I will be sharing some of the stories with the new owner. I hope he kept the interior parts the same but if he didn't I understand...it is HIS bus now. So cool.

[silvertonguedevil]

WOW! That's crazy!!
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-Greg

1965 Patina Bug

[raffi]

Thanks again to everyone who helped out here. I sent an email to the current owner and hope he is as eager to hear my stories and have the original docs as I am to share them.

Power of the internet indeed!! But it's really the power of people who care, take the time to help. I guess it's the same thing that makes us restore or rescue old cars - a passion to make something right.

This was a personal search as well for a few other reasons. My dad loved the "battle scars" on his bus. He used to tell me each one was a story and when you paint over it, it hides an interesting past. Dad loved the past with his bus and loved that it could take him to the future with the twist of his key.

I think that's what motivated him to leave Boston and head out to homestead Alaska. I'm glad to see the rusty bumper and the stories in the paint remain as part of this bus.

Thanks again to all who assisted here in a very short time. I will add more info on this string as I correspond with Eddy in the Netherlands.

[campingbox]

[EverettB]

[eddybouwens]

i have owned this car for 10 years, but have sold it in 2008. I will try to find the current owner this week. Kieft an Klok has sold it for me, i think they can help us. greetings eddy

[campingbox]

I believe Gabriel Sanchez from Southern California said he bought this bus at a Pomona Swap Meet and sold it to a European dealer (Guido) back in the '90'ies. It's possible he might have sold it at a Pomona Swap Meet instead, the details are fuzzy and I have not talked to Gabriel in over a decade.

[147fridolin]

That is correct.
Gabriel bought this bus at Pomona
For a while he had it sitting in Ontario Ca.
He wanted me to sell it here in the Netherlands.
That wasn't easy, nobody was buying buses overhere.
They just wanted bug verts and karmann ghia's.
Eddy did see the bus at my place and bought it
That you didn't see or talked to Gabriel for a while I understand.
This is because he;s doing 15years jail without chance for parol
Nice thing is that I drove it when I was overthere.
It was me that took the selfmade interior out off the bus.
I loved that bus

[raffi]

So Gabriel is in jail? Not the first time someone went to jail associated with this bus. It was stolen from our home in 1978 and Dad recovered it in a dramatic battle with the thief and dad entangled and the police with guns drawn trying to determine who was owner and who was thief. When dad saw the guns drawn he retreated back yelling out the VIN "three-zero-zero-zero-eight-three" - the police cuffed the criminal and off he went.

So the interior dad made is gone? That was to be expected. I know the value of originally presented cars so it is forgivable.

Eddy returned my email and we are on the search to find the current owner which he believes is indeed still in the Netherlands. Very exciting to hear the pieces of the story come together with the various sales, and new owners of the bus.

[thom]

Now that's some detective work!
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-Thom
Bus Registry
1952 Type 11c
1956 Single Cab
1957 23-Window Deluxe
1960 DD Panel
1956 Type 1 Karmann Ghia
1962 Type 3 Karmann Ghia
1963 Type 3 Karmann Ghia
1968 Single Cab

[raffi]

Yes it was. Dad took no guff from anyone. Former Army, Alaska State Judge, and lawyer. Old school...here's one of my favorite examples of the way he was and how the bus was his batmobile.

Dad loved old cars (something that rubbed off on me). He bought an old studebaker hawk once and stored it over at a parking garage in LA. He also stored the bus at the same place. I had bought an old vintage race car which was strapped and locked on a trailer, hitched to the back of the bus. So all three cars were at this parking structure. One day my dad tells me that we're going to get the Hawk and Bus and he needs another driver.

Now is a good time to mention I was 14 at the time.

My mom drives me, dad and my little bro over to the place to get the cars. She drops us at the back alley and leaves. My dad takes some stuff out of the trunk of moms car and we climb the stairs at the back of the structure.

We find the car and dad starts the bus (it always started), jumps the Stude and puts me in the drivers seat. He looks at me and says "follow me down. Don't stop no matter what. NO MATTER WHAT" In that Army voice he used which might today be considered abusive but I found strangely motivating.

Dad then goes to the van, pulls the wipers forward and lays a two by four across the laid out wipers and ropes the board in through the slider windows.

We circled down three stories. Approaching the parking kiosk entry, Dad guns the engine and I hoped up to stay on his tail. "He's not stopping" I say to myself and sure enough, he blows through the mechanical wood retainer arm and busts a hard right out into LA traffic. I am hard on his tail and cut the right with horns honking behind us.

Dad hammers the bus to a whopping 20 mph as we speed away. I'm feeling just a little bit like Jim Rockford before I realize the bus has no license plate, the trailer has no plate, and likely the stude has no plate as well. We cut down a side street and drove into a gas station where dad popped out, returned the plate to my car and told me to go home a different way from his route.

I never got the whole story on why we had to jail break the cars but it had something to do with being jacked on monthly payments by a new owner. I got home before dad and parked the Hawk in the carport. Dad arrived a bit later and pulled the bus into the garage. While he was removing the wood from the windshield he got quiet and looked at me and held up the two by four and said "One of the best tools ever invented. Keep one in your car all the time".

I still do.

[llovette]

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE this story. TOOO MUCH!!!

[ol36er]

Yeah! Great story and bus!!!
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[gatorwyatt]

I dig the vivd memories you have with your dad...I have a great memory and remember details like you shared. The past is really fun to talk about.

I remember that bus being for sale @20k...and that was very fair...

I own a 58 sunroof Kombi also and one of the details that seems fuzzy is the actual color of the canvas for the sunroof...do you remember what color it was? Also do you remember if it was canvas or vinyl?


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[raffi]

The roof material was a neutral toned blue. It was not dark blue. It is best described as a faded blue jean material with about the same nap as jeans have. It was faded by the time we sold it to almost a chalky white.

Love your bus. Actually saw it on another set of posts before and thought it might have been our former bus!! Love the signage.

[busdaddy]

[donhstuart]

Hello Raffi, You pulled some heavy hitters from the samba to help with the detective work. Nice to know your resourceful enough to look in the right place, Your dad would be proud.

I worked with Raffi back in 1988, we both went our separate way. I found him thursaday night searching the internet and reconnected. Told him about my 1963 15 window mouse grey. That was the first I heard of his dads bus. Today he sent me a email with this link and was proud to see how the samba community came together and help him sort it out.

Very impressive! Time line was roughly 12 hours from start until it was found That better than Lo-Jack