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Wed Jul 25, 2018 7:26 am

Well- not so much hunting because they are everywhere here!

I moved to Brazil in 2016- I am originally from Alberta, Canada. This thread will be all about my hands on experience buying two type 2 buses in my name here in Sao Paulo and sending them back to Alberta, Canada. I hope this thread can help others learn the process and also provide some entertainment.

So lets jump in- here is the very first bus I went to look at, this is a 2003 bus which was owned by the municipality of Sao Bernardo do campo( a city just to the south of Sao Paulo- an hours drive away) The current owner spent many years working for the municipality and driving this very bus. When it was time to be sold he bought it with the dream of making it into a camper(actually down here they call it “kombi-home” rather than camper van). Unfortunately after owning the bus for 2 years he had not made much progress and decided to sell.

This kombi falls into the category of buses manufactured from 1998 to 2006 which have a 1.6L fuel injected air cooled engine and a 4 speed stick shift. This was the only engine/trans option for these years regardless of whether its a bus, panel van, or truck. These kombis' also have the characteristic raised roof which is about 10cm higher than stock.

The bus was in excellent shape-save for those terrible stripes. Solid driver, and no bumps or rattles during the dest drive. In the end I decided against this one because it was a little more than I was willing to pay, and had almost 200,000kms on it with no engine rebuild. Still a very nice van.

More to come...

Wed Jul 25, 2018 3:18 pm

Hey those stripes are fine, they just need some soccer balls and goofy mouse doing a header into the goal!

Wed Jul 25, 2018 5:51 pm

Dem stripes are awesome! I would have bought it just because it had them. engines are easy to come by, Stripes not so much...

Thu Jul 26, 2018 7:09 am

+1 on the stripes. I would pay a premium for that flair.

Thu Jul 26, 2018 7:39 am

I love the stripes too! That's the reason I bought my bus. It needed everything else but the stripes were in good shape.

Thu Jul 26, 2018 9:18 am

The stripes give it a bit of a Magnum PI look.

Look forward to following your adventures. Perhaps a side business of exporting mirrors and other hard to find bits back to the Great White North?

Thu Jul 26, 2018 11:06 am

How long is bus hunting season down there? Are special liscence/permits required?

Thu Jul 26, 2018 12:08 pm

Insert {desert Bus} picture

Consequence of over-hunting...

Fri Jul 27, 2018 11:44 am

Manfred58sc wrote: Hey those stripes are fine, they just need some soccer balls and goofy mouse doing a header into the goal!

richparker wrote: Dem stripes are awesome! I would have bought it just because it had them. engines are easy to come by, Stripes not so much...

CessnaJon wrote: +1 on the stripes. I would pay a premium for that flair.

rusty busty wrote: I love the stripes too! That's the reason I bought my bus. It needed everything else but the stripes were in good shape.

Ride_On wrote: The stripes give it a bit of a Magnum PI look.

Look forward to following your adventures. Perhaps a side business of exporting mirrors and other hard to find bits back to the Great White North?

I am surprised by the universal love for the stripes, maybe I was too harsh about them- to me they have a 70s C class motor home look.

As far as exporting rare parts back up north- I'm not sure where to begin with that, but if there is something you need I can take a look down here and see what it costs.

calvinater wrote: How long is bus hunting season down there? Are special liscence/permits required?

Bus hunting season is open April to January, after that it is Carnival season and no one is interested in buying, selling, or working. As far a licenses go(drivers licences that is)- that could warrant a post of its own. In order to get my perfectly good Canadian licence transferred to drive down here I had to go through a psychological and behavioral examination(all foreigners have to go through this process). One particularly interesting part of this process was when our test group was asked to draw single vertical lines on a sheet of paper(like making rows of '1's) during timed intervals. This test apparently measured stress levels, and the results of the test are stored in a government database. These results could be used in the future if you are involved in an accident. I drew nice even lines.

Next post will be back on topic.

Fri Jul 27, 2018 11:58 am

Heres another story of a bus I went to check, it was up by the Guarulhos airport(north end of the city). It was a 1996 14 window barn door model that looked great in the pictures but was a huge disappointment- Never trust the pictures! I met the owner outside his house and he wheeled open a gate to reveal a very poorly painted van, it was covered in paint runs and totally uneven in many places, also many rust spots were painted right over. It needed a total repaint.

The owner told me that the paint just needed to be polished and then the van would be ready to hit the road! It took him a few minutes to get it started(sounded like the engine was starving for gas) and it smoked a bit. I took a look underneath and saw that both CV joints were completely done, and one was so bad that it had been hitting the shock and bent the shock mount underneath, the engine was also leaking pretty bad and so was the steering box. The van was probably worth about 1/4 of what he was asking- he said a guy from Germany was interested in it(to export- buying sight unseen) Yikes.

Sat Jul 28, 2018 9:39 pm

Cool thread! Have you looked at any of the watercooled Buses?

Sat Jul 28, 2018 10:36 pm

I love the late Brazilian busses with the old rear end and windows. The green 1996 one has a nice elegance with the old windows and the new taillights.

Tue Jul 31, 2018 1:11 pm

vwwestyman wrote: Cool thread! Have you looked at any of the watercooled Buses?

I haven't looked at any water cooled ones to buy- the late model water-cooled buses are 2006-2013, and those are too new for me to send to Canada. However a guy down the street from me owns one, if I see him out working on it again I will ask him about it. They have the 1.4L Fox engine.

There was a also a water cooled diesel that was produced here in the 80s. It is often seen on the 4 door pickup models from that era. I have been to a few car shows here and still have yet to see one in person.

78BusGA wrote: I love the late Brazilian busses with the old rear end and windows. The green 1996 one has a nice elegance with the old windows and the new taillights.

I agree- also, I would like to build a panel bus with just the 3 rear windows. I saw one for sale like this the other day but I can't find the picture of it now.

Edit- here's one

Tue Jul 31, 2018 5:01 pm

A trip to the paint shop

I checked out a body and paint shop down here the other day that is not too far from my house. They guy works exclusively with Kombis, he focuses mainly on newer ones offering a custom paint and upholstery package for a reasonable price. I talked to him about the painting process- its pretty much the same as anywhere else, they sand the whole bus down with 600 inside and out, then shoot primer, 2 color coats(of the lower color), 2 color coats(of the upper color-usually white) and then a clear coat. The car needs to sit for 2 months between color and clear coats for the paint to harden. I took some pictures of the shop- it was quite well organized for a shop that has only been open for a bit, and the owner has a clear passion for all things VW- he even has a custom Gol built for the drag strip.

Heres the paint booth

This mad max style one was being built for a dog grooming business- thats why it has that low window in the middle, so the dogs can see out when they are cruising.

I had never heard of the brand of paint used, so I took a picture. Maybe someone here has some info?

This green one they were just finishing up- full paint and upholstery job, it looked great!

The paint is not perfect show quality, but for the price it is VERY good.

Wed Aug 01, 2018 7:50 am

The Canadian wrote:
This mad max style one was being built for a dog grooming business- thats why it has that low window in the middle, so the dogs can see out when they are cruising.

Awesome! :popcorn:

ps... you should upload your photos to the samba gallery so that in the future they do go dead.

Mon Aug 13, 2018 12:58 pm

I was cruising OLX(that is the craigslist of Brazil) and came across a very nice Bus which had a fresh paint job and looked great. I sent a message to the owner and it turned out that the bus was just a few blocks away! I took it for a test drive, gave it a good look over and struck a deal.

More to come...

Fri Aug 24, 2018 12:49 pm

I apologize for the break- I was on vacation!

So now that I had bought a bus it was time to register and insure it. But lets backup a bit first, the process to buy was a bit complicated- first I had to check the VIN online to make sure that the car was not registered as stolen, with liens, or with any fines against it(here the fines accumulate under the registry of the car rather than the owner. It is very important to be careful when buying a car in Brazil because you can buy a car that has thousands of dollars of traffic tickets on its registration that you will then be accountable to pay!)
Next I made sure the engine number and VIN number matched the ones on the Document of the bus.
Everything checked out, so me and owner went to the Cartório where I transferred the document to my name and did an electronic money transfer from my phone to pay.

A few days later I had time to take the bus for an inspection(vistoria as it is called here) which involves driving the car to a certified inspection station and having it looked over by a certified official. This costs about R$100 (lets say $25USD) and I left with a form proving the cars roadworthiness.

The last step was to visit Detran(the department of motor vehicles) and finish the transfer of the vehicle title. I took the cars original document with proof of title transfer, plus the vehicle inspection form, plus my birth cert, passport, permanent resident ID, marriage certificate, proof of address, CPF document, as well as authenticated copies of all of these documents(I had to go to another government agency to authenticate the docs). Once I submitted all the paper work and paid R$200 I was told to come back in a week to pick up the new vehicle registration which would now be under my name. I came back a week later and it was all set to go! Simple, right?

Next up insurance- or maybe not. In Brazil 3rd party liability insurance is already built into the registration, so I decided to just stick with that.
And let me tell you- driving one of these babies across Sao Paulo at rush hour is not for the faint of heart!(more on that later)

Fri Aug 24, 2018 4:23 pm

Oh that yellow/orange panel with the rear windows is awesome! very beautiful still, and interesting to see the windows AND the upper engine vents too. If I had the money I'd so snatch one up.

Beautiful acquisition! Great choice. Get the chassis undercoated to protect it from road chemicals!

Sat Aug 25, 2018 8:19 am

paperwork keeps government officials away from the welfare line. See, your helping!

Mon Aug 27, 2018 10:45 am

Here’s a few pictures from a Kombi show that I went to, it was at "Auto Feira de Anhembi” which is basically a huge parking lot in the north of Sao Paulo where, every Sunday, people who have cars for sale come to show off their car to potential buyers. This particular Sunday was very sunny, and had all kinds of cars and trucks, new and old for sale- even a city bus! The Kombi show was alongside the Auto Feira, and some of these vans were for sale. Here’s a few pictures:

Here’s one that used to work for the national mail service(Correios)

And finally this home-brew camper, which has been wrapped in wood grain!

I liked the pull out stove he had, pretty cool

Next instalment will be about my experience buying another van-stay tuned!