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Wed Feb 26, 2025 8:06 am

My German panel bus data tag says was delivered in 1963 in Germany, in primer. Who buys unpainted vehicles?
Mike

Wed Feb 26, 2025 8:17 am

a business that intends to paint it with their own branding.

Wed Feb 26, 2025 9:16 am

Oh man id be checking for logos under there

Wed Feb 26, 2025 11:27 am

Anytime someone wanted a new bus, but did not want to pay for the full factory paint job due to the customer wanted custom color/s that the VW factory would not do. Yes, most (especially small) companies would just get a bus with factory colors paint to paint logos onto, but there were those that had entire fleets of buses. EG no VW factory brown, but UPS only wanted brown UPS delivery vehicles.

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...mp;start=0

Lots more of logo buses here:
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=81089&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Wed Feb 26, 2025 12:20 pm

Mbetti59 wrote: My German panel bus data tag says was delivered in 1963 in Germany, in primer. Who buys unpainted vehicles?
Mike
our 61 doka was in city service. they ordered it in lightgray and painted it fire engine red on the outside. It had horns, blue lights, everything.

Wed Feb 26, 2025 12:44 pm

I am still waiting for the birth certificate, but the evidence so far on my bus has been that my bus was delivered in primer, to be painted as a coffee delivery bus.

I have a picture of what the sister bus looks like:

But my bus was painted and underneath the logos have been lost. Here is mine:

So I am trying to decide what to do. If the birth certificate confirms primer, I have a wide-open opportunity. Do I choose a paint from the stock colors, like ivory, grey, sealing wax, or dove? Or do I go with the Ivory Upper and Brown Lower that the coffee company used - and hope to find an artist some future day to recreate the logo?

There is no wrong answer and I like pondering it while I have plenty of preparation work to do.

I'd be curious as to what you fellow airheads think about it :D

Wed Feb 26, 2025 12:44 pm

Buses and vans were particularly popular in primer they have wide clear expanses of flat metal ideal for advertising.

Wed Feb 26, 2025 2:12 pm

Buggeee wrote:
So I am trying to decide what to do. If the birth certificate confirms primer, I have a wide-open opportunity. Do I choose a paint from the stock colors, like ivory, grey, sealing wax, or dove? Or do I go with the Ivory Upper and Brown Lower that the coffee company used - and hope to find an artist some future day to recreate the logo?

There is no wrong answer and I like pondering it while I have plenty of preparation work to do.

I'd be curious as to what you fellow airheads think about it :D

First off it is your bus, do what you want to do. Personally if it was ours would definitely go back to the original company colors and logo. You really only need a very straight on shot image of the logo, to project onto large sheet of thick paper to make a stencil with sticky on one side and dab on the paint. Tricky part is to remove the stencil once the paint has somewhat dried just on the surface, but still wet underneath. So when the stencil is removed the paint is not so dry as to get pulled up with the stencil and still wet enough to make the edges round out with paper off, and avoid that too sharp edge of paint look.

https://youtu.be/ERHwWxaZ9R8

Thu Feb 27, 2025 2:06 am

AFAIK early westys where delivered to Westfalia factory in prime

Thu Feb 27, 2025 5:38 am

Buggeee wrote: I am still waiting for the birth certificate, but the evidence so far on my bus has been that my bus was delivered in primer, to be painted as a coffee delivery bus.

I have a picture of what the sister bus looks like:

But my bus was painted and underneath the logos have been lost. Here is mine:

So I am trying to decide what to do. If the birth certificate confirms primer, I have a wide-open opportunity. Do I choose a paint from the stock colors, like ivory, grey, sealing wax, or dove? Or do I go with the Ivory Upper and Brown Lower that the coffee company used - and hope to find an artist some future day to recreate the logo?

There is no wrong answer and I like pondering it while I have plenty of preparation work to do.

I'd be curious as to what you fellow airheads think about it :D

I love buses and I love coffee so my vote is restore it to its heyday of coffee delivery duty. Then you can serve free coffee at all the Midwest VW shows! Ok maybe that last part was a bit self serving but you can’t blame a guy for trying. Seriously though that bus would be awesome.

Thu Feb 27, 2025 7:57 am

You'll get many different opinions on the paint, but I'd kinda like to see this bus in the original grey primer. It's not a cool SK color, but not many buses were delivered in primer, and much fewer still with the original paint/primer exposed.

IMO grey factory primer is a nice color in it's own right; it's very "commercial."

If that respray is coming off without too much effort, I'd strip it down and see what the primer looks like. Worse case, you have a great base for new paint or logos.

Thu Feb 27, 2025 8:37 am

Stocknazi wrote: You'll get many different opinions on the paint, but I'd kinda like to see this bus in the original grey primer. It's not a cool SK color, but not many buses were delivered in primer, and much fewer still with the original paint/primer exposed.

IMO grey factory primer is a nice color in it's own right; it's very "commercial."

If that respray is coming off without too much effort, I'd strip it down and see what the primer looks like. Worse case, you have a great base for new paint or logos.

It was also possible for beetles, to get them primed only, from factory. My car got a dealer-, or more probably a privat paint job, but outside only and export trimming and VW logo on hood (connected).
According to the 1994 Pidoll beetle book, my 9´49 is the only survived split before 1950, primed only. When I got this beetle in 1984, I was wondering about that special kind of unknown grey tone, all inside. It was clear, it was not L 21 perl grey, but that was the single possible grey tone in 9´49 for standard beetles. Today I´m very happy, I hesitated that time to repaint the car. Still today it is in the colors and optical appearence, it was barn stored in 1974, 10 years before I got that 49 split. In 2024 I was with it at Bad Camberg meeting.

Thu Feb 27, 2025 8:52 am

Stocknazi wrote: You'll get many different opinions on the paint, but I'd kinda like to see this bus in the original grey primer. It's not a cool SK color, but not many buses were delivered in primer, and much fewer still with the original paint/primer exposed.

IMO grey factory primer is a nice color in it's own right; it's very "commercial."

Another vote for "factory primer" (make sure it's the actual color of VW primer though). That's what I'd do. Looks killer with black emblem, bumpers and wheels too.