Lurch my 1962 So34 flipseat

[Eric&Barb]

[Eric&Barb]

[ento]

That's the fastest I've ever gotten the email that my birth certificate is ready. I ordered it on the 5th.

_________________
62 type 2 So34
66 European bug, 66 euro sunroof
76 baja
76 sun bug sunroof
64,66,67,68 bug
69,70 bay
61 Ragtop bug, 61 sedan(looking for the vert)
61 RHD Ragtop Semaphore bug fakeAF
64,64 KG
74 thing
55 oval
70 ratrod
73 fastback pignose

[ento]

[crofty]

[von_hansel]

[Lind]

[ento]

[ento]

[ento]

[ento]

[Lind]

I have done a lot of research on tourist delivery. It is also called European delivery and overseas delivery. I have over two dozen pieces of literature relating to it. Cars were available through VWoA's program, and other programs outside of the VW network, usually by shipping companies or dealerships. Serviceman cars are in the same general category of cars. Basically, they were all cars that were special order, built to USA specs but delivered outside the USA. None of the literature mentions Iceland, so it is likely a serviceman car. I have seen several of them from Japan, where the United States had military bases also.
_________________
.
Wanted:
Idaho VW license plate frames or other dealership items.
VWoA literature and early dealership or distributor literature/pictures/information
.

[von_hansel]

With the 383 mcode and the Iceland destination code, I would suspect that this bus was either bought new by a US Service Member stationed at NAS Keflavik or it was a Tourist Delivery.

I know of 4 Westfalias that were delivered to Panama and purchased new by US Service Members. All four have a 3XX mcode for US Specs. The westys were then shipped back to the US at the end of the Service Members tour.

I don't believe Iceland was an option for the Tourist Delivery program, but anything is possible.

There are numerous examples of Tourist Delivery flipseats that have a 3XX mcode that are also US spec buses. Oakman's super nice patina monster SO35 is a perfect example.
_________________

[ento]

[Eric&Barb]

[70bus]

So maybe not a Tourist Delivery - just went to VW, said "I like that one" and it was originally going to Iceland but now isn't and he drives it off .

I suspect there is a big SCENE MISSING card in there somewhere.

In any event, you have more clue as to how your bus got started on its journey than many of us.
_________________
Craig K
70 Neunsitzer
65 Pritschenwagen
"If Von Dutch was alive, he'd walk in there with a pistol and shoot these people." - Robert Williams

Raul the 65 singlecab

Karl the 70 nine-seater

[ento]

This is what his son told me about it. But we all played that game of telephone as kids lol.
"I don’t know if my family has any old pictures of that bus that are easy to get to. I’m sure some exist somewhere, but they may be deep in storage.

What I can tell you is that my dad bought the bus off the factory floor in Germany and came over to the US with it on a boat. That’s the story I was told. I wasn’t born until seven years later.

My dad was in the Air Force, and my family moved around a lot - from Tucson, to South Carolina, to Florida, where I was born, and then to New Mexico. I remember riding in the back of that bus when I was five years old (in 1974) and crossing the Mississippi River in it. I looked out the window and had a sudden change in my perception of what a river was - I had never realized one could be so huge. We ended up settling in Las Cruces, NM where my dad went to work for the civil service at White Sands Missile Range. He used to drive that bus back and forth over the organ mountains to and from work - that’s where the sticker on the windshield came from.

I remember riding around in that bus in town as a kid, and I think I may have driven it a few times when I got older - but mostly I drove later model buses that my dad also bought. My dad spent a lot of time tinkering with his cars in the driveway of our home in Las Cruces, and I recall him doing various unknown things with that bus, pulling the engine, etc. I watched but didn’t actually learn too much about cars from him. I would hand him tools occasionally or help him with something - so maybe I picked up more than I thought. But after a while that bus just sat, and when he passed away in 2016 I inherited it.

I had always wanted to spend some time fixing it up, but lately realized that the project was beyond me and decided to sell it.

Its name is Lurch, by the way. That’s the name my family gave it when I was very young, possibly before I was born. After the Addams Family.

I hope you enjoy it and I would love to hear more as you work to restore it."
_________________
62 type 2 So34
66 European bug, 66 euro sunroof
76 baja
76 sun bug sunroof
64,66,67,68 bug
69,70 bay
61 Ragtop bug, 61 sedan(looking for the vert)
61 RHD Ragtop Semaphore bug fakeAF
64,64 KG
74 thing
55 oval
70 ratrod
73 fastback pignose

[70bus]

Wouldn't delivery to Iceland (JS) but no tourist delivery (UT) simply mean that they bought it in Iceland and brought it over? The family in "Safari for 7" did just that - ordered it while in US, picked it up in Rotterdam or some such, drove it everywhere, sent it home. Seemed not unusual back then. Pics looked like a Euro-spec bus but I'm not an expert, and I note yours has "US equipment" so likely they could be kitted out to be legal where you intended to bring it home, no matter where delivered.

In other words, Tourist Delivery might not have been the only way to skin a bus!

"Previous owner" stories can also be wrong, or blurred by time. Possible he ordered a bus, picked it up in Iceland at first port-of-call, and then drove it around Europe before deciding to keep it upon returning.
_________________
Craig K
70 Neunsitzer
65 Pritschenwagen
"If Von Dutch was alive, he'd walk in there with a pistol and shoot these people." - Robert Williams

Raul the 65 singlecab

Karl the 70 nine-seater

[ento]

[ento]