1958/59 Foreign Car Guide Westy!

[andre b]

I kinda disagree ..the pgsg front seat I think was part of the special order to match the green seats in the rear..Grey wouldn't have match nothing

[crofty]

[andre b]

I'm having the seat redone in a pgsg material.with the green and black material that was in it.Who's to say it's not original!

[Lind]

[andre b]

Im on the case Lind,,

[cru62]

[crofty]

[cru62]

[andre b]

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=2013987

[cru62]

Here's the guy I was telling you about-

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=1886216

I bet he can hook you up.
_________________
"My biggest worry is that when I die, my wife will sell all my parts for what I told her I paid for them"-Jon

Jokes about German sausage are the wurst.

Stop dead photo links! Post your photos to The Samba Gallery!

[andre b]

[srfndoc]

[andre b]

[srfndoc]

Since this was an early production 59 (11/3/58 production date) I wonder if it could have come with the 58 and earlier rack. Greg can probably chime in but that would be even harder to find. I guess it would depend on how quickly VW sent it over to Weidenbruck and what they had left in stock.
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RPM=(MPH*336* (R&P*4th*1.26))/Tire Diameter in inches

[andre b]

[andre b]

I'm crossing my fingers that Cru62 can go back to the original owner and get a lot of unanswered questions cleared up.and possibly more bits for the bus!
Lind also forwarded me some real interesting leads about the original author that wrote up the story on the FCG Westy!
Aka "Red"

[DanM]

Killer bus. I hope you can confirm it is "the one". I used to stare at the pics in that issue of FCG quite a bit!

[cru62]

So, thanks to the diligent investigation by Lind, and at the urging of Andre, I decided to try to contact the author of the article in "Foreign Car Guide", F. J. Grandy. Luckily he was not hard to track down. Since the early 80's he has been running his family business in upstate New York, Lazy River Playground. Thankfully, there was a good reason that he was so easy to track down. The guy is World Famous! Prior to his present gig in NY he was the Chief Photographer for "Stars and Stripes" in Europe for 35 years. He got that job after graduating from USC Film School. I looked through his vast online portfolio which is very impressive.
I was looking for shots of the FCG bus with no luck. I was going to drop him a line. But, I noticed that there was a phone number listed for the Resort. I figured I had nothing to lose and rang him up. I got an answering machine and left a message telling him who I was and why I was calling. I'm not sure I would return a call from myself given the rambling, unrehearsed message I let. But, it must have piqued Mr. Grandy's interest as he immediately returned my call.
What ensued was one of the highlights of my adult life. Mr. Grandy could not have been more pleasant, accommodating, interesting and flattered in my interest in him and his ownership of the Bus in question.
He is the man who ordered the cover bus from VW. I told him that I believe Andre's bus is his old bus. And everything he told me confirms that they are one in the same. He ordered the bus in 1959, with all the options on his bus that are shared with Andre's bus, i.e. Safaris, 6 popouts, S0-23 with propane cooker, extra battery, electric fridge, Ambulance fans and that delicious Black and (according to Mr. Grandy) Yellow paint job. Now, Andre is convinced that the Bus is really Black and White. And I did press this point with Mr. G a bit. But he was adamant that it was yellow. Not Screaming Yellow. More of a Buttercream. He said he ordered that color scheme to be different. After taking delivery of the Bus he and a friend drove it to Gstad for some skiing. When he arrived he kept occasionally spotting other VW Buses with strikingly similar paint jobs. Apparently, the Swiss PO liked that combination long before he did!
I picked his brain about a few other details and then asked how long he had the Bus. He said he sold it in 1961 to a young couple. The husband was in the Army stationed in Germany. I asked if it was the couple I bought the bus from. He couldn't remember their names. But he said he has his diaries from his entire life and promised to look it up and get back to me.
I mentioned the photos from the FCG. He said he had the shot from the cover in a larger size somewhere in his archives. He told me that the two young ladies in the spread were Stewardesses that he knew from travel all over the world for Stars and Stripes.
We talked cameras and travelling and cars for a while as well. Our chat ended with my promise to send him pics of the bus in its present condition and his invitation to take me on a river trip in his Amphicar on the RIver which runs through his "Playground". I am so glad I called. I look forward to talking to him again and hopefully clearing up some niggling details for Andre.
_________________
"My biggest worry is that when I die, my wife will sell all my parts for what I told her I paid for them"-Jon

Jokes about German sausage are the wurst.

Stop dead photo links! Post your photos to The Samba Gallery!

[easy e]

That's rad... nice work Chris (& nudge from Lind).
This kinda stuff (and you guys) is priceless.
_________________
aka: Evan
Spreadsheet for Bus RPM, based on gearing & tire size (Excel format)
Searchable, click-navigable 1958 Bus Parts List

[Viking Funeral]

That's a great story.

Red Grandy is interviewed in this short PBS feature from 2009 about his family's Lazy River Playground, which is notable because it has been deliberately preserved just the way it was back in the 1940s & '50s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ3qV3r12lk

Looks like it would be a very pleasant day-trip destination for upstate New York or Vermont or Canadian early buses, or really for any vehicle or person from that era.